This very party five weeks ago was Dustin’s first time being invited, though he had heard stories about the infamous gathering over the years. When Dustin showed up that night, he had convinced himself that the party, like most things in this town, was more than likely 50 percent hype, but as soon as he entered, he knew he was wrong. This party was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
It was as if Santa Claus had quit the toy-making business and opened a strip club. Sexy models dressed like holiday elves circulated the professionally decorated party, handing out truffle mac-n-cheese balls and poached purple potatoes with caviar. There were two top-shelf liquor bars manned by scantily clad bartenders. (This being her second year as gf of the host, Lolly had made sure there were hot male bartenders as well.) There was a stream of professional DJs who were in charge of the music. And right when you entered the foyer, the first thing you saw was a seven-foot-tall ice sculpture fountain of Rick and Morty, in which champagne poured into Morty’s hand, then would travel through Morty (sitting on Rick’s shoulders), and come out Rick’s “Pickle Rick” dick perfectly chilled.
The fountain was the most Instagrammed photo of the party.
Steven’s parents’ only new rule this year was that there would be no smoking cigarettes inside because of the fifteen-million-dollar Matisse-cigarette-burn incident of last year’s soiree. Solving this problem was easy. They simply opened their roof access, the stairs in the hallway outside of Steven’s front door. (Steven’s parents shared the floor with only one other family and the C.s were gifted the K.s’ Parisian pied-à-terre keys for their holidays to ensure they wouldn’t be home to deal with three-hundred-plus teenagers rampaging on the rooftop.)
After wandering from room to room in the main party, Dustin decided to go check out the roof before he dumped his coat in Steven’s sister’s bedroom. Upstairs he found throngs of people smoking spliffs and cigarettes under heat lamps, a Ping-Pong table and an ice hockey table in full action, and a pop-up shop from Serendipity 3 manned by someone dressed in a penguin suit. Overwhelmed by the sheer insanity, Dustin got himself a hot chocolate and walked over to check out the view. Central Park was breathtakingly beautiful, still blanketed in white from the first early snowfall of winter. As Dustin stared out across the park, he couldn’t help but wonder if Steven’s dad had paid for it to snow.
Turning to scan the crowd of faces, Dustin didn’t see one person that he knew, and he realized the only people who had spoken to him since arriving were paid waitstaff. He made the decision, after finishing his hot chocolate, to leave before Steven even knew he had shown up. This party was obviously not his scene and these were not his people, and admitting this allowed him to finally relax. When Dustin checked the time on his iPhone, he saw an alert reminding him that OSIRIS-REx was going into orbit around the asteroid Bennu, and even though this was happening 70 million miles away he looked up anyway and found the night sky to be quite calming. He was gazing upward when he heard a sweet voice ask him what he was looking at with such fierce concentration.
When he looked down to see who had spoken, his first thought was that he had gotten a contact high from mistakenly walking into the kitchen pantry earlier, which was being hotboxed by three Dalton seniors, because the girl standing before him looked like a blond angel, otherworldly and ethereal, sparkling in a silver dress with a pale pink pashmina wrapped around her shoulders to cover her wings.
As a man of reason Dustin did not believe in the phenomenon known as “love at first sight,” but in that moment it absolutely happened to him. He spoke to this gorgeous girl about how he had the New York Times Astronomy and Space calendar alerts on his phone and how he had just received a notification, and she told him that she never really “got the whole stargazing thing” until she spent a year living out West where there were no tall buildings and the sky was bigger than she ever believed possible, chock-full of a zillion stars. Dustin adored her use of “chock-full” and how she guilessly admitted she hadn’t understood that bright city lights were the reason why she never saw the stars in Manhattan.
Dustin gently corrected her, explaining that on a clear night it was possible to see a few constellations if you knew where to look. He then explained why the spacecraft OSIRIS-REx’s first orbit around the asteroid Bennu was significant and how exciting it was that such a thing was happening in space while they were standing there. “Can you even imagine the years of preplanning that went into this one event? It’s such a huge accomplishment for all involved.”
“Sure sounds that way,” the angel, whose name he didn’t even know, replied and then shivered in the wind. Pulling her wrap tight around her shoulders she told him she needed to go find her sister, but she hoped they could talk more later. And then she was gone. If she hadn’t touched his arm telling him it was nice to talk stars with him, he would have wondered if she had ever really been there at all.
He ended up staying at the party until a little after midnight, which he owed to the good fortune of running into two girls he knew from SAT prep class who let him tag along with them for the evening. Stephanie and Tasha were friends of Steven’s girlfriend from Camp Laurel in Maine, and they both admitted to being first-time party attenders as well. Dustin was relieved to hear they were as overwhelmed as he was by the spectacle, but they said they were sticking it out to the bitter end, unsure if they’d ever score an invite again.
Luckily the two girls were chatterboxes, so Dustin stayed his usual quiet self and just listened while secretly scanning the crowd for the girl from the rooftop. It was only minutes after the New Year was welcomed, via screams and confetti cannons, that he saw her again. He was in the library sitting on a couch with Tasha and Stephanie, when his mystery blonde hurried by the doorway. He pointed her out to Stephanie, and she matter-of-factly informed him the angelic beauty was Kimmie, the little sister of their friend Lolly.
“I didn’t know Lolly had a sister,” was all he had to say before Stephanie and Tasha unpacked Kimmie’s entire life story. Kimmie had just started Spence as a sophomore, because her freshman year had been spent living in Nevada and training to be an Olympic ice dancing hopeful. Six months ago, she moved back home after a terrible spill during a competition when Gabe, her skating partner and gay BFF, mistimed a deep outside edge lift, lost his balance, and fell backward, causing her to fall forward and shatter her kneecap. She spent the whole summer recovering from surgery and was told her career as an ice dancer was over.
Tasha then added, “Well, if I had to choose between the Olympics or being on the Hot List, I’d pick the Hot List for sure.”
At the mere mention of the list, Dustin choked on his now-warm champagne, which escalated into an embarrassing coughing fit. After getting pounded on the back by both girls, he finally managed to get out in a raspy voice, “She’s on the list?” Dustin tried to sound as casual as possible, because truth be told, he hadn’t known the list was even out yet.
Stephanie nodded. “She came in at number three, which is incredible since she didn’t even campaign for it.”
Tasha added, “And she doesn’t dress slutty like all the other girls.”
“Well, not at school,” Stephanie said. “But there’s plenty of videos of Kimmie in some skimpy-ass ice dancing outfits on YouTube.”