That weekend, with the Counting Crows playing inside her bedroom, and Claudette and her sister downstairs in the movie room, Alex and Kelley had sex for the first time. It was exactly a week till prom. Alex felt very in love and less like a cliché. When they finished they spooned on her bed and watched reruns of The Real World Seattle.
It was around 10:30 p.m.—three episodes later—when Robbie Cormier and eight other students showed up. The security cameras later showed Robbie at the front gate, punching in the code to her driveway, which—as if Alex needed any more proof—confirmed that Kelley had in fact shown Robbie her note.
“You are lying,” Jodi said. “What bad kids!”
“So suddenly all the coolest kids in school are at my house,” Alix said. “And they’re knocking on our windows and blasting music and demanding that we turn on the hot tub jets. As you can assume, most of them were wasted.”
“I was bad in high school,” Rachel said, “but I was never that bad.”
“Sometimes,” Tamra said, “I think about sending the girls to public school? And then I hear things like this and I’m like, no way.”
Alix disagreed with this sentiment, but she went on and said, “It was a disaster.” She remembered rushing to the window at the sound of a boom box turning on. Robbie was leading group jumps into her pool to the sound of “The Real Slim Shady” while another student pretended to hump an inflatable crocodile. From upstairs in her bedroom, Alex looked from her backyard to Kelley. “What am I supposed to do?”
Kelley slipped his shirt back over his head. “Alex, wait,” he said. “Maybe . . . I mean . . . your parents are out of town.”
Alex pushed the curtains back over her window and felt her mouth drop all the way open. Two hours ago, he was telling her he loved her, and asking if they should get a towel. But now Kelley proceeded to walk around her bed to locate his socks and shoes. Alex watched him assess the opportunity being presented to him downstairs: the chance to befriend the most popular athletes in school because he happened to be in the right place at the right time. She suddenly felt embarrassed; it was supposed to be their night. She crossed her arms and asked, “Are you kidding me?”
Betheny didn’t knock. She opened Alex’s door and said, “Alex, what is happening?” Claudette was behind her, a dish towel thrown over her shoulder. With a hand on the wall she said, “Should I call the police?”
Kelley began to lace up his shoes.
This was possibly the most authority Alex had ever held, all while her crotch still ached from her first time. It was the sight of her little sister, the wet towel on Claudette’s shoulder, and the expectant energy of Kelley’s silent social climbing that made Alex nod and say, “Yes, call the police.”
“Whoa whoa whoa.” Kelley stood up. “Alex, come on.”
Betheny followed Claudette downstairs and Alex reached for her sweatshirt off the bed. “This isn’t cool,” she told him.
“Alex, wait wait wait.” Kelley followed her downstairs, and Alex swore she saw him carefully look for windows, just in case anyone from outside could see him, so he would be prepared to duck. “This doesn’t have to be a big deal. Robbie’s cool. Just let them hang out.”
“You don’t even know them!” By this she meant, They don’t know you for a reason.
Kelley, understanding the implication, replied, “I know them way better than you.”
Someone outside yelled to turn up the music. Alex walked into the kitchen, where Claudette was hanging up the phone. “They’re on their way,” she said. Alex said, “Good.” Kelley said, “Really, Alex?” He grabbed his backpack from the kitchen table and walked out the side door.
It wasn’t like Alex would have pressed charges; she just wanted them to leave. Her parents would have been furious with her if they found out she’d had a party; they’d probably ground her for the weekend of prom. And the driveway was definitely long enough for the group to see the warning lights and flee. But when the police arrived, not everyone made it out of the backyard in time. After screams of, “Oh shit!” and “Five oh, five oh!” Robbie’s friends hopped a fence and ran across the hills to safety. Robbie, however, had been in the middle of climbing a ladder that leaned against the Murphy house when the police were approaching. His plan had been to jump from the balcony into the pool. The police arrived and pointed their flashlights at him, and Alex heard one of them say, “Come down from there, son.” On top of trespassing, Robbie Cormier was taken in drunk off PBRs and with a tiny bag of cocaine in a zipped cargo pants pocket. The combination of a popular black student athlete arrested on property that had plantation columns standing out front did not pan out well for Alex Murphy.
“It was like, ‘Oh, the Murphy girl has this huge house and she doesn’t even want to share it? What a bitch,’” Alix explained. “And any time my sister and I would dare venture outside, we’d be tormented. ‘There’s Princess Murphy.’ ‘Watch out, rich girl Murphy will have you arrested.’ ‘Robbie got his scholarship taken away ’cause you got him arrested, so good job.’” This wasn’t the worst of it. That summer, Alex and her sister were referred to in public and private as new money trash. When she picked up her sister from an IHOP parking lot, a classmate asked if she was going swimming in the plantation pool. And once, Robbie Cormier bumped into her at a Jamba Juice. He greeted her with, “Good mornin’, Massa Murphy.”
“People would bow down and open doors for me like I was royalty,” Alix said. “Everyone knew. And that is what capped off my senior year.”
Somehow, even worse, that night at the Murphy house accomplished everything Kelley had evidently hoped it would. Alex learned that Kelley had left her house only to run into Robbie’s fleeing friends on the street. He drove them to the precinct, where they waited all night until Robbie was released. Kelley was the one to drive Robbie home.
Kelley broke up with Alex on the following Monday, just after first period and five days before prom. It happened in between his homeroom door and the frequently used water fountain, which was used by three different students during his speech. He began the conversation by saying, “Hey, don’t be mad . . . but I think I’m gonna go to prom with Robbie’s cousin Sasha.” Alex hadn’t been sure how they’d make up—he hadn’t returned her phone calls all weekend—but she hadn’t seen this coming. Yes, things got extremely messed up that night, and maybe she’d made a mistake, but hadn’t they just had sex? It seemed as if Kelley was saying another girl’s name to make it appear as if he were choosing another girl, when he was clearly leaving Alex for Robbie. Alex had no idea what her classmates had in store for her (spitting on her car, calling her a Nazi), but Kelley’s way of ending their relationship, by informing her of his updated prom plans, stung in the way only a first heartbreak can. Alex felt similarly to when she’d learned that her grandfather died, confusing sadness and the instinct to clarify, Wait . . . you mean, we’re not gonna hang out anymore?