Sweet Sixteen, Chapter 19 ~ Firebird

Elly went to Jani’s house before the Halloween party.  The plan, which she’d told Sien, was to meet at Jani’s, change into their costumes, and then drive to the party in Jani’s car.  She’d have preferred to go on Sien’s motorcycle, just the two of them, but it wouldn’t do to be on the back of a bike in her phoenix costume.

She had yet to see what Sien was going to wear.  He’d been fairly negative on the topic of costumes, but finally ventured to tell her that he might already have something he was willing to wear: his father’s traditional Airidani robe.

“Isn’t that . . . valuable?” she asked, surprised he’d wear something from hallowed Airidan to a party.  “And would your father let you?”

He conceded that it was valuable, to him at least, but it was the only thing he really felt comfortable wearing, if he had to “dress up” at all.  As for his father: “He sleeps a lot.”

Her own costume, once finished, was beautiful and, she hoped, alluring.  It bared her belly and showed plenty of leg and cleavage.  In fact, she hid it from her father because she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to wear it if he saw just how provocative she’d made it.

When Jani saw it, she asked point blank, “Are you hoping to get laid tonight?”

Elly didn’t know quite how to answer that question.  She didn’t really want to discuss it with Jani, but she was pretty much on the mark.  Elly had been thinking about it for a while.  Even though Sien claimed to have laid aside his aspirations for her to be the Virgin Queen, there was really only one way to know for sure, wasn’t there?  Besides, she was sixteen — nearly seventeen, with a birthday in five months — which was old enough to start having sex.  There was no reason why she and Sien shouldn’t.  There really wasn’t.

“Maybe,” was the answer she settled on.  Said flippantly enough, it made Jani grin in a knowing way, but she also seemed to doubt Elly had the guts to go through with it.

“You’d better be sure you want it, because you’re definitely asking for it.  Just don’t chicken out.”

Elly thought that was silly.  Guts?  Why would it take courage?  It was sex, it was fun, it was a normal thing.  It wasn’t killing people with the power of your mind.  But she let it slide, because she couldn’t really say such a thing to Jani.  She wouldn’t understand.  Whether or not to take it to the next level with her boyfriend was probably about the most complicated decision Jani had yet to make.  And that wasn’t a bad thing, was it?  Elly envied her.

Six-thirty came — the time when Sien was supposed to show, and he didn’t.  Fifteen minutes later, Elly started to worry.

Jani peered out the window and tapped her fingers against her arm.  Then she glanced back at Elly.  “You did give him the right directions, didn’t you?”

Elly gave Jani an exasperated look.  “Of course I did.  He’s only ten minutes late, be patient,” she said, rounding the time down.

Jani shrugged and turned back to the window.  She was dressed as a belly dancer.  It suited her dark skin and long, sleek black hair, which was bedecked in gold chains, beads, and wound in braids.  She and Elly had spent about an hour working on it.  Jani was Slavic in ethnicity but had a dusky, Arabian look.  Her boyfriend, Tim, sat across the room watching TV, looking uncomfortable in a Sultan getup that he complained made him itch.

Elly tried not to pace, or flap her fluttery wing-like sleeves.  She felt responsible for Sien’s absence and wanted to appear more confident than she felt.  Jani and Tim were getting restless.  They had no qualms about showing it.

“I still can’t believe he doesn’t have a cellphone.  I mean, who doesn’t have a cellphone?” Tim groused from the couch.

Elly shrugged.  It had been awkward when they asked why she didn’t just call him and ask him where he was, or tell him to hurry his ass up.  She’d made up a lame excuse, saying his father was strict and didn’t allow it.  In truth, when she’d asked Sien why he didn’t have a phone, he’d shrugged and said he didn’t have anyone to call and they were too expensive.  She wasn’t about to tell her friends that Sien couldn’t afford a cellphone.

“Maybe we should drive by his house,” said Jani.  “We’re going to be more than fashionably late if he doesn’t show up soon.”

“No!” Elly said, a little too quickly, and Jani raised one eyebrow.  The fact that Sien lived in a refurbished school bus in a trailer park was another detail she had not shared.  Jani would think Elly was insane, and she’d know he’d never gone to Ridgewalter.  Elly had asked Marie to keep that information about Sien to herself, and explained away Sien’s absence from Ridgewalter as being due to switching schools, blaming that on Sien’s ever more eccentric father.  He didn’t like Sien being distracted from his studies, had transferred him to a boys only school. . . .  It was getting a little ridiculous the lies she was telling to explain her mysterious boyfriend.

“I’m not going to just wait around forever,” Jani complained.  “I’m giving him twenty more minutes, tops, then we’re leaving.  You can wait for him but good luck with your costume on the back of a motorcycle.”

“Fine,” Elly said, “I’ll just change at the party.”

Jani looked at her like she’d sprouted two heads.  “But you’d have to arrive out of costume and walk through the house to get to a room to change.”

“So?” Elly said impatiently, listening in vain for the chug of Sien’s motorcycle.

“SO?  You’d look like a complete loser, showing up in regular clothes.”

Elly felt the tinge of impatience grow to a surge.  She wanted to snap back at Jani, say she didn’t give a fuck about the party anyway.  But she swallowed it down and said, “He’ll be here soon.”

“And if not?”

“I’ll look like a total loser walking through Sherri’s house without a costume.  I don’t really care.  I’m not going to the party without Sien.”

Tim reached down into his silky sultan pants and scratched himself.  “Guy’s a weirdo if you ask me, I’d forget him if he’s gonna be an ass and not show.  I mean, there’ll be a bunch of guys there who’d love to hook up with you, El.  Especially in that costume, yow.”

Jani barely spared a moment to give him a compulsory eye-roll.  “He’s right though,” she told Elly.  “If your boyfriend acts like a loser, lose him.  You can be picky.  You know that.”

“He’s only fifteen minutes late!”

“It has now been half an hour,” Tim announced solemnly.

Elly let out a huff.  “You guys are driving me crazy.  Why don’t you just go on?  I said I don’t mind riding Sien’s motorcycle.”

“Honey, it’s not just about us.”  Jani took both of Elly’s hands in her own, giving her a concerned look.  “I’m your best friend, I’m looking out for you.”

Elly smiled faintly.  She didn’t think of Jani as her best friend.  She didn’t think of anyone as her best friend; not since Maisie back when she was a little kid and lived in the little house on Vine St.  Jani was as close as she came to the kids from Ridgewalter; still, nobody knew enough about her to be that close.  But she let it slide.

“If this guy doesn’t respect you enough to show up on time, or even close to being on time, you shouldn’t make adjustments for him.  Leave him behind, show up to the party in style, and have a great night.  Besides, what if he doesn’t show up at all?  You’ll be stuck here all night and miss the party completely.”

“We can wait a little longer,” was all Elly had left in her for argument. Jani shrugged and went to sit down next to Tim, leaving Elly to wait by the window.  In another five or ten minutes she knew their complaints would start again.  She wished Sien would show up.

In the end, another half hour passed without sign of Sien, and Elly finally agreed to leave without him.  She spent half the evening keeping mostly to herself, unsure whether to be worried about Sien or angry at him, and not really wanting to be around anyone else.

To make matters worse, around ten o’clock Sam Conner showed up.  It shouldn’t surprise her, she knew.  He was only twenty-four, not very much older than Sherri Pomory and all her college friends; apparently he knew several of them from back in high school.  He swaggered in with a couple girls Elly didn’t recognize, who were dressed as Playboy bunnies.  Sam wasn’t in costume, at least not a different one from the “sexy rock star” persona he tried to keep up.  He saw Elly but pointedly ignored her, which was just fine with her; she was one girl not impressed by his pseudo-celebrity credentials.

However, even though he was pretending at ignoring her, she knew his eyes were often traveling her way.  She began to wish her costume did not expose so much flesh, but instead left more to the imagination.  When she was making it from the ballerina costume, she had only thought of wearing it for Sien’s eyes.  Now Sien was the only one not to see her in it.

Around ten thirty her cellphone vibrated, and she snatched it from her handbag eagerly.  The number was unfamiliar, but she flipped it open to answer, anyway, moving quickly to find a quieter place.

“Elly?” said Sien’s voice, faintly, on the other end.  “It’s me, Sien . . . .”

“Where are you?” she asked, frustration turning to concern at the sound of his voice.

“The trailer park.  I’m calling from a payphone.  Are you still at Jani’s?”

“No, of course not; we gave up on you and went to the party.  Why didn’t you come?  What’s the matter?  Is it your father?”

“My father’s fine.  Listen Elly, something’s come up.  Something big.  Can you come over?”

Elly frowned, elbowing past a pair dressed as lobsters and ducking into an empty room.  It was dark but she could make out the shapes of the washer and drier.  She shut the laundry room door and said, “No, not really.  I came with Jani and Tim.”

“Can’t you find a way to get over here?”

“Why?” her concern ebbed, anger rising again.  “What’s so important?”

“I’d rather not talk about it on the phone.”  There was a pause.  “It’s about Airidan.”

“Sien—”

“Elly I’m leaving.  If you don’t come now you’ll probably never see me again.”

She couldn’t think of what to say.  She couldn’t think at all.  Her mind blanked, in that moment, as if she had accidentally made it disappear.

“Elly?” Sien prompted.

“I’m here.”

“Say you’re coming.  I won’t be here much longer.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“I know.  I know.  But I have to go home, Elly, I don’t have a choice.”

“This is your home!  You have no—”

“No it’s not.”

“Sien—”

“Please, Elly.  Eleanor.  Just come?  I don’t have long.”

With that, the line went dead, and Elly was left staring at her phone.