A Summer To Remember

“Be there in 10!” I shouted over the phone to Sophia, before hanging up and starting my car. I had been waiting months for tonight, we all had, but I couldn’t help imagining all the different ways in which everything could go wrong. By the time I pulled up in front of Sophia’s apartment building exactly 11 minutes and 23 seconds later, I had all but talked myself out of it. 

            “Kylie, you’re late,” she mock scolded me, opening the door and pulling me in. I barely had the chance to shout hello to her Mom, Elaine, before Sophia had ushered me into her room and pulled the door shut behind her. Sophia always used to joke that the only advantage to being the only girl with four brothers was that she got her own room, while everyone else had to share. This had stopped being true three years ago, when her oldest brother, Lewis, had left home to attend Yale. He was the smartest, and the contrast between him and Sophia’s next oldest brother, Scottie, was obvious.

            Scottie has always been the popular guy. You know the type, dating all the prettiest girls, getting invited to all the hottest parties. It’s mostly due to him that Sophia and I do alright. Not exactly popular girl material ourselves, we’ve always been welcome to hang around with the popular crowd because of their collective crush on Scottie.

            “You really think this is a good idea?” I asked Sophia as soon as we were alone.

            “Yes!” She whisper screamed, “We’re gonna be seniors this year, its about time we started acting like it. Plus, Linda and the girls are all gonna be at the party.”

            Linda was the popular girl at our school. Even though we ate lunch with her and her friends every day at school and even had sleepovers and shopping dates on the weekends, Sophia and I had always felt a little disconnected from that group in general, because we were so different. She was right; this would be a perfect chance for us to be more connected – to really fit in our senior year

            “Okay bitch, lets make ourselves look hot!” I teased, grabbing my flat iron and makeup bag and heading for the bathroom.

***

            45 minutes and 6 cans of diet coke later, we were ready. We stood side by side in front of her full-length mirror, admiring our work. Sophia wore a pair of dark skinny jeans, glittery heels, and a cute tank top. I was in my favorite short blue dress paired with my beat-up black combat boots.

            After our final touches, we yelled goodbye to Elaine, hoping she would be too distracted by Sophia’s thirteen-year-old twin brothers’, Andrew and Zachy’s, return from soccer practice to notice that we were a bit over dressed for a girl’s night at Zoe’s, which is what she thought we were doing. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice, and we were able to get safely to the car without a problem.

            “Are we picking up Zo?” Asked Sophia as we pulled out of the parking lot.

            “Yea she said she’ll be out front waiting in 5.”

            Zoe is a rising junior who we kind of adopted into our friend group at the beginning of her freshmen, our sophomore year. Over the past couple years, she, Sophia and I have grown really close, and now the three of us hang out practically every weekend. She’s super fun to hang around, but Zoe also has a bit of a reputation around school. Zoe’s mom, Lauri, is an ex-prima ballerina, who became really rich and depressed from divorcing her third husband and moved here to Sacramento with Zoe, her only daughter. She mostly keeps to herself, and since Zoe is allowed to do whatever she wants, she can go a little crazy from time to time.

            “Hey!” Yelled Zoe as we pulled up to the curb of her giant house and she hopped into the backseat, “I’m so excited for tonight!”

            Tonight was what was supposed to be the craziest party of the summer. It was at this guy Toby’s house, a recently graduated senior who was headed to UCSB in the fall. Even though the graduating seniors were throwing it, They had invited most of the rising seniors, and of course word had gotten out to the rising juniors and even a few of the sophomores.

            “Zo, was it really necessary to wear that?” asked Sophia, pulling me out of my daze. “I mean… it seems a little much”

            I turned around from the passenger seat in order to take in Zoe’s whole outfit. She wore a tiny black mini skirt paired with a flowy white crop top, through which you could easily see her highlighter pink bra. I sighed and shook my head at her in mock disapproval. She just giggled. Although she was younger than me and Sophia, she had been to way more parties then both of us combined, and definitely had more experience. I knew there was no point in trying to get her to change her style.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d been to parties before, but not a ton, and I was usually the one who took a few sips of a beer, but then opted to stay at least partly sober and watch everyone else make fools of themselves.

Not. Tonight.