Drift

Chapter 10

The designers of the Sony speaker will be getting an angrily-worded letter from me very very soon.

"One, two, three, LIFT," Alex commanded, and on "LIFT" we proceeded in lifting said speaker off of the tarnished floor of Charlie's patio.

"Remind me." I whispered with a strained voice. "Why did we agree to do this?"

"Because." Alex retorted in an equally strained voice, except with an edge of optimism. "This is probably going to be the best high school party I've ever been to, and  you need some alone time with Charlie to figure out your feelings for him."

I rolled my eyes.

"See, I was hoping for a different answer when I said 'remind me'. But I guess I should have known what you would say."

"You really should have." She chuckled, as we continued to shuffle to where the speaker was going to spend the rest of the night.

"Having fun, ladies?" Charlie's voice boomed from the nearby kitchen. He was by our side seconds after we'd heard him speak. Alex and I gently deposited the heavy machine on the ground, and immediately collapsed against one another.

"Well this is just about the highlight of my day. Sierra, what about yourself?" Alex inquired sarcastically, still leaning against me.

"I'm pretty sure I'd rather be spending my time doing trigonometry homework. Why couldn't we organise the drinks or something?" I groaned, asking no-one in particular.

"Because, Corgy, I am not one to discriminate. You girls can do just as good a job as any one of my guy friends. Think about the muscle you'll build up!" He said in motivation, playfully slapping my arm as encouragement.

"Besides." Alex announced mischievously. "We can always get back at him later." She winked.

"Well, if you're doing that, you might as well complete the job properly. That last speaker's meant to be on the other side of the room, beside the dining table so we get a surround sound feel.
Hope you don't mind." He winked back, chuckling at what he probably thought was 'wit'.

I was about to lunge at him, but Alex caught my arm. "We disagree." She stated calmly. "In fact, we think it's your turn to do the heavy lifting. We'll start getting the snacks together. Come on, Sierra."

I stuck my tongue out as I was dragged into the house by Alex, relishing in Charlie's defeated chuckle. The last thing I saw before the door closed, was him lift the very same speaker with outrageous and infuriating ease.

*

"So, what's the deal with the whole social hierarchy of this school?" I asked Alex, after we'd got into the rhythm of laying out plastic cups (that are bad for the environment) and emptying endless bags of crisps into endless plastic bowls (that are slightly less bad because of their re-usability). "Two queen bees at work in one beehive? How does that work?"

"There are a few collisions here and there," Alex said, mischievously putting a crisp into her mouth. "But it's better if you think about it like them being two halves of the same walnut. Monica supplies the queen bitch and rules by fear, while Carrie is worshipped because of her money and her connections to the people everybody wants to know. One could simply not function without the other."

I copied her action and put a number of crisps my mouth. "I see." I said, with a mouth full of crisp. "So what you're saying is that Monica is the only threat here. So me just getting to know Charlie is a bad move?"