Electric Moonlight Shuffle

11. Fake Bitches

Friday afternoon at 1 p.m., after a week of grueling dance rehearsals and relationships heating up, the crew of us Electric Moonlighters get dismissed from school early, board a private party bus, and head off toward Dragon Beach.

Over this past week everyone really has sort of coupled off. Flynn and Molly get on the bus together first and sit in the back. Then Joe and Sam. Jamie and Sage are next. And me, at the end, am last. (Jason, unfortunately, is already down at the shore, with the rest of the band. Perks of being the rock star's girlfriend, amiright?)

At least I have a text from Jason. Can't wait to see you, my pretty.

(We've been appropriating totally un-endearing movie quotes and using them as pet names. The Wicked Witch of the West is one of Jason's favorite source materials.)

The bus is stocked with a mini-bar (everything virgin, thankfully I've got airplane bottles of rum and whisky to spike the Diet Coke with). Neon lights run in snaky strips around the ceiling and pulse multicolored. The seats, softer than my couch at home, are embroidered with crescent moons.

I go right to the mini-bar. Flynn is standing there, mixing himself a Shirley Temple. (Gotta love Flynnstone, amiright?). I grab a Coke, accidentally brush his hand.

"Hey," Flynn says, looking at me like a puppy dog. "How's Jason? Still good?"

"Good," I say. "How's Molly?"

"We're friends," says Flynn. "She's cool. You can sit with us, if you want."

"Wouldn't want to intrude," I say.

"You're not!" says Flynn. "We're just friends. Plus, just because you're a bigshot rockstar girl now doesn't mean you can't be friends with the plebs. Come on, please? We've got Cards Against Humanity."

I shake my ice, bite my lip, considering. Even though I'm all-of-a-sudden famous, the American Girls still freak me out. I feel like they're always up to something. But I do have a soft spot for CAH. "All right," I say. "Let's go."

"Awesome," says Flynn.

So I go settle in next to Flynn and Molly who (for whatever reason) looks like she wants to tear my head off. Joe & Samantha, and Jamie & Sage join us too.

We spread out the cards on a glossy pop-out table between us. I share my airplane alcohol with my new "friends" and for a while, everything's actually going fine.

Some highlights:

I match: "An Oedipus Complex" with "Kid Tested, Mother Approved."

Flynn gets: "As part of his contract, Prince won't perform without ________ in his dressing room" with "Rising from the Dead."

Sage matches: "This month's Cosmo: Spice up your sex life by bringing _________ into the bedroom" with "Pretending to care."

Jamie puts: "During sex I like to think about ________" with "Becoming a blueberry."

Everything is actually going all right, until I check my phone, and Molly, out of the blue, is like: "Oh, are you posting this for eight billion likes?"

"No?" I say.

"Oh, I thought you might be," says Molly, leaning closer to Flynn. "Because you're all famous now. Like your mom."

~~SO, I never mentioned this, but: My mom was a pretty famous actress, before she up and left me and my dad for some Italian producer whose actual name on his actual birth certificate is Adonis. Now she's a recluse. Last time I saw my mom was in some indie Italian film in 2001. I think she lives in a villa with her new boyfriend, who's not Adonis, but I'm not sure. I saw leaked pictures of her third wedding—a casual ceremony in the woods—in People magazine, but besides that, nothing. Moral of the story: my mom isn't exactly my role model. And Sage clearly knows this.~~

"Exactly like my mom." I smile tightly. I flip Molly off with both hands. "I'm also a motherfucking bitch."

I get up. Jamie and Flynn both reach out to me, but I brush them off. "It's fine," I say. "Because, also, like my mom, I'd rather be alone than hang out with fake twats who are never gonna be anything besides mean."

I go across the bus, ignore the mild chaos I left behind. I settle in with a pair of headphones, my rum-spiked-coke, some Joan Jett, and have a nice happy ride for the next three hours, thinking nothing of Molly or anyone else at all.