Just then, I saw Victoria across the room. She saw me at the same time and I realized that maybe I should check in with my best friend. “Um, can you just, um, wait here for a minute?” I said to Simon. “I’ll be right back.”
He pretended to pout. “How do I know you’ll come back, though?”
My God, man, have you looked in a mirror lately? Trust me, I’ll be back.“Two minutes,” I told him. “Plus however long the wait in line is for the ladies’ room.”
That cracked him up. “You’re such a trip!” he laughed. “Fuckin’ incredible. Hurry up.”
Victoria saw me separating myself from Simon and she left Jonah on the couch as we both pushed our way through the room. “It’s like one big boa constrictor,” she gasped as we both nearly fell out of the room and into the empty hallway.
“Bathroom,” I said. “Now.”
“Yeah, you think?”
We ran around the backstage area, showing our passes to every security guard who saw us, until we came across a room that just had a toilet and sink, and we scrambled into it as Victoria twisted the lock. We looked at each other for a second, then burst into our Happy Dance, the one that involved a lot of twisting and leaping and whooping around. “You’re making out with Simon Lolita!” Victoria cried. “I saw you! Tell me everything!”
“He said I had sexy hair!”
“Ohmygod!” She jumped up and down. “What else, what else? Is he a good kisser? He looks like a good kisser!”
“I can’t even feel my knees, he’s so good!”
“Kneeless! That’s so awesome! How’s the tongue action?”
“Perfect! Not too much, not too little. What about me? Do I look like those fish on ice in the grocery store?”
“No, you look totally hot! Has he called you a bird yet?”
“A bird? What kind of bird?”
“I don’t know. British guys always call women ‘birds.’”
“No bird calls yet.”
“Well, either way, you better remember every single word he says, because you’re so telling me everything on the way home.” Then she paused. “Do you think you’ll get to go on his tour bus?”
The idea hadn’t even occurred to me. I had skipped ahead by about five hundred steps and was already interior designing our London apartment. Wait, our London flat. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m pretty happy behind the wardrobe case.”
“How big do you think those bunks are, anyway? Big enough for two people?”
I laughed and we jumped around some more. Then we calmed down and I looked in the mirror. “How’s my makeup?”
“Beautiful. That mascara is really holding up nicely. It’s not even smudging.”
“What about my lipstick?”
“You’ve got make-out lips. You don’t need lipstick.”
I turned back around to look at her. “Promise me you and Jonah won’t leave without me? I don’t want to end this night by having to hitchhike home.”
She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Audrey. We’re at a backstage party with the Lolitas and the Plain Janes and about fifty other people whose pictures you have plastered all over your wall. There’s free alcohol and cheese, and right now, Jonah’s smoking hash smuggled in from Amsterdam. Trust me when I say this: We’re not going anywhere without you.”
13 “Be my photo bitch and I’ll make you rich…”
—Belle & Sebastian, “Sukie in the Graveyard”
THE ONLY SLIGHTLY UNCOOL THING I had to do before going back to the party was text my parents to let them know I was okay. As parents go, they’re pretty lenient with curfew stuff. The official deadline to be home is 2 A.M., but after midnight, I have to text them every half an hour so they know I’m alive and not being seduced by some roofie-dropping dirtbag. Victoria got wise and told her mom about my curfew, so our parents sat us down and gave us the whole “going out is a privilege not a right” speech, and now Victoria has the same curfew and rules, too.
I may have been busy making out with rock stars and impressing people with my mad DJ skillz, but I wasn’t stupid enough to screw up my curfew. There were some kids at school who had to be home by ten on weekends, and the mere idea made my heart hurt.
Anyway, Victoria was half-right about her and Jonah staying at the party. The part she got wrong was the “we’re not going anywhere” part, since right after we got back to the room, and I found Simon, and we began making out without even a hello or a “hey, long time no see,” the police arrived and declared the whole room to be a safety hazard. Their timing was pretty ironic, since Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” was playing, but also a relief, since every guitar player in the room—and there were many—was air-guitaring along with Jimi and making that horrible guitargasm face. Thank God Simon was a singer and I was spared the embarrassment of watching him do that.
“Fuuuccckkk,” he groaned when he saw the firemen. “We gotta move this party back to the hotel.” He looked down at me and grinned. “Come with us.”
I glanced at the time on my phone. Twelve forty. It would take forty-five minutes to get home in order for me to walk in the door by 2 A.M., which left me with thirty-five minutes of Simon time. “I have to leave by one fifteen,” I said.
“Oh, come on,” he said, pushing up against me. “This is just the opening act tonight. The real party always happens at the hotel.”