Hugh Howey: The Hurricane

Plastic cups.

••••

“Ten bucks.”

Daniel handed the kid a twenty and took his change. The bill he got back was soaking wet with what Daniel hoped to hell was pool water. He wadded the tenner, shoved it in a pocket, and took his cup.

Someone did a handstand on the keg while Daniel waited in an amorphous blob of a line. Once they were done, several people squeezed through from behind to get topped up, and Daniel realized he’d have to be a little more assertive if he was going to get a drink. He pushed through and held his cup out alongside a cluster of two others—plastic rims crinkling together—while someone showered gold-colored beer in all three and across their knuckles.

Daniel came away shaking foam off his hand. He wiped his palm on his shorts, then realized how that smell was going to linger. He tried to remember if he’d told his mom he wasn’t going to drink at all, or if he’d said he was just going to have one. His brother was driving, he reminded himself. He took a sip from the cup, foam tickling his nose, and wondered if his brother had also promised not to drink.

“Are you in line?”

Somebody tapped Daniel on the shoulder. He spun around and realized he was standing by the keg, sipping on his beer. A pack of thirsty animals with empty cups were arranged behind him, all of them staring.

“No, go ahead.”

Someone mumbled “rando” loud enough to hear, and Daniel wanted to point out that he wasn’t random at all. He’d been invited by someone who’d been invited by someone.

“Jeremy Stevens would’ve taken summer school if it weren’t for my best friend,” he wanted to shout out.

He shuffled out of the way and back into the house, dodging elbows and potential spills as he went. The number of people in and around the house seemed to have doubled since his first tour through. Daniel rose up on his toes and looked for the distinctive dark curly head of his best friend, wondering where they’d gotten to. He thought of asking people, but could foresee the wrinkled faces and the confused “Who?” he’d likely get from most of them. But hey, at least he had his accessory. His drink. He took another gulp, waved his hand toward the far corner of the kitchen like he saw someone he knew, then squeezed through the crowd in that direction.

Daniel was rounding the center island when someone bumped into him from behind, sending him and a splash of his beer into the girl ahead. Daniel cursed and apologized, but his efforts were drowned out by the girl’s startled screams. He reached to brush the foam off her back when she spun around as fast as a tiger—and he smacked Amanda Hicks on the boob, instead.

“What the fuck?” Amanda looked down at her accosted breast, then twisted around like a snake as she tried to reach the back of her shirt. “Was that beer? ”

“I’m sorry,” Daniel said. He pulled his hand back before she could bite it off.

“I’m so fucked,” she said. She looked up at Daniel. “You’ve totally fucked me.”

Daniel wanted to point out that the most they’d done was kiss, and just that one time.

Amanda punched his shoulder and stormed off, the crowd parting before her huffed rage like a running of the bulls that had been soberly reconsidered.

“Nuts,” Daniel said. He took a swig of his foamy, sorta-cold beer and fought to look inconspicuous. The DJ went back to bass thuds; a plate in the Stevens’s kitchen cabinet rattled to the beat.

“Daniel?”

A familiar and piercing voice squealed at him from behind. Daniel turned and saw the last person he ever expected to see at the party. He would’ve been less surprised to see the girl from the summer before—the second person whose tongue he’d had in his mouth. Instead, he saw his sister, Zola.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” he asked. Both of them looked down at the red cup in her hand, and then at the one in his.

“Don’t you tell mom,” she said.

Daniel steered her toward the sink where a pocket of reduced jostling beckoned.

“How did you get here?”

Zola peered over her shoulder at her friends, but let Daniel guide her by the elbow away from them. “I was at Susie’s and her boyfriend called. We just stopped by so she could see him.”

Daniel tried to grab the cup of beer from her, but his sister steered it away from him. She took the opportunity to nod at his cup. “Didn’t you tell mom you wouldn’t drink tonight?”

“Did I?” Daniel asked. “I thought she said one was okay.”

Zola frowned, and Daniel remembered correctly.

“Truce,” he said.

Zola nodded. She took a defiant sip of her beer, and Daniel felt some foreign sensation, like seeing a color he couldn’t name. He wished he’d hadn’t gotten a beer so he could lecture her, or stop her, or feel less like a hypocrite for doing so. He took his own sip instead, feeling suddenly as if he and she were both of an undeterminable age and either a gap had opened between them or had closed. He had no idea which it was, or in what direction.

“Did you get invited to this?” Zola asked, lowering her drink and glancing back at her friends.

Daniel felt a twinge of humiliation. “Roby invited me.”

“I thought I saw him when I came in,” Zola said. “But who invited him ?” She raised her hand. “Never mind. I don’t care.” She nodded to one of her friends, who was waving her hand. “I’ve gotta go. My friends are waiting for me.”

“Wait. When did you get here? Have you seen Roby?”

She pointed toward the ceiling. “He was going up the stairs when we came in the front door. I dunno, maybe ten minutes ago?”

Daniel watched as she spun back toward her gaggle of giggling, freshman friends. He peered down at his beer, finished off what was there, realized he was already buzzing and was destined to get grounded for the miserable evening he was having. He went off in search of Roby.

Daniel worked his way through the kitchen toward the living room. The stiffening wind outside whistled through the cracked sliding glass door, mixing with the laughter and screams outside. In the living room, the gamers had retired from their eight man tournament and were now watching YouTube videos on the larger of the two TVs. One boy sat on the floor with his laptop, which seemed patched through to the display. Daniel watched a boy on screen jump from a rooftop toward a trampoline, missing violently. The kids on the sofa jumped up and laughed in horror; they clasped their hands over their mouths or pumped their fists.

“You need to get in line,” a girl yelled at him, as Daniel started up the steps.

“Excuse me?” He worried he was slurring already.

“The bathroom? This is the line.” A girl he thought he knew from one of his classes pointed at the long stream of girls standing on the steps, snaking all the way up.

“I’m looking for someone,” Daniel said. But just the mention of the bathroom, and the recently-downed beer, had awakened his bladder.

“I’m watching you,” the girl said.

Daniel lowered his brows at her, wondering if she were serious, then began pushing his way up the crowded steps. A couple came half-tumbling down in the other direction, and he had to press into some other kids to let them by. That started a fresh round of complaints and cries of “creeper” and “no breaking.”

At the top of the steps, Daniel made his way past the bathroom into all the glorious open space in the hallway beyond. Two kids stumbled into a bedroom and were yelled at by some other kids. They came back out giggling and covering their mouths, hanging onto one another and sloshing beer. Daniel got out of their way as they staggered toward the steps.