I drank more. I had to pee. There was a long line at the downstairs bathroom. Someone said there was another one upstairs. I didn’t care about waiting, I didn’t have anything better to do, but I left the line and went upstairs to see more of Alexis’s house. It was pretty fancy — up in the hills, the back held up by stilts. A big window at the top of the stairs had a view of the river and the lights and bridges. It was relaxing to look out at a view like that. The window was big enough that I could step out into it and be another shadow in the dark. Another cheer roiled up from downstairs. The worst was remembering the moment when I’d thought I was done — when I’d come to a stop I’d thought I’d earned. The view out the window was clear enough that I could step out into it and be as small and useless as a shadow, or the light’s reflection on the water. A door down the hall closed and Alexis was standing next to me. She said, I love this view. She had on a light blue sweater.
I said, Congratulations.
She said, Thanks. I know. I was honestly surprised.
She was glowing so hard that there was almost room in the glow for me. Her sweater looked very soft. It was only a matter of time before she remembered what I’d done.
I said, I’m really sorry I messed up. My stare leveled out the window to keep me from crying.
She said, What? What happened?
It was nice of her to pretend she didn’t know. I said, I made my relay team lose. The team lost those points because of me.
She said, Oh, whatever. What looked like a boat passed far away on the river. She said, Those points were nothing. No one will remember. The boat was a light tracking across our view. The smell of Alexis’s conditioner curled toward me. The smell was a forest on a blanket in the sun, the smell from the hair of someone on the blanket beside me. Alexis leaned the weight of her left arm against my right. She tugged my cuff and said, Come here.
Alexis closed the door of her bedroom. She didn’t turn the light on. She asked, Do you smoke? There was a pot pipe on her desk.
I said, No thanks.
Alexis came over and stood in front of me. She was around my height, an inch or so shorter. She took her hands and put them on either side of my neck, and slid her hands out to the ends of my shoulders, measuring me. She said, You have a really nice body, Julie. If I had been able to move myself away from her I might have. Alexis tightened her grip on my shoulders. She pulled me closer or pushed herself closer. The first kiss felt like a test. Her lips were dry and they pushed against mine and my air was gone, and then I felt her tongue. It was a soft, wet thing invading my mouth and my lips and my tongue did nothing back. She said, Is this okay? My mouth was beer-sour. It wasn’t that it wasn’t okay. I must have nodded, I must have made myself nod, because she came back and kissed me again and I was ready for it. I knew how to kiss her back. I pulled her lips with my lips and let my tongue touch the ridges of her teeth and her tongue. My hands touched her waist, and her sweater was as soft, softer, than it had looked, and it was easy to touch her waist and her hips and to press my hand in the crook of her hips. She took my hand and moved it up to her breast and pressed it there and took her hand away and I felt the weight and the heat and the outline of her bra underneath the thin sweater. Her nipple, as I touched it, got harder and she kissed me harder and my crotch pounded and her hips pressed against my hips. Alexis stepped back. My hair was loose, she must have unloosed it, and she combed her fingers loosely through it. She said, You’re a good kisser. We were standing in the middle of her dark room. She said, Do you mind? and went and picked up the pot pipe and lit it. The pot glowed. She blew the smoke out in my direction, on purpose, a tease. I had to say something.
I said, I’m quitting the team.
She said, Relays are stupid. Relays are too much pressure on everybody. She stepped back over and put her hand on my shoulder. She said, You need to find your own race that you can really work on, that you can really make your own, you know?
She talked as if she had a plan for me. I was waiting for her to kiss me again.
She said, What about the 500 Free? That’s a really good event. People give all the attention to the sprinters, but distance can be kind of, I don’t know, magical. She said, Can you do distance?
I said, I don’t know.
Alexis said, Your brother’s time on the 500 Free was incredible. I saw the plaque. I think it might be really awesome. I could count laps for you.
She had me cupped, convinced. With her hand on my shoulder, she could have said anything.
Alexis took a step back. She pulled her fingers through her hair and straightened her sweater. She said, All right. She said, I’m going to go out first, if that’s okay? Just wait a few minutes. She kissed me quickly, half on my mouth, and left.
When I got downstairs, the mood had shifted, or I had. I was less outside of the frenzy and more, not of it, but as if I were the air or the dust in the air, around and amid what was happening. Erika was standing in a group with PT and a few gothish girls, on the edge of the room, and she pulled me over. They smelled like cloves. Erika said, Julie! She said, We were talking about music. Erika was drinking her beer, or drinking another one. Erika knew less about music than I did. She mostly knew her mom’s old records, Joni Mitchell, who she loved to say she couldn’t listen to without crying.
One of the girls said, We were basically obsessing about My Bloody Valentine. If you know them.
I said, Oh I know them. In my dust-state, I felt generous. I wanted to give Erika anything I could.
The girl said, You know them?
I said, Loveless. I love that album.
They talked and I hazed and half-listened, saying things for Erika when she didn’t have anything to say. PT seemed quiet and nice enough, hanging out behind his glasses and wool cap, the person in the group least trying to do anything. I got glimpses of Alexis in different parts of the room. With Greg by the stereo, with Melanie by the sliding-glass door, with a beer in her hand, getting louder. A hand light-touched the inside of my elbow and by the time I turned to look Alexis was dancing with Greg by the sliding-glass door, the lights of the river and the city beyond them.
A little before midnight, Erika and I were standing outside, waiting for Erika’s mom to pick us up. Alexis had called from across the room, Julie, are you leaving? and she had raised her hand to wave goodbye, along with Melanie and Greg. She was drunk and ensconced with her friends, it was fine, and it wasn’t as if I was thinking about whether what had happened would happen again, or as if that was all I was thinking about. Erika said, I think I’m a little drunk. Are you?
I said, A little, not feeling drunk, but generous.
Erika said, I can’t believe how cute PT is.
I said, He seems really nice.
She said, We went outside and smoked cloves.
I said, That’s great.
Erika put her head back and opened her arms wide, a cartoon of a drunk person high on life. She said, The air feels so good. She said, Do you think he seemed like he liked me?
I HADN’T PLANNED on kissing Alexis. To think that I might have, without realizing, planned for or expected it made me cave with embarrassment. To think that I might have made Alexis think I wanted to kiss her by the color of the shirt I’d worn or the spot by the window where I’d chosen to stand. That I might have made her think that I wanted her to kiss me.