Part Three: Dammit Janet

Faye takes the bottle and immediately puts it to her lips. When nothing comes out of it, she is surprised for a moment, then groans in frustration and throws the bottle aside. "Someone give me a beer then, or something."

"Fine! Do not just chug this though; try to take it in, taste all the complex flavors. And be wary; it hits you like a truck. You could say it's at the borderline of being a Moonshine."

He chuckles and takes out a bottle of hundred-proof bourbon he had stashed in his guitar case - taking a brave swig first.

"Nooo, I don't know, Faye. What do you mean? But then he feels bad about putting Faye on the spot. "Ah forget about it." Then Jaden shows off his private bottle. "Wow. Be careful. Shouldn't we all be careful? I mean we don't all want to pass out, faces first on the ground, do we?"

Was his the only voice of reason and if so, he was fast losing his ability to be that voice.

Faye nods gratefully at Andy when he lets go of the topic. She ignores his voice of reason, though, and takes the bottle from Jaden, putting it up to her lips, then stops and hands it over to Em instead, remembering her reaction to the beer. "You first!", she says.

George high fives Jaden. "Nice licks, dude! Man that was a fun version. I think I screwed up the lyrics, but who cares." When the bottle comes out, he looks wide eyed. "Bourbon and weed don't mix man, but have a blast. That stuff looks tasty! Hey Andy, don't drink too much, you've got that game on the weekend, and I've got five riding on you!"

George worries about Andy. While they've grow apart from as close as they were before the ... Incident... at least he's stuck by him and not entirely abandoned him like his other friends have over the years. Not that I really care, I've got tons of new friends now, so qué sera, right?

"Do it, Faye! Take a shot!"

Morgan, still swaying without the music due to her buzzing so hard, makes a pained face when Jaden produces a full bottle of amber fluid that just might kill them all tonight. She is about to say come on you guys, I'm not a big drinker when Faye foists the second swig onto her.

Em takes the bottle, then makes eye contact with each of them in turn. Faye, Jaden, Andy, George -- and back to the blonde again, right before she lifts her eyebrows and tips the bottle back.

The girl drinks and pushes through the burn, managing to swallow not just one mouthful, but a second as well. Coughing and sputtering but far from having embarrassed herself, Em hands the bottle forcefully back to Faye, her eyes watering as she staggers out of the circle for a moment, trying to breathe.

"That was awesome, Em!", Faye comments immediately. Without thinking, she takes a very large sip as soon as the bottle is back in her hands.

Andy's eyes go wide in surprise wondering how she managed to drink that stuff at all. He can't not drink some now. The girls have set the pace. But he has an idea just in case.

"Let's all dance! All of us." He figures the distraction will cover any adverse reaction he has to the alcohol. "Give it here Faye, and I'll take a glug."

Faye hands him the bottle, then she begins dancing awkwardly. Out of the group, she definitely seems to be one of the least proficient dancers, so she's nervous about taking center stage. She just moves slightly in place, waiting for any of the others to join in.

It takes Em a minute after the double-swig, but soon enough she's back with the gang, dancing and bumping hips with Faye and Andy as Jaden plays.

"Come on, George!" she says, waving him forward as she grooves. "Show us your moves again!"

Leaving the last of the joint with Jaden, George gets back into the mix. A little stoned now, he moves more psychedelicly, and laughs a lot, egging the others on to let loose and dance with abandon, even stiff Faye. "Just shake and have fun, nobody is watching, no one judges. Whoooo!

Jaden nods towards ol' Spud. He smiles as he looks upon his friends; everyone is loose and having a blast.
He does a few quick filler strums, holding onto the last one while he is thinking what to play next - and then it hits him.
He picks up an up-tempo rhythm and begins to play the next song.Fade out

"Faye Rogan!"

Not the best way to be woken up, especially with such a strong headache.
Faye rolls around and looks up at her mother.

"When did you come home last night? I was worried sick about you. And where did you even sneak off to?"

Faye mumbles something but her mother doesn't seem to be satisfied by that so she rubs her eyes and sits up a bit in bed. Her head is pulsing as if someone was drumming a slow beat on it. "I was meeting some friends," she says quietly. "I don't remember when I came home. I don't even remember coming home at all."

"Well, do you remember where you left the car?", Mrs. Rogan asks.

"Unless I tried driving home," Faye says.

"You better hope you didn't try that!" Her mother looks at Faye for a moment, then her expression softens. "I'm going to make you something to eat. After that, we can go look for the car. Really, Faye, sweetie, I was hoping you'd appreciate that you have to behave a bit better if we're supposed to live in Boulder again. You can't draw any attention to yourself. Especially with those... moralizers running around town."

"Right...", Faye replies. Then her eyes widen, which only leads to another sting of pain in her head and a bout of sickness. She suppresses the urge to gag and potentially throw up and then asks: "This demonstration, that's today, right?"

"It is," Mrs. Rogan replies. "But I told you before, you're not going. It's far too dangerous."

She then turns to leave the room, not closing the door behind herself, right into the largest room of the small container apartment, a combined living room and kitchen, to make breakfast. Faye stays in bed for a few minutes, then she struggles to her feet. She heads to the bathroom, which smells like she threw up in here last night, though she can't see anything. Either she made it to the toilet or her mother already cleaned up. After going to the toilet and brushing her hair into something vaguely resembling a hairstyle, she sits down right at the computer. Mrs. Rogan throws her a look, so she quickly says: "Just making sure my friend made it home safe."

She boots up the forum that she and Em always talk on and sends her a quick message:

Hey xyz

Still alive? Not sure if I am

Anyway, remember that thing I told you about at the video store? That's today

I'm still going but if you're feeling half as shitty as I am I get if you're not

If you are though, you could ask the others if they want to come. Strength in numbers

I'm here. Feel like a bag of cat barf. I'll be going though. My aunt and her weirdo friends need to know what they are doing is not okay.

Turning from her computer, Em, just in a tank top and panties, turns and looks over her shoulder at her bed -- where Andy is just starting to stir and wake up. It's a one room bachelor that her aunt has rented for her, and there is nowhere to hide. So she just lifts her eyebrows and turns back towards the green text on her screen.

Um... so how much do you remember about last night?

Flat on his stomach, Andy sort of wakes up and moans. One eye opens and doesn't recognize the wall. His head hurts so he squeezes it shut. That hurts worse. He hears tapping on a keyboard. "Robin?" Suddenly both his eyes open wide. More groans. He turns over. Sits up. He looks on the floor by the bed. He sees his clothes in a heap there. They look wet and smell like beer and pot. He peers under the sheets. He's naked! He pulls the sheets up to his neck and gasps.

"Shit. Um ...Hi Em!" Andy's face is one huge question mark. He wonders why Em is practically naked. His head is so sluggish. Now his heart is pounding to the same beat as his head. "Did we? Why are you...ohh...." He falls backwards onto the pillow, sheets still up to his chin and moans.

Dancing?

I don't really remember much of anything.

Jaden brought some really strong stuff, didn't he?

Oh, and that I'm pissed at George. I remember that.

Faye glances at her mom for a moment but she doesn't seem interested in checking in on her daughter's conversation.

I should probably go

Hope to see you later

George and Jaden are somehow the least drunk of the five, mostly because George didn't touch the bourbon and only had one beer. After Em and Andy left together, George drove the bourbon gulping Faye home in her car, stoned but not comatosely so. They half dragged her quietly into the container apartment and then placed her on her bed. There was a heated, hushed argument about whether to remove her clothes, but they decided to just get her shoes and socks off then head out. George stuffed her keys into her shoe.

Still relatively ready to party, the two boys headed off to a nearby park, thinking of more music and pot in the cool night air.

As they walked along a back alley, Jaden strumming his guitar and George softly singing along with made up lyrics about a horse named Kim, over their chuckling they heard some hooting and hollering. In a backyard, a half-dozen older women were knee deep into the wine, and George confidently strolled through the back fence. Seeing Jaden's guitar, the night immediately turned on a dime.

Under the gazebo, surrounded by empty wine bottles, the divorce party cougars soon were singing along, and getting handsy with Jaden and even George. A couple of the married women bid their goodnights and soon it was Jaden alone being dragged by the divorcee and her BFF into the house, while George walked Ms. Middleton home after a passionate makeout session.

"Georgie, it's been so long. You never told anyone, did you? About us?"

His arm around her waist, he said, "No. I knew they wouldn't understand. Plus, I'd already told everyone I'd been experienced." He laughs. The lies boys tell each other. He'd made up some story about being invited into a house by a couple of swingers one night in grade 9. A funny story he's told a dozen times, if entirely made up. He repeats it to her again, prefacing it that it was just a funny story he had fabricated.

Meg Middleton (his one time chemistry/science teacher in middle school) and he had hooked up after he discovered pot. They'd both ended up high sitting on the back steps of the library after school hours, and then somehow ended up naked in the stacks. They had laughed hard and made love several times, but afterwards had never mentioned it to each other again. He'd not been in any of her classes again.

Back at her house, they sparked up the last of George's pot and climbed into the hottub on her deck. It was a long night from there.

---

In the morning, showered and with a borrowed travel mug of coffee, he hoofed it back to the College library. Chemistry lab writeups won't write themselves!

Reaching up, Em turns off her old monochrome monitor when she hears Andy stir, when she hears what he says.

Turning from where she sits cross-legged in her seat, she frosts the entire room with her glare. In fact, in the history of glares, there have been few like this one. In fact, it might as well be the glare that hauls Andy out of bed, that shoves him outside. Might as well be the glare that throws his clothes out after him, that slams the door in his face and screams at the top of its lungs.

---

Morgan's a nice girl, all things considered, Mrs. Cruz had said to her husband Pablo in the kitchen. They had that room to rent and she owed Nancy a favor, so they'd agreed to let the former juvenile delinquent move into the room. But now, both of the Cruzes watched the sordid affair from their window, mouths gaping as an athletic white boy was shoved out onto the street by their currently very foul-mouthed border. Morning traffic honked and people jeered and whistled as the young man rushed to collect his strewn clothing, and the crucifix on the wall in the Cruz family kitchen bounced when Morgan slammed her door with surprising strength.