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top shelf of his closet. The shoebox where he stashed his weed.
    I knew Nate to partake of it now and then, though we didn’t communicate that fact to Karl because we knew he wouldn’t approve, and Karl was asthmatic anyway. I would take a hit,
just
a hit, to be companionable. This time, though, I took more than a hit, and before I knew it, we had cashed two joints. The walls soon pulled away, and we were laughing our asses off as we ate our Red Baron pizzas.
    Some time later, it got dark out, and Nate’s father came home. Nate suggested we clear out, take the bus back to school, and check out the Homecoming Game. Now, I hated football games, school spirit, and all that. Didn’t care for it, didn’t even get it, and neither did Nate. But we were too well baked by then to let the evening die out on us.
    Shivering in our jackets at the top of the bleachers, we passed another joint between us. Nate offered to get us sodas and hot dogs. He handed me the pot, wrapped in cellophane, to hold on to.
    In our state, the game was a psychedelic blur—a carnival of helmets and bodies, pom-poms and mini-skirts, a havoc of shouts and flailing arms and anxious, giddy faces. We won after a field goal late in the fourth quarter, and the whole place just erupted. Nate and I even got into the spiritof things by then—we were surprised by just how much, cheering and clapping and stomping our feet.
    As we left the field, walking toward the bus stop, we wondered in our giddy daze what to do next, and I told him we should hit the post-Homecoming game party over at Emily Price’s house. Emily Price was gorgeous. She was in my Spanish class, and for whatever reason, she had invited me.
    It wouldn’t be quite our crowd—all the popular, rich, and beautiful kids and whatnot—so I didn’t think Nate would be up for it. But to my surprise, he actually said why the hell not. We agreed we wouldn’t stay for long; the buses only ran till midnight anyway.
    Emily Price lived in a brownstone off Monroe Street. Very leafy, very old money. Intimidating. Nate and I knew no one there. Madonna, Journey, and Def Leppard blasted from the stereo while the popular kids, plastered and loosened up, packed the house wall to wall. There were liquor bottles everywhere, and PBR cans stacked into a pyramid on the glass coffee table.
    Emily said a few words to me, glassy-eyed and giddy, yet gorgeous the whole time, while Nate stood at the kitchen counter behind me. Over the noise, she chatted with me about our Spanish class and gushed on and on about how much funnier the class was with me in it. (I took it as a compliment.) I introduced her to Nate and started talking about the game (because what the hell else do I talk about with Emily Price?) when Emily began swaying a bit. Her eyes closed, and she uttered, “Whoa.” She lifted a finger, “I drank waaaaay … excuse me.” Then she turned, giggling with a girl next to her, and the two of them melted into the drunken uproar of the party.
    Nate and I had just been blown off by Emily Price. No matter. There was drinking to do. We retreated to the plastic bottles of vodka and rum and the box of Gallo wine, there to receive us like the harvest. Now, I’d had a beer or two in my time, but I had never drunk as much as I did that night. A switch had been thrown.
    I lost track of how long Nate and I were at that party. Partly because of the drinking and partly because of Shannon Halverson. Nate knew her from drama class, and he said, “Shannon, I’d like to introduce you to Vikram here.”
    “Vik,” I corrected him and shook her hand. It was so delicate and elegant, like a princess’s or a ballerina’s hand. She said she remembered me from sophomore year history, which was surprising because Shannon sat three rows away, and I sat toward the back. Now and then, I’d steal glances at her, at the honey-blonde hair cut pageboy short, the dark eyes and non-lipsticked lips at once ordinary and sensuous that parted to