Twelve

Sunday arrives, and suddenly everyone in Denfeld is simmering with a strange, jittery, overwrought kind of energy I can't quite put into words. Quigg wheels a keg into the house, and some upperclassmen come back from a trip to the nearest town with armfuls of liquor. After hearing whispers all week about the Sunday night MV parties, I'm about to find out exactly what goes on at them.

Neil starts drinking before noon. I smell it on his breath when I take a seat next to him at lunch. His clothes and skin are smeared with paint, and he says he's been in the art studio all morning. When Azar comments on the smell of whiskey at the table, he says it's paint thinner. No one believes him.

"Neil, I know it's going to be hard without Meredith at the party," Jordan says. "It's going to be hard for all of us."

Neil shrugs, not meeting his eyes.

"Maybe it's time for you to go talk to someone," Jordan says quietly. "It's not healthy, the way you're dealing with her death."

Neil sighs and lowers his forehead into his hands.

"Leave him alone," Azar says gently. "I know you mean well, but... just leave it, Jordan."

"Sorry," Jordan says. "I'm trying to help."

"You don't have to fix everything. It's not your job," she says. "And some things can't be fixed." Her words sound tired, resigned.

"All right," Jordan says, the barest edge of hurt in his voice. "I won't say anything else." As if to prove his point, he pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through Twitter.

"I didn't mean..." Azar hesitates, then shakes her head, as if she can't find the right thing to say. Instead, she touches Jordan's wrist, and he gives her a small smile, some wordless understanding passing between them. The tension at the table fades but doesn't disappear entirely.

But as Azar starts talking to Neil about the girl she likes, a sophomore named Zoe, her voice grows more cheerful. "I think tonight's the night," she says with a sly grin. "A little moonlight, a little liquor."

Neil snorts.

"Is it going to be weird if I don't drink tonight?" I whisper to Penny. I've seen my mom drunk one too many times to have any interest in drinking.

She shakes her head. "Alcohol doesn't pair well with my meds, so I don't drink. But if you feel weird about it, just hold a red cup and no one will know the difference."

"Magni Viri stoops to the level of the SOLO cup?" I whisper back.

She laughs. "What? You think we only use crystal goblets?"

"I was expecting brandy snifters and tasteful charcuterie boards," I say around a smile.

"What the hell is a brandy snifter?" Penny asks, dissolving into more laughter that attracts the attention of the rest of the table.

"It's a very fancy glass for very fancy people," Jordan says without looking up from his phone.

"Is it called that because you sniff the drink before you drink it?" Wren asks.

No one answers. But Neil rolls his eyes and says he's going back to the studio.

"Penny, what are you two talking about? You're not spoiling Tara's first Denfeld party, are you?" Azar asks suspiciously. "None of us got a heads-up, and neither should she."

I think Azar is kidding, but there's a strange note in her voice that almost sounds like a warning.

"I said nothing," Penny says, still wiping tears from her eyes. "Brandy snifter." She shakes her head.

"Y'all aren't gonna haze me tonight, are you?" I ask anxiously.

For some reason, the entire table bursts into hysterical laughter.

"What?" I ask defensively.

Penny grins. "Tara, you know I love your accent, but the way you just said that." She shakes her head.

"It wasn't just the accent. It was like you'd wandered in off the set of The Andy Griffith Show," Wren says. "Pure, wide-eyed Southern innocence."

I'm a little offended, but I remember what Azar said before about the chip on my shoulder, so I shrug and laugh. They didn't mean any harm by it. I did sound a little like a hayseed visiting the Big Apple or something, afraid of being corrupted by city slickers.

Next to me, Penny shifts closer until her knee touches mine. "I won't let anybody haze you," she whispers in my ear. "I promise." Her eyes are merry, her cheeks pink from laughter.

When I look around the table, I realize that everyone else is looking at me in almost the same way: friendly, open, accepting. I remember the other thing Azar told me: I belong to them now, and they belong to me. I can let down my guard.

By seven, the restless energy of the house has infiltrated my body too. I change my clothes twice, try to work on three different assignments without any success, and can't even make it through a single episode of What We Do in the Shadows, which I've been watching in hopes of comparing it to Carmilla for my final Gothic lit paper. Finally, around eight, Wren bursts into the room and starts looking frantically through their closet.

"Party's starting. We gotta go!" they say. They throw a corduroy jacket on over their jeans and embroidered white button-down. "You'd better dress warmer than that. Come on, come on!"

I grab my coat and yank on my boots as I follow Wren down the hallway, nearly tripping in the process. "Isn't the party here?" I ask.

"You'll see!" Wren says, practically skipping down the stairs. My stomach lurches. I think I know exactly where we're going.

A few minutes later, we pass through the gates of the cemetery. It is utterly changed from the night of my initiation. There are lanterns hanging from tree limbs, groups of people laughing and joking. A makeshift bar is set up on the steps of a huge mausoleum that bears a half-effaced name: Walter W—th—orge.

I puzzle over the missing letters for a moment before it hits me. It must have once said Walter Weymouth George. This is where one of Magni Viri's founders is buried. This is the mausoleum his bereft friend built for him. I wonder how they'd feel about it being used as a bar.

"Tara! Wren!" Quigg yells when he sees us. He is already well into his cups, his cheeks flushed ruddy, his eyes bright. He grins and puts an arm around each of us.

"Tara, your first night of revelry!" he exclaims.

"So the Sunday night parties are always in the graveyard?" I ask. "Why?"

"'Tis tradition!" Quigg says. "It's the heart of Magni Viri! We are communing with our forebears."

"It's not very festive." I don't say the rest of what I'm thinking: that it seems disrespectful to party on the graves of the dead.

"What could be more festive? They're dead, and we're not," Quigg says with a wild laugh before leaving Wren and me to our own devices. Wren starts helping themself to the liquor.

"I'm gonna go find Penny," I say before setting off into the dimness of the cemetery. I sense I'm going to need a sober buddy tonight. These Magni Viri kids clearly party as hard as they study.

I pass Azar and Zoe, who are making out against a tree. Azar gives me a wink when she comes up for air. After a few minutes I find Jordan sitting with Trey and Jessica, the only other Black students from Magni Viri, laughing like I've never seen him laugh before.

"Hey, have you seen Penny?" I ask him.

He beams at me, and I can't tell whether he's buzzed or just really enjoying himself. But the smile is transformative, opening him up. "Yeah, she's lying on the ground under those cedar trees over there," he says. "She's in a mood. Maybe you can cheer her up."

Based on the way he's looking at me, knowing and a little teasing, I can't help but wonder if Penny has talked about me to him, if she's told him that she likes me.

"I'll try," I say, trying not to smile too widely at the thought of Penny Dabrovsky having a crush on me.

I leave Jordan with his friends and weave my way through tombstones and undergraduates to the place he pointed. Soon, I make out Penny's long-legged form stretched out on a blanket in the grass. Her eyes are open as if she's gazing at the stars. I feel a little chill at my heart, thinking of Meredith in the library. But then Penny turns her head.

"Hey, you," she says, her voice full of affection. "I'm stargazing. Wanna join?"

My heart beats a little faster as I lie down next to her. The ground is cold, even through the blanket. I shiver, and she moves closer to me so that her side is pressed against mine.

"Do you know the names of the constellations?" I ask, wondering if she can hear my racing heart.

"Nah, not really," she says with a sigh. "Azar is kind of a space geek and could tell you most of them. But I just think they're pretty."

I roll over and lean up on my elbow to look down on her. "Jordan said something's bothering you."

"Did he now?"

"You do look kind of gloomy. Bat research not going so well?"

One side of her mouth quirks up. "Something like that."

"You can talk to me, you know. You've listened to all my problems with O'Connor and classes and stuff," I say.

Penny blinks at me. "I've only known you, like, a week and you want me to spill my guts?"

"Oh," I say, wincing. "Right."

Has it only been a week? I feel like I've been in Denfeld Hall for half a semester already, my life has changed so much. Maybe I'm assuming intimacy where there is none.

But she's smiling now. "Don't you worry your pretty head about me. Except to keep me warm. It's freezing out here," she says, pulling me back down. She tugs the blanket on her side up to cover us. I do the same with mine, realizing with a rush of happiness that she called me pretty. We lie under the stars, surrounded by the smell of damp cedar and earth, wrapped up together like a little burrito. It's cozy and close.

Around us, the party grows, everyone's voices getting louder and wilder as the night progresses. We're a little world of our own, made of silence and starlight. For a moment, I think about kissing her, but instead I press closer into her warmth and wait, giving her a chance to open up to me, if she wants to.

"I'm tired," Penny admits after a while. "I'm in a flare."

"A flare? What does that mean?"

"It's when my autoimmune disease is worse than usual. It makes me really tired and achy. It feels like gravity is pressing harder on me than on everyone else."

"Where does it hurt?" I ask.

Penny lets out a bleak laugh. "You'd be better off asking where it doesn't hurt."

"I'm sorry," I say. "That sounds rough."

"Yeah, it is," Penny says.

"I don't think anyone would mind if you left the party and went to bed."

She sighs again. "I want to be here."

"Well, I'm glad you're here," I say, laying my head on her shoulder. I breathe in the woodsy smell of her.

"Sometimes I'm afraid..." She pauses to grope for words. "I'm afraid that my illness is going to get so bad that I won't be able to do the work I want to do. I'm afraid that I don't have enough time to accomplish anything. My disease is mostly managed right now, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way."

I'm quiet for a long time, unsure how to respond. She's trusting me with something, and I don't want to fuck it up. "That sounds scary," I finally say.

"Yeah." She leans her head against mine.

"You hide it really well," I say. "Being afraid. You seem so solid and balanced compared to everyone else."

Penny snorts.

"What?"

"I actually have terrible balance. Haven't you noticed my cane?"

I laugh into her shoulder. "I had no idea you were a pun-as-humor type. I don't know if we can still be friends."

"Puns are the height of humor," Penny says in a dignified tone.

"Sure," I say.

"Okay, I told you my fear. Now you have to tell me yours," Penny says. "Even trade."

"I have a deep-seated fear of puns and the people who make them," I say seriously.

Penny elbows me in the side.

"Fine, fine," I say through a laugh. I stare up at the bright pinpricks of stars. "I'm afraid... that I'm actually just a big giant nobody who is never going to accomplish anything of value." The admission makes my cheeks burn. "I'm afraid of being mediocre." I'm afraid of never measuring up to Meredith Brown, I add silently to myself.

"Do you want commiseration or advice?" Penny asks after a moment.

"Why not both?"

"Okay. So your fear is the same as pretty much everyone's in Magni Viri. We're all terrified of being average. Terrified that we're not as brilliant as we've been led to believe or as talented as we think we are."

"So you're saying I am mediocre?" I laugh.

"You're human," Penny says. "But here's the thing I think about all the time: So what if I am ordinary? My dad is ordinary, and I think he's the best person alive. So what if I don't accomplish anything that changes the world? He didn't, and I still love and admire him. Why is my value all tied up in accomplishing things? What's so terribly wrong with being ordinary? It's not like greatness ever made anyone happy."

The love she feels for her dad is so pure it makes my chest ache. I wish I had a simple, uncomplicated feeling like that for either of my parents. I wish I had nice, dependable, ordinary parents I could be proud of, whose lives were something to emulate rather than something to escape from. But to me, ordinary has always looked like giving up. The struggle for greatness might not be the answer, but the inertia of ordinariness didn't do much for my mom either. Or for me, caught in her orbit for so long.

Of course, I can't say any of that. I search my brain for a lighter remark. "Well, have you convinced yourself with that speech yet?" I ask.

Penny laughs. "Not even a little bit."

"It was so heartfelt though," I say. "Very earnest."

Penny snorts. "I can't believe we're lying in a graveyard talking about mortality and the meaning of life while a bacchanal practically rages around us."

"We are the very definition of square."

"You want to go join the party?" Penny asks.

"All right," I say. I get up and help her to her feet. Her hands are cold.

"Thanks," she says.

We start toward the glow of the party.

"Hey, Tara?" she asks a little shyly. "Can I hold your hand?"

I glance at her. "Yeah, of course. Do you feel unsteady?" I hold my hand out to her.

"No," she says with a smile. "I just want to hold your hand." She pauses to gauge my reaction and then slips her fingers into mine. A warmth rushes up from my belly, making my skin tingle. Our hands fit together like they were always meant to be touching. My heart is racing again, and now I know she can feel it. But I can feel hers too, beating a fast tempo against my wrist.

My cheeks burn, and I'm glad it's too dark for her to see. I bite my lip to keep from smiling too hard. Penny Dabrovsky is holding my hand.

We find Wren and Quigg first, who are singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" together. Even drunk, their voices are beautiful. They both hold out their arms when they see Penny and me like they want to pull us into a group hug. Quigg is too drunk to notice Penny and me holding hands, but Wren grins at us. We join in their song, all swaying together to the music in our heads. Penny never lets go of me.

Pretty soon it doesn't matter that I haven't had a drop to drink. The energy of the party is contagious, and I feel tipsy on it alone. I laugh more than I ever have in my life. I wouldn't have guessed that Penny was popular since she's kind of reserved, but she clearly is. Loads of older Magni Viri students drift over to say hello, and soon I've met a half dozen people I've never spoken to before.

It makes me wonder why Penny has picked me of all people, when there are so many others here—boys and girls—who she could have if she wanted them. An even more unwelcome question drifts through my mind: if she ever thought of Meredith in that way; if she ever asked to hold Meredith's hand.

The thought of Meredith recalls me to where we are. We're in a cemetery, surrounded by moldering bodies, graves that have been here for centuries, as well as newer ones, whose owners have hardly had a chance to rest. We are like a mockery to the dead—so young and so alive, our blood beating hot and excited in our veins. If the roles were reversed and it were me who lay beneath the earth, beneath this thoughtless revelry, I would want to grab hold of the revelers; pull them by the ankles; suck the breath from their mouths, the blood from their veins; steal their young bodies, young hearts, young dreams for myself.

The thought makes me feel so strange and dizzy that when Penny turns to say something to me, her face inches from my own, I can't help but reach out and touch her cheek, run my thumb across her skin. The words disappear from her surprised lips, and her gaze goes to my mouth. Without another thought, I kiss her, feeling the chapped ridges of her lips beneath my own, tasting the root beer that lingers on her tongue. When I pull away, her eyes glimmer, as if catching starlight. She smiles and draws me back in for another kiss, her fingers caught up in my hair. I kiss her and kiss her as the party rages on around us, aware of nothing but her warm lips and the cold tip of her nose when it touches mine.

It feels like getting lost in the woods at night. It feels like being found.

I only pull away from her when a flame goes up from the ground a few yards away, a white-hot, burning pillar that lights up the entire cemetery. The upperclassmen who surround it scream and stagger away from the flames. I recognize Bernard in his dressing gown, his usually gaunt, exhausted face transformed by a wild, giddy laugh as he falls backward onto his ass, just a few feet away from the fire. Everyone roars with laughter, the noise of it fearful and exhilarating both. I laugh too, the sound wrenched from my chest the same way the Latin song spilled forth on the night of my initiation.

Neil stands nearby, silent and alone, leaning against a ten-foot obelisk, smoking a cigarette. He watches the fire with a strange, trancelike expression, as lost in the flames as I had been in Penny's kiss.

"What's up with him?" I ask Penny, nodding at Neil.

She laughs. "He probably ate one of Dennis's gummies and is stoned on ancient herbs or something."

Before I can respond, she pulls me down to the cold grass and kisses me with her warm lips until I forget my fears, my anxieties, until I forget my own name. When I lean back against a tombstone, Penny's limbs and hair tangled with mine, I no longer feel like we're disrespecting the dead by partying on their graves. I feel like our lives are all weaved together, the living and the dead, the past and the present, bound together in a moment that has no beginning and no end.

So when I smell Meredith's lily of the valley perfume on the air, so far from that drawer in her room, I do not feel afraid. We are all one creature tonight. We are all Magni Viri.