Fresh Read online

  THE ELLIOT MCHUGH DRINK SCALE

  1 drink = Elliot is feeling warm and cozy

  2 drinks = Elliot is charming and hilarious

  3 drinks = Elliot is an asshole who will zero in on your greatest insecurities

  4 drinks = Elliot wants to DANCE

  5 drinks = Elliot is in love with everyone and wants to make out

  6 drinks = Elliot is crying in the corner

  7 drinks = Elliot is vomiting in what she thought was a trash can but is actually her purse

  8 drinks = Unknown territory

  Within thirty seconds of entering the party, we lose track of Sasha. Lucy and I walk down a long, crowded hallway full of people standing around drinking, talking, or making out. The air is thick, sticky, and smells like a mixture of cheap beer, cheap cigarettes, and cheap perfume. Someone hands me a shot glass and I don’t know if it’s meant for me or someone else but I drink it anyway.

  “See anyone you like?” I ask.

  Lucy’s cheeks flare in response. “We just got here! Besides, it’s so dark I can barely see anyone’s faces.”

  “Girl, get your eyes checked!” I tell her. “I’ve already seen four people I’d like to see naked.”

  Lucy shoots me a look. “You’d like to see everyone naked, Elliot.”

  “True, everyone gives me tender chicken.” The hallway leads into the kitchen, crowded with people watching two guys do competing keg stands, so we squeeze through until we make it to the adjoining dining room. “And don’t worry, the night is young and there are plenty of boyfriend prospects here. We’ll find you someone, I promise.”

  “Well—” Lucy starts to say but her face goes all red again and I instantly know something is up. I smack her arm to get her to keep talking. “I met someone at orientation yesterday,” she says. “At first I wasn’t interested, but then we started chatting and, I dunno, he’s sweet.”

  “And cute, I hope?”

  “I think so! He lives on our floor, I’m not sure you’ve met him yet.”

  “Well that’s convenient! Your walks of shame will be significantly shorter.”

  “His name is Brad Martin. He lives across the hall—” Lucy gets cut off by a loud cheer from the kitchen. The crowd shifts and we watch some guy fall over while trying to do a keg stand. Beer dribbles out of his mouth as he laughs from the floor. Several adjacent dudes laugh and offer him high fives. It’s then that I realize that this idiot is one of the Brads, the two dudes who live across the . . . OH NO. I look over at Lucy and say a silent prayer to whichever god happens to be listening. Please don’t let this Brad be the Brad my roommate has a crush on. But by the glint in Lucy’s beautiful doe eyes I know right away that this Brad is Brad Martin, the one Lucy is smitten with. Goddammit.

  “Lucy, no!” I say as sweet as possible. “That’s the guy you want to remember as your first boyfriend?” We look into the kitchen and watch as Brad tries to shotgun a beer from the floor, struggles to punch a hole into the can, and sprays beer all over his face. Lucy grimaces and sighs. For once, I don’t need to explain myself. Brad is making the argument for me. Lucy can’t get with a bro like Brad—I mean, look at him, reader! Look at him with your imagination! That man is a total clown, and under no circumstances will I ever let my goddess of a roommate get with someone so loud and so coarse as Brad. I give Lucy a sympathetic pat on her shoulder.

  “Come on, my love, I’m sure Brad is a very nice boy, but you can do better. And you will! Let’s find Sasha and see if Micah is still here or if he’s ditched us.” We turn to leave, but it’s Sasha who finds us first.

  “Ohmygod there you are! Micah sent me. He needs your help.” And suddenly, finding a boyfriend for Lucy is the last thing on my mind.

  “Is Micah okay? What’s going on? What happened?” My questions fly out in rapid succession as I fear the worst. Sasha leads us through a screen door off the side of the kitchen and we step into the backyard where I see Micah bending over in anguish next to a Ping-Pong table. I run to him.

  “Micah, are you all right? Where does it hurt? What are your symptoms?” I reach out and lightly rest my hands on his back. He bursts up with a high-pitched wail, spinning away from me. I look to Sasha for context, and she rolls her eyes and sighs.

  “He’s down one hundred dollars in a Ping-Pong match.” She laughs when she sees my reaction. “I know, right? I tried to get him to stop when he was way behind, but nooooo. Someone here just had to keep going, didn’t they?”

  Micah flails and points his paddle at Sasha. “I wouldn’t be behind if you had played on my behalf like I asked!”

  “I already told you,” Sasha says. “I play beer-pong, not Ping-Pong—and besides, I don’t take bets unless I’m 100 percent certain I’m going to win.” Micah huffs and throws his paddle back on the table.

  “Are you short on cash?” I start fishing around in my bra for bills. “I think I have enough in here somewhere—”

  “Thanks, but you can keep your titty money,” he sighs out. “My parents are both architects, so it’s not about the money.”

  “What is this about then?” Lucy asks.

  “I don’t like losing!” Micah whines. “My older brother is so good at Ping-Pong. He wouldn’t be out one hundred dollars right now.” I follow him to where he’s crouched into a ball. He reeks of bucket juice.

  “Well, your brother isn’t here. He’ll never know,” Lucy says to him.

  “He will when I have to ask our mom to Venmo me one hundred dollars tomorrow. She doesn’t loan me any money without requiring an itemized list of everything it’s for.”

  “Can’t you just lie?” I ask him.

  “You don’t understand,” he cries out. “My mother can tell when someone is lying to her. She always knows.”

  I look over to Lucy. “What should we do?”

  “Don’t you know how to play Ping-Pong?” Lucy asks me. “You told me your dad does.”

  “Yeah, I mean, I grew up playing with him, but—”

  Micah immediately perks up. “Ohmygod you have to play for me.”

  “Dude, no,” I say, backing away. “I’m not going to risk losing you more money.”

  “Pleassssseeeeeee.” Micah clasps his hands together. “I will so owe you and you know I’m good for it.” I take a moment to consider it. Micah is probably going to be the next Anderson Cooper, and it might be good to stockpile a few favors I can cash in a few years from now.

  “Fiiiiiine,” I groan. Micah throws his hands up and hugs me. His hugs are no hot chocolate bath. They’re all bony and sharp angles. “All right, all right. Simmer down now. Who am I playing? Who is this pong hustler that’s kicking your ass?”

  Out of nowhere, a Ping-Pong ball comes flying across the yard, bounces off the table, and gently flicks my left tit.

  “I found it! Are you ready to lose a fourth round?” she says as she emerges from behind a shed in the corner of the crowded yard.

  Ahhhhh fuck.

  It’s Rose.

  I spin around and lower my voice. “What the hell is our RA doing here?” I look to my friends for an answer but no one says shit. I thought Rose was all anti-drinking, anti-partying, anti-fun-of-any-kind. She is the last person I want to see right now and yet, here she is—in a floor-length, layered pink tulle dress and gold platform creepers. She’s pulled her hair into a topknot, and if I wasn’t so annoyed with her, I would be able to admit how cute she looks in that outfit. But I am annoyed. So, no. She doesn’t look cute. Not even a little.

  “Nope, I’m out,” I say and hand the paddle back to Micah. I throw the ball to Rose who catches it easily.

  “Double or nothing, Micah? Or you can just give up now. I take cash only,” she says. And I quickly find that the competitive asshole side of myself is beginning to stir. I don’t like it when someone fucks with my friends, especially when that someone is doing it in a goddamn tutu.

  “All right, fine,” I say to Micah, who looks thrilled. “I got this.”

  “Yassss
queen!” he shouts behind me as I take his place at the table across from Rose. She tosses me the ball.

  “Double or nothing?” Rose asks me this time.

  “Elliot, no! I can’t afford to—” Micah starts to say but I ignore him.

  “Yes,” I say to Rose and then I get a great idea. “But I’d like to make an addendum. If I win, Micah gets his money, Lucy and I get to put the fairy lights back up, and you buy me more detergent.” Rose looks annoyed. This is not what she wanted. Good.

  “First of all,” she says, “I know you have already put the lights back up so you can’t bet those, and second of all, have you changed out one of your courses yet like I told you to?”

  “Yes,” I say as I toss her back the ball.

  “Any classes other than the speech one that’s required for all freshmen?”

  “Nope.” I give her an arrogant smile.

  “Fine, then,” she says, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I accept the new terms. But if I win, Micah owes me double, the fairy lights come down for good, and you have to change one of your classes.” She tilts her chin up toward me. A challenge.

  “Deal,” I say.

  “Would you like a warm-up point?” Rose asks smugly.

  “No thanks, I’m good.” I stretch my neck side to side and spin the paddle a few times in my hand, getting a good feel for it.

  “Are you sure?” She asks and tosses me back the ball, but this time I spike it over the net with a fast topspin that rockets off the edge of her side of the table. Her jaw drops and all the smugness drains from her face.

  “Let’s do this.” I grin.

  “. . . sixty, eighty, one hundred. You can claim the other hundred from Micah tomorrow,” I say as I reach into my bra to pull out the cash and hand it over to Rose. OH YES, THAT’S RIGHT. I FUCKING LOST. YOU TOTALLY THOUGHT I HAD THIS SHIT IN THE BAG, DIDN’T YOU? WELL, GUESS WHAT? SO DID I. I grew up playing pong with my dad, so naturally I thought I was top bitch with my fancy topspin and my suave undercuts, but here comes that sexy-ass dick of an RA, Rose, who grew up with a Ping-Pong ball machine in her house because her grandfather WAS A GODDAMN PROFESSIONAL TABLE TENNIS PLAYER. So, yeah. She smoked my ass out there and now I have to pay up.

  “And your class?” Rose stands there with one hip cocked, all self-assured and annoying.

  “Seriously? Right now? You want me to change my class while we’re at a party?”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who bet—AND LOST. So let’s see it. Pull up the Emerson app on your phone.”2

  “I strongly resent this,” I bemoan as I do as I’m told. I pull open the app and flip it to my schedule and show her the screen, but she grabs the phone out of my hand and starts swiping and tapping. “Hey! What are you doing?” I cry out as I try to get my phone back.

  “Annnnd there! Done! I switched one of your classes for you. You’re welcome.” She tosses the phone back to me and I drop it.

  “What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?!?” I pick up my phone and frantically scroll through the app to find out what she did to my schedule. “Noooo! You switched out Queer Dreams for what—Screenwriting?!?!?!?!?!?!”

  She crosses her arms and looks defiant. “Yes, I think you’d be great at it.”

  “Based on what evidence?!”

  “She’d be great at what?” An ultra-pale girl with waist-length blue hair appears behind Rose and wraps her arms around Rose’s waist.

  “I think she’d be great at screenwriting,” Rose tells her. “Monica, this is Elliot. She’s a freshman on my floor. Elliot, this is my girlfriend, Monica.” Rose pulls away from Monica to let her shake my hand but Monica doesn’t go for it so I don’t either.

  “Nice to meet you, Monica,” I say to her and then to Rose, “May I be excused? Or is there some other way you’d like to make me miserable?”

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll think of something later, but for now you can go.” I roll my eyes at her and leave in search of my friends who abandoned ship when it was clear I was going to lose.

  Back inside the kitchen, I shove my way to the fridge in an attempt to find something, anything with alcohol, but out of the corner of my eye I see a very drunk Brad slumped over in the corner by the trash bags. I try to backpedal out of the kitchen, but he spots me and loses his shit. He points at me from the floor and shouts.

  “Elllllliiiiiiotttttttt!”

  “Um, hey, Brad,” I say, annoyed that he’s drawing the attention of the entire room to me.

  “Everyone, this is my neighbor Ellioooot,” he says to his bros. They help him off the sticky floor and he stumbles and plows into me. He slumps a beefy arm around my shoulders and I get a good whiff of Eau de Drunk Brad. “You’re pretty,” he slurs into my ear while trying to touch my hair. “Hey, how come you have a boy’s name?” I swat him away and remove his heavy limb from my shoulders. I grab an empty chair from the kitchen table and maneuver his hulking, drunk body onto it.

  “You’re drunk, dude. Maybe you should slow down a bit.” I go to fill him a glass of water but he grabs my hand, pulling me back to him. He looks at my hand for a long time and then giggles.

  “You have the biggest hands for a girl I’ve ever seen,” he says and then giggles some more. He sounds like a drunk baby when he laughs. He calls out to his boys, “Yooooo! Come look at Elliot’s hands! They’re huuuuge! Hey Elliot, did you know you have man-hands?” He asks, turning his attention back to me.

  “I wasn’t aware that hands could be gendered, but yes, I know my hands are big,” I say as I wriggle my hand free from his sticky grip so I can get him some freaking water.

  “Need some help?” someone says out of frame.

  “Could you fill up a glass of water?” I turn around to ask and am pleasantly surprised to find a white guy who isn’t a total frat bro. Usually I’m pretty good at sizing people up, but there’s something about this guy I can’t quite put my finger on. He’s very clearly in shape but so obviously not a jock by the way he’s dressed in all black and a beanie. He has a tattoo on his forearm that could easily place him with the art scene, but he seems way too outgoing to roll with that kind of crowd. He’s the kind of guy you can’t easily place at a lunch table in the cafeteria because he could sit at all of them. He’s perfect for Lucy. Mystery boy goes to the sink, fills a cup with water, and hands it to the drunk baby, who takes a sip and makes a sour face.

  “What this? This issssn’t beer,” Brad slurs. He stuffs his hands into his armpits like a six-year-old. “I want another beer.”

  “It’s a new kind of tasteless beer,” I say to Brad and then redirect my attention to this new, yet-to-be-named character. “Thanks,” I say to him. Tall, Dark, and Mysterious narrows his eyes and looks at me curiously, like he’s trying to see if I’m real or just a mirage.

  “You go to Emerson too?” I nod yes. “You a freshman or a transfer?” he asks and I’m surprised he doesn’t instantly suspect me of being fresh from the womb.

  “Freshman.”

  “Same,” he says. “You live in the LB?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’m on the third floor.” He grabs two beers from the fridge, tosses me one and opens the other as he pops himself up on the kitchen counter.

  “Nice. I live on the eighth floor.”

  “The eighth floor is nice, but the third floor is far superior,” I tell him.

  He pauses midsip. “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “The third floor is the only residential floor that retains some of the original materials and structure of the building. They razed the LB in 2017 because it’s old as shit and was falling apart but once they stripped it down, they realized everything up to the third floor could be restored but had to replace all the upper floors. I dunno, I guess I just think that’s cool.”

  He sets the beer down and looks at me blankly. “You’re weird, aren’t you,” he says as a statement rather than a question.

  “Probably,” I sigh. I eye him, study him, scrutinize him, other adjective for judge him, and right as he open
s his mouth to say something else, I get my second brilliant idea of the night.3 “Hey, are you planning on staying awhile?”

  “I just got here like ten minutes ago so I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Why? What’s up?”

  “Oh, I just have someone I’d really like you to meet. Would you do me a favor and meet me in the living room in five minutes?”

  “Sure?” He looks confused but also intrigued. Intrigued is good. Intrigued I can work with. I gulp down the last of my beer and throw the can on the floor among all the other empty cans. Having invented the Elliot McHugh Drink Scale, I am well aware of the state of mind three drinks puts me in, so I steal someone’s half-empty bottle of vodka and pour myself two shots, getting me to level 5.4

  “Okay, see you in a few!” I call back to him as I scamper out of the kitchen. I find my friends sitting outside on the front stoop. “Wooo!” I shout when I see them. “Who’s ready to go dancing?”

  Micah smacks me in the arm as I walk past him. “You owe me one hundred dollars!”

  “Hey! I never promised you a win. That’s on you,” I tell him. “And by the way, you need to pay Rose back in cash tomorrow or she’s going to start charging you interest like a bank.”

  “And you lost us our last strand of fairy lights!” Lucy yells next.

  “Yeahhhh, okay, that one’s on me,” I reply, feeling genuinely sorry I ruined my roommate’s dream of achieving the perfect dorm-room aesthetic. I need to make things right. “If I rub my butt all up on you on the dance floor, will that make it better or worse?” I ask her.

  “Better,” Lucy says with a wink, and I am so in love with my roommate and her willingness to forgive so easily. I herd Sasha, Micah, and Lucy back into the house and onto the dance floor and before I know it, everyone has completely forgotten about the Ping-Pong disaster and we’re having the time of our lives. The weed fairy floats by again, and this time I take him up on his offer and eat a gummy. While we dance, I keep my eyes glued to the hallway, hoping to spot the mystery guy.