What's Important Is Feeling: Stories by Adam Wilson Page B

his turn to hit the joint. Richie held my sister across the waist, and I knew she liked it even though she was terrified.
    Jane still talks about that ride like it’s the most dangerous thing she’s ever done. “Fifteen with open containers and narcotics. We’re lucky we didn’t die.” She sounds like an after-school special.
    For Jane it was a one-timer: reckless youth, laughed over now. I won’t say it’s because Grandpa never touched her that she turned out normal and I didn’t. That’s what my therapist says, but she’s wrong.
    I think, mostly, the problem was my parents and their shitty DNA. Sometimes, people with absent parents are forced to grow up too fast. I was the opposite; I stayed a child. Jane grew up for me; that’s what twins are for.
    In that backseat we were reunited. Jane hit a joint for the first time, and Squirrel ran over a squirrel.
    The dance was in the cafeteria, which had been made to look like the future. Everything was silver foil, and the nerds were dressed in expensive-looking Star Trek costumes. The DJ played cheesy techno, and Squirrel kissed Cress from the get-go, off in the corner, hands clutching her butt. Deep and I walked circles complaining about the music. Sis and Richie danced slow, arms extended and parallel.
    At the center of the dance floor was Celia, alight in gold tights and Princess Leia double-buns. She danced the way she interacted with her friends—not with , but about —orbiting, distracted, rhythmically aligned to the offbeat, the drummer’s spaces. The rat-a-tat-tat-ness came from inside her, as if her body’s movements controlled the music and not the other way around.
    I watched from a distance, standing still, forgetting the other people, and that I was no longer allowed to stare. She danced alone, no boys in sight. I watched her dip between people, spinning like a slo-mo top, pirouette perfect as a windup doll’s. “Stop staring at her,” Deep said.
    There was a party after. We weren’t supposed to know about it, but someone told someone and Squirrel had a car. Jose’s parents were out of town.
    There was a white felt pool table in the living room. Out back it was like every movie about high school. Girls swam in bras, splashing, giggling. Deep and I played our roles. We sat in the corner with a small plastic bong. Squirrel and Cress had gone upstairs. There were empty rooms upstairs: guest rooms, the maid’s room. I wondered where Celia was. I hoped she wasn’t upstairs. I imagined her upstairs.
    Richie had walked Jane to the door of our house, and we’d made smooching sounds and laughed.
    The party was boring because no one talked to Deep and me, and we acted like we didn’t want anyone to talk to us. We stole graham crackers and set up shop in the treehouse, smoking cigarettes and taking slugs from the unboxed silver foil bag of red wine that Squirrel’s brother had given us with the advice, “If you give her enough of this shit, she’ll at least let you finger her.”
    Deep wasn’t much of a talker. “Fuck this shit,” he said, and I said, “Yeah, fuck this shit,” and we continued saying things like that, or variations: I’d fuck the shit out of these bitches, if these bitches want to fuck with me I’ll fuck them up, maybe that fuckin’ bitch will want to lick my shit and then fuck that shit, fuckin’ A, fuck double fuck.
    The sun came up. Celia woke in a deck chair. She stood and stretched, unaware of being watched. She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table and pulled one to her lip. She fumbled for a lighter, looked around, and saw me.
    I reached into my pocket, held up my lighter. Celia nodded.
    I walked toward her, dancing off-balance around the empty beers and sleeping bodies. Celia shivered and wrapped her arms around her chest. I lit her cigarette and lit one for myself.
    We didn’t say anything, just watched the sunlight move across the yard, illuminating the sleeping bodies as if they were casualties of war,