Happy Birthday to Me Again (Birthday Trilogy, Book 2) (9 page)

“What is it?”

I made my way
back over to her, and she slipped a flyer in my hands. “I don’t know if you’re
busy on Friday night, but some friends of mine are throwing a party over in
Damonte Ranch. You and your girlfriend should come.”

I analyzed the
flyer for a moment before sticking it in my pocket. “Oh… sure… thanks.”

“So you’ll
come?”

“Maybe… we’ll
see.”

I dumped my tray
at the trashcans and meandered out of the food court. As I made my way into
Nordstrom’s to find something special for Liesel, I brought the flyer out from
my pocket and looked at it again. This was to be a college party, the kind I
still hadn’t been to, obviously, since I had pushed off going to Yale for a
year.

We shall see,
I thought.

---

I ended up
buying Liesel a simple but elegant necklace, and I held the birthday gift in my
hands on Friday afternoon when I got the call that would inevitably change the
rest of my day.

“Hey sweetie!”
Liesel yelled over the phone, laughter echoing all around her. It sounded like
she was already celebrating her nineteenth birthday, even though there was
still one more day to go.

“Hey honey, how
are you?”

“Any plans tonight?”

“Nothin. You?”

“Well, I was
wondering, since we’re going out for my birthday
tomorrow
night…”

“What?” I asked,
smiling and sitting up on my bed. “It’s your
birthday
tomorrow?”

She just giggled
on the other end. “Very funny, Cameron.”

“Well, shit. I have
to start thinking of a curse I can put on
you
!”

“Yeah, go ahead.
Let’s see if you can come up with something. I’ll bite my fingers in
anticipation.” She paused for a moment, and I heard two girls’ voices in the
background. “So, no, anyway, my girlfriends here wanted to take me out for my
birthday tonight… we’re gonna go to dinner, see that new Natalie Portman movie,
and then maybe try to sneak into a bar or something.”

“Wow, Leese,
that sounds like a lot of fun.”

“Yeah, it should
be interesting. Is that all right? I promise we’ll get to see a lot of each
other tomorrow.”

“That sounds
perfect. You have fun.”

“I will,” she
said. “I love you.”

“Love you too.”

I hung up the
phone and tossed it on the bed. I held out the necklace, trying to decipher the
perfect way to present it to her at our special dinner tomorrow night. I
brought it down to my nightstand, then diverted my attention to the right.

The flyer sat
next to the remote control on my dresser drawer, calling out to me, begging for
me to take another look at it.

I laid down on
my bed, resting my head against three comfy pillows, and read the details on
the flyer again. This party sounded like a blast.
 

I can just stop in and say hello,
I thought.
Stay twenty minutes. Ten minutes. Just make an appearance. Can’t hurt.

I walked down
toward my bathroom, thinking how great it was for Liesel to have those friends
at Uncle Tony’s. She needed them, people besides her fiancée to take her out
for a night on the town and have some fun. And as much as I loved Liesel, it
also gave me small chunks of time to
myself
.

I opened the
door to the bathroom, just as Kimber appeared at the end of the hallway, a sour
look plastered on her usually radiant face. “Oh,” I said. “Hey.”

It was nice to
see Kimber on a daily basis, still living at the house. I knew moving to New
Haven later this coming summer would hinder our relationship a little. Liesel
and I were going to get an apartment near Yale and finally live together for
the first time. I would attend school while she would find a new job in the
area.
Where she’ll have to make new
friends,
I thought.

A whole hell of
a lot was to change in a few months, and I wasn’t sure if I’d be ready for it.
It’s the next chapter of your life, Cameron.
Think positive.

“Hey,” my sister
said in a downbeat tone, brushing past me toward her bedroom.

“Is everything
all right?”

“Fine,” she
said, stepping into her room and slamming the door behind her.

I wasn’t sure if
the brotherly thing to do at that moment was to knock on her door and press the
matter further, or just leave her alone. When I heard the pleasant, soothing
sounds of her violin start echoing down the hall, I decided on the latter.

I stepped into
the bathroom and analyzed my face. I needed a shave.

Tonight, I’m going out.

---

The party was
hopping way more than I thought it would be, so much so that I had to park two
blocks down from where the giant mansion was located. It truly was a mob scene,
with college students ranging from the ages of eighteen to twenty-two. Every
ethnicity was accounted for, as was every clique.

“ID!” a young
man shouted at me as I entered the small doorway. I froze in my tracks and
stared at him, not sure what to do.
When
I went to that strip club, they didn’t need an ID. Where’s an accelerated aging
curse when you need one?

“I’m sorry?”

He grabbed
me—no, more like tackled me—before laughing and handing me a beer.
“Just joking with you man. Have fun!”

I accepted the
beer and stepped inside, seeing groups of people dancing in a neon-lit room on
the left and playing beer pong in a small room on the right.

I thought about
ascending the long staircase before me, when I caught sight of a clearly
inebriated Hannah down the hall. She was dressed in a skimpy white top that was
nearly see-through, and black shorts that showcased most of her luscious,
tanned legs.

“Cameron! You
made it!” She rushed up to me and kissed me on the cheek. She backed away, an
embarrassed look on her face. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is your girlfriend here?”

“Uhh… no, she’s
not.”

“Her loss!” she shouted,
grabbing my hands and bringing me toward the spacious backyard.

Everything in my
being was telling me to get out of there, that nothing good could result from
my actions tonight, but I didn’t listen to any of the warnings. I just followed
Hannah outside, all the way up to a porch that looked out over a pool and a hot
tub. Despite it being fairly cold outside, the pool was almost as crowded as
the hot tub.

“Did you find
the place all right?” Hannah shouted, taking a swig of a beer.

I drank some of mine,
too. “Yeah, I did. I’ve never actually been over to this part of town before!”

“Really? I think
it’s kind of nice over here!”

I could barely
hear her. Loud alternative music was blasting through the nearby speakers.
“What?”

She leaned in
closer to me. “I said it’s nice over here!”

“Yeah, I’m
enjoying my beer! Thanks!”

She just shook
her head and laughed, downing the rest of her drink and tossing it in the
bushes below the porch.

“You wanna find
a more quiet spot?” Hannah shouted.

That
sentence I could hear. “Sure!”

She pulled me
back inside the house, leading me through the beer pong room, kitchen, and
living room area. I soon found myself in a long hallway that led to a closed
door. The voices behind me started fading, and I wondered where this girl was
taking me.

“Where
are—”

“Just trust me,”
she interrupted.

She opened the
door to reveal a dark, spiral staircase, one that could lead to a basement, a
torture chamber, or the hole in the center of the Earth, for all I knew. Again,
Hannah took my hand and guided me down the surprisingly cramped stairwell, one
barely big enough for the two of us to fit inside.

As we descended
the staircase, I shrugged off my fears, finally hearing voices coming from the
room below. Stepping into the large basement room, with its own bar, three
couches, and a large sixty inch screen television, I realized that I had found
true paradise. Twenty, maybe twenty-five people were in the room, all talking
at a thankfully medium decibel level. A rap music video was playing on the
large HD screen, but only two or three people in the room were watching it.
Some were drinking. Most were enjoying something slightly more mind altering.

“Come on,”
Hannah said.

We sat down on
the couch furthest away from the TV, where two girls who looked no older than
fifteen were sitting together enjoying a joint. I about had a heart attack when
the girl furthest the armrest turned to me. She looked
exactly
like Kimber.

“Can we join in
on that?” Hannah asked.

The two girls
looked so stoned that they probably would have happily passed their joint down
to us if we were two homeless men who had stopped in from the street to blaze
for a few minutes and eat all the cereal in the house.

“Sure,” the
Asian girl next to Hannah said.

“Here you go,”
the Kimber look-a-like added, as she handed the joint to Hannah.

She took a few
hits and then passed it to me. I felt embarrassed that, despite my popularity
in high school, I had only tried pot twice, and both times I had been too drunk
to really enjoy the experience. I felt confident that I wouldn’t look like an
idiot taking a few puffs, but I wasn’t entirely sure.

“I probably
shouldn’t,” I said, pushing the joint away. “I have a big day tomorrow,
and—”

“Oh, come on,
Cameron. Live a little.”

All three girls
looked at me like they wanted to gang up on me and start scratching my face off
if I didn’t at least try it. So I did. I took a small hit and passed it back to
Hannah.

“That doesn’t
count!” she shouted. “Take a
real
hit. Suck it in. Come on.”

I licked my lips
and nodded. I decided to really go for it. I took the joint and sucked in the
smoke as hard as I could, for five seconds or more, and then let the smoke
enter my lungs like I never wanted it to leave. I nodded, the three girls
smiling at me, my eyes watering up, the smoke entering every crevice in my
body.

Finally I
breathed out. Then I started coughing. And then I felt like I wanted to die.

“Oh… Oh, God…
water
…”

“Cameron? Are
you OK?”

I just shook my head
as I stood up and raced over to the bar, my coughing accelerating at an
alarming rate. I felt like I was dying. Everyone just stared at me, confused,
like I was putting on a show. I needed water. But I couldn’t find a bottle of
water anywhere. I made my way to the sink, but there were no cups anywhere.

“Where…” I
couldn’t stop coughing. “Cups?”

“Cameron!”
Hannah shouted. “In the pantry!”

I turned to my
left to see a pantry door halfway open, the light on, a pack of bottled waters
in the back. I slammed my arm over my mouth as I continued to cough, wondering
if I could make it the fifteen steps into the closet.

But I did. I
slashed the plastic off the pack of twenty-four bottled waters and grabbed the
first bottle to the left, downing it like I hadn’t taken a sip of water in
days. I finished it, and then started chugging a second bottle. I spit up some
of the water and coughed some more. But I finally felt like I would survive the
ordeal.
Don’t die, Cameron. Not here.
Especially not here.

As I grabbed for
a third bottle, I heard the door lock behind me, followed by an odd tapping
sound. I turned around to see Hannah, looking a bit devilish under the one
bright light bulb on the ceiling, staring at me with wanting, feverish eyes,
her elongated fingernails tapping against the locked pantry door.

“Feeling any
better?” she asked.

“Umm… umm,
yeah.” I walked up to her. “We should get back.” I brought my hand toward the
doorknob, but she slapped it away.

“Where do you
think you’re going?”

“Back to the
party?”

“I don’t think
so.” She shook her head, and then started licking her lips.

“What are you
doing?”

She looked down
and brought her hands toward my rib cage.

“What are
you—”

“You want me to
stop?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why aren’t
you moving?”

She had a point.
I wasn’t exactly rushing to get out of the pantry. Here I was, somehow alone
with this dangerous, sultry, breathtakingly beautiful woman. And she wanted me.
Every part of me.

“I can’t do
this,” I said. “I have a girlfriend.”

“So?”

“So? I’m
taken
!”

I tried to reach
for the door again, but Hannah pushed against my chest. I took a few steps
back, all the way against the cases of food behind the bottled waters. I
realized I wasn’t getting out of this pantry alive.

“You’re not
really
getting married, are you?” she
asked.

“What?”

“Come on. You’re
so young, Cameron. Think of all that you’d miss…”

She rushed up to
me so fast I could barely react. She grabbed my ass with both her hands and
planted her lips against mine. This chick was
strong
.

“Don’t fight it,”
Hannah said, pulling her lips away for a quick second. Then she kissed me
again, this time sticking her tongue in my mouth.

This sensual,
mind-blowing kiss lasted for five or six seconds, before I finally managed to
push her away.

“You don’t
really
want her, do you, Cameron?” she
asked with a chilling smile on her face.

“I have to go.”

I stepped toward
the pantry door, this time with all the physical prowess I needed to not only
get out of the pantry, but get out of this mansion and party. Surprisingly, she
didn’t stop me this time.

But as I walked
past her, she said this: “I want you, Cameron. I want you bad.”

She slipped her
phone number in my back pocket before I had a chance to stop her. I turned to
her one more time.

“Don’t be
stupid,” she said. “Don’t throw your life away. Let the girl down easy. And
call me, OK?”

I just shook my
head and stampeded out of the pantry. Everybody in the basement room stared at
me as I ran up the stairs. I exited the mansion and safely made it to my car.
It wasn’t until I was driving down the road and turning onto a quiet side
street that I felt
truly
safe.

Shit,
I thought.
Shit shit
shit!

I was so mad at
myself for going to this party. I had Liesel’s birthday tomorrow, a wedding in
a few short weeks. Everything had been going smoothly. And now… well… this girl
had spoken to all my insecurities.

That was weird. Really, really weird.

But I had to
admit.
I liked it.

As I drove home,
checking my phone to see if Liesel had called or not—she hadn’t—I
started wondering, really for the first time since I popped the question, if I
truly loved Liesel because of who she was, or because of what she did for me
last summer. Did I really want to spend the rest of my life with this girl?

Marrying Liesel means forever, Cam. You
understand? Forever.

At this point I
just wanted to get home and sleep it off. I knew I’d feel differently in the
morning. By Liesel’s birthday dinner tomorrow night, I’d be back to normal. I
knew it. I was sure of it.

But I had one
more thought about the evening as I pulled into my driveway, one that hadn’t
even occurred to me until now.

I told Hannah I had a girlfriend…

But did I ever tell her I was getting
married?

---

“Hey
stranger!”

I was back in
the car, back on the road, readying myself for one of the most expensive
dinners of my life that I actually had to pay for. It was Liesel’s nineteenth
birthday, and I decided to pull out all the stops. I was taking her to a
charming little French bistro in downtown Reno called Boujois that offered
three-course meals, authentic (and pricey) old-school French wines, and much
more. Liesel had been telling me for the last few months that she really wanted
to get out of Reno and travel more, see more of the world. She said she had
felt semi-imprisoned for the last few years and wanted her life to change and
open up more. Liesel, in a sense, wanted freedom.

One of the reasons why she wants to marry
me,
I thought, before
realizing I had just blanked on the last couple of sentences Wesley had been
saying to me over the phone.

“What was that,
Wes?”

“I was just
curious where you were taking her tonight, that’s all.”

“Oh. I’m taking
her to that French restaurant Boujois.”

“Can’t say I’ve
ever been there,” he said.

“It’s amazing.
I’ll have my choice between orange-dusted rabbit and cinnamon noodle duckfat.”

“Sounds
delicious.”

“Oh it will be.
At only eighty bucks a dish, it better be!”

He laughed, but
it sounded forced. There was awkward silence for a few moments. I still hadn’t
deciphered the reason for his call.

“So what’s up,
Wes? You seem like you have something on your mind.”

“Well, see, it’s
about the wedding.”

That reminds me.
“Yeah, uhh, speaking of the wedding, I
had something to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

“I know we’ve
had our differences, and I know we don’t see that much of each other anymore.
But I’ve been doing some thinking, and it’d be my honor if…”

Silence. Then:
“If what?”

“Wes, I want you
to be my best man.”

I turned to my
left to see the Reno Sparks Convention Center, the sight of last year’s
memorably awkward prom. I turned my eyes back toward the road.

Wes didn’t say
anything for a moment. I thought he was going to start crying or something.
“Cam, that’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.”

I smiled. “So
you’ll do it?”

I pulled off
onto Kietzke Lane. Liesel’s apartment was just minutes away.

“Cameron…”
Wesley started. I could hear fear in his voice.

“What?”

“It’s just…
classes have gotten insane these last few weeks, and I have finals coming up,
you know, the
week
after your
wedding…”

My jaw dropped.
“Yeah, so?”

“I don’t think
I’m gonna be able to make it, Cam.”

If Wesley had
been sitting in the passenger seat, I would’ve smacked him in the forehead. But
unfortunately, he was hundreds of miles away, and the most I could do was
scream into the phone.

“WHAT?”

“It’s
nothing personal. It’s just—”

“You’re not
gonna come to my wedding, Wes?
Seriously
?”

Silence ensued.
Finally, I heard Wesley say simply, and softly, “I’m sorry.”

I shook my head,
so wrapped up in my emotions that I almost hit the street lamp outside Liesel’s
complex. I pulled up to the curb and slammed on the brakes.

I was about to
hang up the phone when Wesley continued. “Come on, Cameron, let’s get serious.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re marrying
Liesel because of what happened to you last year. You know it, and I know it.
You don’t
really
love her. And you
don’t really want to marry her. If you go through with this, you’re gonna make
one of the biggest mistakes of your life, I swear.”

I was so enraged
I slammed my fist down against the dashboard. “How the hell would you know? How
would you know what I feel? You haven’t even been—”

“Cameron!”

The L.A.
transplant was serious. I had never heard him be this up front and honest with
me since that last despairing night in the hospital when he showed me his
video. This time, however, he was being honest with me in a way that was
pissing me the hell off.

“Cameron, listen
to me,” Wesley continued. “You can’t marry her. You’re gonna regret it.”

“This
conversation’s over.” I turned off the power to my phone, feeling pretty proud
of myself for not lashing every expletive at Wesley I could think of.

I threw the
phone harder than necessary into my glove compartment and slammed my head back
against the headrest. I sat in the car completely still, the ignition, music,
and AC turned off. I just wallowed in silence, for a minute or more, feeling my
face turn red.

What if he’s right?
I couldn’t help but think.
Have I rushed into this too quickly?

It was at that
moment I saw Liesel heading down the sidewalk, mere seconds away from the
passenger side door. I didn’t have time to ponder the matter further. I simply
stepped outside the car and shut my door.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey you.”

“How did you
know I was here?”

“I saw you from
my window. Oh, Cameron…”

She rushed up to
me and wrapped her arms around me. She looked more stunning than ever. She also
smelled so sweet I wanted to start kissing her all over. Decked out in a dark
red dress, with the color of her hair and lipstick matching, she looked like a
devilish figure tonight—the most radiant devilish figure to have ever
stepped inside the biggest little city in the world.

She kissed me,
and I kissed her back. All of my stresses and worries drained from my senses.
All I could consider at this moment was how much love I felt for this special
girl before me.

“You look so
pretty, Leese.”

“Thanks, Cam.”

I kissed her on
her cheek. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

She snickered.
“Be careful with that phrase. You know it’s gotten us into trouble before.”

I still couldn’t
really joke about last year’s traumatic events, but I managed a laugh through
my nose as I opened the passenger side door for Liesel.

“Such a
gentleman,” she said as she sat down. I slammed the door, re-adjusted my belt,
took a deep breath, and made my way to the driver’s side.

A gentleman who really doesn’t want to
break your heart.

---

“So
did you do anything exciting last night?”

I nearly choked
on my water, the way comedians do in movies to get a cheap laugh from the
audience. Except with me I not only swallowed the water down the wrong pipe, I
literally had an ice cube stuck in my throat for a few seconds.

“Cam? You all
right?”

I signaled that
I was, and turned around, slammed my fist against my throat, and happily sighed
as I felt the giant ice cube slide down my esophagus into my stomach. I
coughed, twice, before smiling.

“Fine.”

“I had an
amazing time with the girls last night,” she said. “We were out so late that
when I got home the sun was coming out.”

“You’re joking.”
I took a sip of wine, which, while morbidly expensive, tasted tart, like a
bitter fruit juice. I was just thankful the kooky waiter hadn’t asked for an
ID. “What did you guys do so late?”

“They took me to
some bars downtown. You know they’re both, like, twenty-four, so they could
actually sneak me in everywhere. I’m thankful I don’t look super young for my
age. It might’ve made things more difficult.”

“So did you get
drunk?”

She shrugged. “I
had a few drinks. I don’t know. Didn’t really feel much.”

“Hmm. Let’s see
how you do with your wine there.” Liesel and I were sharing the expensive
bottle, which was still half full.
 

The bottle was
nearly empty, however, when we finally got our food over an hour later. It was
Saturday night, definitely loud and crowded inside the posh, intimate
restaurant, but I was particularly shocked with the food delay. To make matters
worse, we hadn’t ordered appetizers. I wasn’t just hungry; I was famished.
Famished and irritable.

“Oooooh, this
looks delicious,” Liesel said, licking her lips as she marveled at her filet
mignon in port wine truffle sauce.

As the
not-French-at-all waiter set down my beef bourguignon, I turned to him, as calm
as can be, and said: “May I just ask, what took so long with the food?”

“We’re not like
every restaurant in Reno, monsieur,” the plump, middle-aged waiter said,
noticeably pronouncing ‘monsieur’ as ‘mon-syer.’ “We make our food here from
scratch, only organic, only from the finest ingredients. You’ll only
find—”