Chapter 7: In Which the Party Turns Out to be Pretty Wild
Chaos was the first thing that came into my mind when I got into the Worthington kitchen.
Everyone was scurrying around, something in hand. Since Donna was round, it was easy to spot her. She was putting on balloons on every corner of the house. Her face was a balanced mixture of annoyance and anger.
“What are you doing, Andrea? Help me out here!” she bellowed at me.
I came back to my senses and then immediately followed her. There were so much things to dish out: the
decorations, the tablecloths. And then we had to move the couches and the tables, because we might need to make a place for the kids to play. I was hoping for a piñata or something child-like, but no such luck. Instead, I got a huge-ass strawberry cake looming over the tables.
“And that’s how you make a cake,” Gabriel said, noticing my awe at his handicraft.
“How did you manage to build that… that thing?”
“Easy. Caffeine, red-bulls, and sleep deprivation,” he was grinning all too widely, and that was when I noticed that he hadn’t been able to stay in one place for more than two seconds.
“The effect’s that bad, huh?”
“Oh God, yes! I feel like exploding into little tiny Gabriels and start baking even more cakes,” he was bouncing up and down at this point.
Shaking my head, I put a hand on his shoulder, laughing with him. And then, suddenly, all movement came to a sudden death.
“Here she comes,” Gabriel whispered. “The little witch.”
At first I tried to not make a big deal out of it, but when I saw that little girl descend down the stair, I couldn’t help gawking at her. The resemblance that she shared with Alec was all too similar, and even the way she smiled reminded me of him. She had the very same eyes as his, a pair of orbs with green brilliance that never seem to fade and a nose a little too big on her flawless skin. The only thing that avoided her become the girl version of Alec was her hair, which was blonde.
Although when I saw the roots, I doubted that she was a real blonde.
She was wearing a pretty dress. Like Gabriel had hinted earlier, it was pink, and I thought that the dress might have been too short for her. At least her hair’s up in a nice updo and she didn’t put on too much make up.
“Everything’s still a mess!” she spoke, and immediately I inhaled. Vienna Worthington had a shrilly voice with high altitude and the ability to make her sound annoying with little efforts.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Worthington, but the party doesn’t even start in three hours,” Donna said.
“I don’t care! I want everything to be perfect! This is going my last party in junior high school and I want everyone to be amazed!”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I only needed to close my eyes and I could imagine Alec saying the exact same thing a few years earlier.
“When I come back, I want to see everything already in order!” she wasn’t even shrieking, but she might have been, considering the high altitude of her voice.
“As you wish, Missy,” I breathed after she was out. This was not going to go well…
-Vienna Worthington was, in my humblest opinion, an MTV-worth of trainwreck in the making. She filled all the qualifications: she was bossy, sassy, and possessed a huge potential to be deemed as the bitchy slut on her high school years. Plus, she was a fake-blond. Never have I ever met a 13 year old girl with so much bitchy qualities, and never have I wanted to punch a pre-pubescent girl so bad on her pre-pubescent boobs.
Nevertheless, the look on Alec’s eyes promised trouble if I ever heed to my basic desires.
As of now, in the 10th round of Vienna’s version of ‘Spin the Bottle’, I’ve relented slamming my fist on her for about twenty five times.
“Aww! The bottle’s pointing at you again, Layla! Now I want you to lick John’s nose!” Vienna said in her high-pitched voice, before then exploding into a series of throaty, long giggles that her minions followed as if on cue.
Twenty six, now.
Her minions even had the same way of laughing. Go figure. She must have trained them hard.
Layla was what you’d call a miserable doormat. She had eyeglasses with black-frames that were too thick for her sickly appearance and eyes too big on her small face. When she spoke, there would always be a hint of tremor on her tone, and upon hearing Vienna’s words (or order, in this case), she developed a bad case of hiccupping.
Poor girl, that Layla.
The John guy that she was supposed to kiss on the nose was a… I didn’t even know what word I should choose without sounding mean. Let’s just say he was a complete and utter grease-ball. Greasy slick black hair, greasy skin, and on top of that, super shiny nose with cystic acnes.
Imagine kissing that. I was sure the look on Layla’s face meant, ‘I’d rather kiss a frog, please!’
Okay, Andrea. Stop being such a big bad bully.
There were about thirty people who played along. These were the ‘cool-guys’, Vienna’s version, and the others that were not cool enough were sitting outside the circle, practically drooling as they watched us shooting pranks to one another.
The other tweens were cheering over Layla as she crawled to the place where John sat. When she passed over me, I thought that I saw tears welled up her eyes. But then again, either she undergo that kiss or undergo all the ‘boos’
and the ‘hoots’ from her peers.
Peer pressure. They really screw people.
I casted a sideway glance to Alec, who glanced back at me. I tried sending off telepathic messages, ‘Stop her you idiot! The girl’s going to have an unforgettable trauma, and your sister will be hit by bad karma!’
Alec’s narrowed his eyes, and I tried to decipher his telepathic reply.
Unfortunately, after awhile I realized that he was just looking confused.
“You have to stop her!” I whispered to him.
“How?!”
“I don’t know! Humiliate her or something. Tell her that it’s past her bedtime. Tell her that she’s going to have acnes if she forces people to do something against their wills.”
“Vienna might look like she doesn’t have any functioning brain-cells, but she’s not dumb, Andrea! She won’t listen to those nonsense!”
I saw Layla puckering her lips as she inched closer to John in an extreme slow motion. Vienna batted her eyelashes as she urged people to chant ‘Kiss Kiss Kiss’.
I jabbed my finger to Alec’s shoulder. “Listen, Alec. I’m very close into punching your sister’s boobs so that they won’t be able to develop right, which will make her ultra-insecure in high-school.”
That got Alec’s back to straighten. He still cared to her sister’s future social-class. He bit on his lips as his brows furrowed in deep thinking. I watched him muttering incoherent words, and after a while, finally he took action.
“Stop, Vienna!”
The whole actions that previously happened seemed to come into an instant halt. Even John’s nostril stopped flaring.
“Why, Alec?” Vienna put on an irresistible cute face that would have make me go ‘aww’ if only I hadn’t glimpsed on the monster inside her. I heard Alec gulped at the sight of such cute creature, but I nudged him, reminding him of the business.
“This is not right, Layla shouldn’t kiss John’s nose. Just before she licked a girl’s toe!”
Vienna giggled. “But that was funny and everyone’s having fun. Don’t you all want to have fun again?”
Her minions, John and Layla included, nodded in unison.
Freaking… hell..
“Aren’t you having fun, Alec?” Vienna asked, her high-pitched voice suddenly made me shudder.
“I-I am having fun,” Alec stammered. In school, he might be the King of females, but in his house, he was below his sister at the Worthington’s food-chain. “Still, Vienna. This won’t be fun anymore if Layla’s the only one doing all the actions. Besides, I think the bottle didn’t really point at her.”
Pouting, Vienna looked at the bottle. At the same time, I inched to Layla’s previous spot. “Oops!” I put a hand over my mouth. “I guess you caught me. The bottle’s actually pointing at me, not the bespectacled nerd.”
Vienna giggled at the way I called her friend. That little bitch. “Alec’s friend is the real victim! What should we ask her to do?”
“I want to see her kiss John’s nose!” a girl hollered.
“No! Make her kiss me!” a guy chimed in.
“Oh! Make her take off her shirt!”
“Since she’s older, she can make out with me.”
As I heard these hormonal tweens hollering and cheering, I regretted ever wanting to save poor little mousy Layla. In fact, I regretted my decision to take up fifty dollars earlier. I regretted ever stepping into the
Worthington mansion, and most of all, I regretted meeting Alec fucking Blaze, the source of all the misfortune of my life.
They were all still arguing over what kind of humiliating thing I should do. Meanwhile, I tried my best to put on a smile as Layla thanked me for my kindness.
“It’s decided then!” Vienna, as the reigning queen of these tweens, spoke on the behalf of her minions. “Andrea’s going to make out with John!”
My eyes were set on her tiny AA-cup boobs, and as I scooted
over-“No!”
Once again, Alec’s word managed to stop the time and movement, and as I looked over to him, I saw him panting. “She can’t do that, Vienna.”
The girl crossed her arms over her chest, clearly dissatisfied by her older brother. “And why can’t I, Alec?”
Alec glanced at me, and at that one second eye-contact, I could read a lot of what’s going inside his mind. Mostly, he was just afraid that I was going to ruin his sister’s chest.
“Because we’re adults and adults who kiss minors will go to jail.”
I mentally slapped my forehead.
But as absurd Alec’s reasoning was, this got all the tweens into yet another discussion. They were whispering this time, Vienna’s brilliant green eyes snooped to and fro as her mouth moved. I took the opportunity to lean at Alec.
“That’s super dumb, you idiot. As if they’d buy it.”
“I can’t think of anything else!” he whispered. “I know that look on your eyes, you’re going to aim for my sister’s breasts.”
“You really should pay me higher than fifty dollar.”
Vienna coughed to gain our attention. Seemed that they have reached a conclusion.
“Okay, Alec’s friend, you’re not going to kiss John because you might go to jail for being a pedophile,” Vienna smiled brightly. “So you’re going to make out with my brother instead.”
Say WHAT?!
“Since we’re so generous, you can pick any room in this house, and we’re going to lock you two inside for seven minutes. But by the time you get out, we want to see proofs,” her shiny white teeth glared at my eyes, while Alec was gaping at me with eyes three times their normal size. “So, get up now and have your seven minutes in heaven.”
Alec’s eyes didn’t retract back to their original size, and I just realized that my mouth was hanging open all the time.
Seven minutes in heaven? With that cretin? Yeah, right. It should be called ‘Seven Minutes in Hell’, instead.
-My feet felt like they weighed a ton each as I climbed the royal stairs of the Worthington Mansion. Alec’s broad back was right in front of my and Vienna’s narrowing eyes were following me from the back.
Trapped between the Worthingtons. Yeah, definitely my favorite position.
When we reached Alec’s room, Vienna’s voice, if possible, got even higher. “Oh my God oh my God this is truly happening!”
Her tiny little minions cheered on cue.
“So you two are going to get inside and do whatever heavenly things you adults do, and we’re going to wait for seven minutes,” Vienna’s giggles became uncontrollable as she babbled. I tell you, this girl watched too much MTV and adult-oriented movies.
Alec rolled his eyes. And then he saw me and gestured me to come inside. Before he closed the door, though, he made a little announcement to the kids: “Don’t do this at home, folks. At least not until you’re legal.”
BAM.
Seven minutes to go.
“Your sister needs help. That’s final,” were my first words as soon as the door was slammed shut.
“Believe me, the last time I saw her, she was talking about ponies and rainbows.”
“Ha. Are you sure you’re not talking about another girl?”
Alec shot me a look so homicidal I actually felt the need to stop talking. He went over to his table and started up his iMac. I swear I just looked away for a second, but when my gaze came back to his iMac’s screen, I saw porn.
Real, raw, repulsive porn.
“What the hell, Alec?!”
He put a finger on his lips as he raised the volume of his computer. The sound of the girl moaning became
increasingly louder I felt my ears would bleed. Thank God he minimized the video so that only the voice could be heard.
“I bet all of my apple products that my sister and her hangers-on are eavesdropping. Might as well give them something to listen to.”
“Shit!” I hissed. “That’s crazy!”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be getting some with you, so-“ he couldn’t finish his sentence as I already threw one of my shoes towards him. “Hey!”
“You crazy jerk!”
Alec didn’t sound offended at all. In fact, all I could see was amusement that was hovering over his face. He looked at me for one second, two, three, before
then-“Oh God Alec, you’re so gooooodd, gooooodd GOD!!!” he began shouting in a high-pitched voice that sounded suspiciously like a woman.
Fuckiiiiiinnngggg
heeeellllll-I stormed full speed towards him and he had the good sense to run before heeeellllll-I could get a hold of him. We ran across the room, circling as I tried to catch him, me while holding another of my shoes, and him with a face that looked like he was about to face death.
And damn, that went on for quite a while…
Six minutes left.
Alec sat cross-legged on the floor with a flaming red ear. I sat across him; some of his hair was still tangled around my fingers. The only sounds that could be heard were the actress enjoying herself and the actor grunting like an animal.
“That porn sounds dirty,” I muttered.
“You wanna see just to make sure?” Alec said, before then he quickly took back his words. “It was just a joke, goddamn it! I thought by now you already got an idea about my sense of humor.”
Another time, another place, another circumstances, I might have given it a thought. But I was such in a sour mood every word that came out from his mouth sounded like a bad rap. “I couldn’t appreciate the one when you pretended to be me, screaming your name.”
“Hey, a man’s got a reputation to uphold. These little boys need to know that I’m the man no woman can turn down no matter-“
Five minutes left.
Alec sat cross-legged with two flaming red ears. My fingers tingled as I pinched him a little bit too hard, but at least my chest became a little lighter as my frustration pent up at least.
The porn actress was now practically screaming.
“Say something, Alec,” I groaned. “Please say something. Better you than that fake moans.”
“How do you know that it’s fake?” Alec inquired. I gave him a pointed look. “Fine. I’ll be decent. Andrea, what do you think about my sister’s birthday party?”
“It’s fine. There are cakes, people, games… well, the games are kind of disturbing, actually.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Alec sighed.
“You too, actually,” I looked up to him. “I heard from a little bird that you’re actually not this… well, not this bastardly before.”
He laughed. It was dry and wry. “We screwed up bad growing up.”
I didn’t know how I found this courage to actually have a conversation this intense with him, but I kept going on.
“Is it the divorce?”
Alec was silent for a really long time. Long enough to make me realize that he didn’t want to answer my question.
Four minutes left.
“What about you, huh?” Alec’s voice somehow shot through all the grunting and dirty talking that the porn actor was shouting towards the actress.
“What about me?”
“Why do you work as a maid?”
I brought my knees near my head, suddenly defensive. But Alec’s face looked sincere, no judgment on his eyes.
That was one of the idioscryancies that I found out about him. He might be a horrible, dirty-minded player, but he didn’t judge.
He never did.
“What do you think? I’m short of money,” I confessed, and as soon as the words came out from my mouth, a huge ass amount of weight vaporized from my shoulder. This was the very first time I’d confessed my financial difficulties to someone from school, and boy, how good it was to be truthful once in a while.
He didn’t say anything, but he inclined his head, urging me to continue.
“My dad’s sick and my mom’s job… it doesn’t pay well,” I licked my lips. “I need to help them, and your grandmother’s offering a good sum of money.”
“I can coax her into giving you more if you want.”
This time, it was my time to be silent and quite confused on how to answer. Part of me, which consisted a good amount of 99 percent, felt offended that he was offering help so blatantly. But the other part felt like it was okay for me to take up his offer.
Finally, I shook my head. My neck ached after that, though, seemed that my skull had suddenly grew heavier as I turned down the offer. “No, thanks. I don’t need your help.”
Three minutes left.
“You should tell your friends, you know.”
I had to give him my patented ‘Are-You-Crazy?!’ Look before I could answer to this request. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Alec was bending over near his table. He was looking for my shoes that I’d previously thrown at him. “Do I need to repeat myself? Fine. You should tell your friends, you know.”
“I don’t need to tell my friends about my financial condition. I don’t need to give them ideas.”
“I don’t need to tell my friends about my financial condition. I don’t need to give them ideas.”