If I Can't Have You

I point to the sign over my shoulder. “The sign says no alcohol on the beach.”

“What are you, the party police?” Whit shakes her head and reaches into her bag, pulling out two red cups. “Live a little Robs. It’s our last summer of freedom.”

“I just don’t want to get caught.”

“Ree-lax. This isn’t the prohibition-era.” Whitney opens a bottle and pours half of a wine cooler into a red up and hands it to me. “If we get caught, we’ll tell them its juice or something.” I glance at the cup then back at her face. She shoves the cup closer to me. “Just take the cup.”

“What if my mom notices that they’re gone?”

“Did you not hear me? She’s got like fifty more in the fridge. She’ll never know, unless she’s an alcoholic. And I’ve known your mom as long as I’ve known you. I don’t get that vibe from her.”

I take the cup warily. “Fine.”

Whit pours herself a cup and snuggles in next to me. “You’ve got to loosen up, Robs. How in the heck are we supposed to party it up in college if I can’t even get you to have fun now?”

It’s not that I don’t like to have fun. It’s that I don’t like the consequences that accompany having fun. I don’t have good luck when it comes to having fun. Right after graduation one of the football players in our graduating class threw a party. I let my hair down then and had a few drinks and had a great time. The down side… The party got busted and the cops brought me home. Whit wasn’t there to witness the look on my dad’s face. It was a fun killer.

Then I got the two hour “I’m so disappointed in you, I thought you were smarter than that” lecture. I don’t want to go there again.

I take a sip from my cup, watching the tide roll in. Whit scoots closer to me as a cool breeze whips through my hair and hers. She laces her arm through mine. “You were right about this, Robs. It’s beautiful.”

“I told you.”

Another gust of wind blows and tousle’s the edge of the towel and an orange piece of paper sticks to Whit’s feet. She sets her cup down and picks it up. “What’s this?” I lean over, glancing at what appears to be a flyer. Whit squints, trying to make out what it says. The sun is almost beneath the horizon and it’s starting to get dark. “I need a light or something. I can’t read it.” She digs through her purse and whips out her cell phone. She presses a button and the phone lights up. Then we read the paper. “Oohhh!”Whit squeals. “It’s a frat party!”

I snatch the paper from her hand. “Give me that.” Whit leans in and holds her phone over the orange flyer so I can read it clearly. “A frat party in the summer seems odd doesn’t it?”

“Not really,” Whit replies. “Some people take summer classes.”

“The Start of Summer Bash,” I say aloud. I scan the address and crumble up the paper.

“Hey!” Whit protests with a frown. “What are you doing? We should totally crash that party!”

“It’s like five miles away. How will we get there?” There’s no way I’m walking five miles to go to some party for an hour if that.

“I’m sure your rents will let us borrow the car.”

“Sure. Hmmm. Yeah, dad. I’d like the car so I can go to a frat party,” I say with sarcasm. “I’m sure that will work out wonderfully.”

“That’s why we lie, silly.”

“Whit, you know me better than that. I don’t have one deceptive bone in my body. Plus you know I’m a terrible liar.”

Whitney exhales and gives me a quirky grin. Then she picks up the balled up flier and stuffs it in her purse. “We have all day tomorrow to work on your skills. Trust me, babe. You’re learning from the best.”

That’s true. Whitney is great at dreaming up random fabrications and making them believable. She could tell my mom that aliens were going to invade earth tomorrow and that the entire human population would be random test subjects and somehow make my mom believe the whole thing.

Her whole lying bit started in the sixth grade. Her parents had always been strict. No, more than strict. They kept her on lock down. Whit calls them ‘The Dictators’ and they made the rules my parents set up seem lax. Like my twelve o’clock curfew. Whitney’s mom would frown at that. “A young lady doesn’t need to stay out past ten thirty,” Whit’d say, mocking her mom. “Only harlots and drunkards roam the street after that time.” Then we’d laugh and she’d say, “Who in the hell talks like that? I swear my mom is medieval.”

In the sixth grade Whit really wanted to see a movie that was rated PG-13. Well, up until that point her parents wouldn’t let her see anything above a G rating. So Whit lied to them and told them she was seeing something else. She even went as far as memorizing bits and pieces of the other movie, from the previews so if her parents asked any questions, her lie would sound believable. Pretty soon she’d gotten so good at lying to them about everything that they were clueless. I can’t imagine the look on her mom’s face if she ever found out her daughter wasn’t a virgin.

I think my parents actually learned a little bit from Whit’s. What happens when you’re too strict with your kids? They rebel. I shudder when I think about what Whit’s going to do when we get to college and she has freedom. She’s going to go crazy. Like doing strip teases at parties and smuggling beers into the campus library in your purse crazy. I bet she’ll be thankful for my party police attitude then because my attitude might just keep her from flunking out of college. Or at least I like to think so.

“Let’s just say, hypothetically that my parents do let us take the car. How are we supposed to get home if we drink? You know I’d never ever be cool with drinking and driving.”

Whit scratches her chin and makes her “I’m thinking” face. “I’ll do it. I’ll sacrifice one night of fun to take one for the team.”

I roll my eyes and giggle. “How generous of you.”