Jess, Peter, the Party and the Events Following

Jess, Peter, the Party and the Events Following
by Ryan Brosmer

“I think I’m going to wear a hoodie tonight.  Or a sweater.  Something warm,” Jess said, shoving clothes around in her closet. The system she had organized her closet by when she moved in, first by season then color, had already been thrown into disarray within a few days of being in her new apartment.
“Seriously?” Peter asked. “It’s August. You do know that, right?” The contorted look on his face was a complete physical manifestation of his condescendingly confused tone of voice.
“I know it’s August. I’ve been sweating my balls off all week carrying stuff up three flights of stairs to get this place set up, and having only one window unit cooling the whole place makes it seem a lot bigger than it is, but in the worst way.”
“Jess, first off, you have no balls, so I think you’re exaggerating.  Second, if you did have balls, and if the heat was intense enough to cause them to melt off of your body, then that would only lend itself to what I’m trying to explain to you. You just made my point for me. You said it yourself. It’s fucking hot, and it’s going to be even hotter inside with all of those people.” The truth was that Peter didn’t really care that Jess wanted to wear a hoodie, or whatever, despite the average low temperature at night had been 80 degrees for the last week. His worry wasn’t for her comfort. He was more worried that Jess deciding on a new wardrobe would only act to further delay their plans for the evening.
Peter had come over to Jess’s new apartment at nine, expecting, having been promised, that she would be ready. He was going to meet Jess downstairs and then head off to a party.  When he arrived, Jess had pleaded with Peter come upstairs and see her new place. It was the first time Jess was really living on her own and the excitement was painted across her face, glowing through her makeup.
It was the Friday before the start of the fall semester, Jess’s second year at college. She had lived in the dorms her first year. It was one of the great 17-floor monstrosities that the university had built on top of a row of storefronts that had been around for more than a century before.
Jess was on the 15th floor, but she ended up occupying the dorms for only a single semester. She didn’t like the hall bathrooms. And she didn’t like the 3 a.m. fire drills that had her climbing down 14 flights of stairs and out onto the street in her pajamas and blind from a lack of contact lenses.
Her favorite part of the dorm life had been her roommate, Maggie.  After one semester of rooming together they both decided they loved living with each other but hated living in their dorm, so come spring semester they left the dorms behind and got a small townhouse to themselves a few blocks away, far enough from campus to be able to escape school life.  This apartment was on the same block Peter lived on, and that is what led to the eventual first meeting of Jess and Peter.
Maggie decided she and Jess should throw a house warming party in their new place. This was the weekend before spring semester began as everyone was starting to move back to the city. It was the kind of night that would have made perfect sense for Jess to be bundling up.  Except that night she was dressed for a warm summer day.  Tank top and short denim skirt. She had bought it with Christmas money. The soul intent of it was to be her party outfit.  Peter showed up at the party well after it had begun, having already been to another party that night and was on his way home when he passed Jess and Maggie’s house, the front door open and people coming and going and the warm sound of music drifting out into the cold air.
Peter wandered in, already a bit inebriated from the previous party. Standing in the kitchen next to the back door he began talking to Jess for no reason other than she was there and he was drunk.  Something inside Peter made him decide that Jess’s unseasonable attire would make for the ideal topic of conversation. That conversation sort of went like this:

Peter- You’re skirt is really fucking short.
Jess- What?
Peter- You must be freezing your balls off.
Jess- Actually, I’m fine. I don’t plan on going out.
Peter- What?
Jess- I said: I’m not going outside. So I’m fine.  Thanks
Peter- You wanna go outside so we can hear each other better?

Jess broke away, telling Peter she thought she heard the stereo skipping and had to run and check on it.

The next morning they saw each other as they were both coming out of their houses. Peter said “hi” and began apologizing for whatever parts of the previous night he could remember.
“I think you were hitting on me,” Jess said.
“Well…did it work?” Peter asked, with the same contorted confused look he had given Jess just now while standing in her room.
“No.  No, not at all.”
“Oh, thank God,” Peter said, sounding a bit too relieved.
“What? All right, nice meeting you. Bye.” Jess turned to walk back into her house.
“Oh, no, no, no, no. I didn’t mean…shit. It’s just that I have a girlfriend. I really shouldn’t drink at parties. I flirt sometimes and then the next morning I’m always worrying about what I might have said.”
“Yeah…well…I wouldn’t be too worried about your drunken ‘charm’ getting you into any trouble,” Jess said, having turned back to face Peter, her hands on her hips, holding back a bit of aggravation behind a forced smile.
“Well…umm…do you guys need, like, any help cleaning or anything?”
“Oh, no, thanks. We got that taken care of.”
“Okay…well…then…I’m going to go find myself some breakfast.  Have a good day….”
“Jess.”
“Yes, Jess. Have a good day, Jess.”
Peter turned and started walking down the block.
“…I’m making pancakes,” Jess blurted out. “You could have some if you want. And I’ve got some chai tea if you wanted some.”
Peter turned back and paused a moment.
“Do you have any coffee?” he asked.
“Umm…no. Neither of us are much of coffee drinkers.”
“Oh.  Well. Give me a minute to run back inside and brew a cup and I’ll be over to take you up on those pancakes.”
After that, Peter and Jess just sort of started hanging out regularly. Peter had been in the city for two years. He had stopped going to college after last year and was just working now.  He knew the city better than Jess and made her feel more at home.
With Jess always being with Peter, her and Maggie’s friendship slowly died away, and by the time spring semester was over they decided to go separate ways.  Maggie was going to move in with a few friends and stay in the city over the summer. Jess was going home until the next school year and decided she would get her own place when she came back.

*****
Peter found himself recalling that first meeting while Jess continued to dig through her closet. Clothes fell off their hangers as Jess pushed them aside and kept grabbing sweaters and coats and hoodies and then shoving them back without care after they failed the test of being held up to Jess’s body in the mirror.
Jess turned to Peter, appearing to have settled on a hoodie with the logo of some obscure band printed across the front, bisected by the metal zipper running down its front.
“So? What do you think?”
“I think you look ridiculous and uncomfortable,” Peter said.
“I think it’s fine,” Jess said. “And, anyway, it’s probably gotten cooler since you got here. The sun’s been down awhile now.”  Peter thought Jess might actually have a point.  He had been standing in her bedroom for the last hour, though he was sure it was probably too warm to warrant a sweatshirt.
“I dunno,” Peter said.  “You look really hot.”
“I’m taking that as a compliment. Now this conversation is over, and let’s go.”
“I still think you’re going to be too warm.”
“Then I’ll take it off. Jeez, there, problem solved.”
“And just carry it around?” Peter asked.
“Me? No. You’ll carry it.  Now let’s go. We’re going to be late.” Jess grabbed her cell phone and keys out of her purse and shoved them into the pockets of her jeans and ran down the stairs of her apartment building and out front door, a few leaps and bounds ahead of Peter. Jess jumped down the set of stairs that led to the sidewalk and yelled back at Peter to close and lock the door behind him as she took off in a run to the end of the block.
“Are you hot yet? You look hot,” Peter said when he met Jess at the cross walk at the end of the block. Jess had been right, it had cooled down a slight bit from when Peter had arrived at her house, but it was still overbearingly humid out. It had been so for the last few nights. During the day it was just the heat, but at night the humidity returned and it had yet to rain that week.
The party was about a 15-minute walk from Jess’s apartment.  Neither Jess nor Peter knew the people throwing the party, but Jess had said she knew some people who would be there.  She was certain that it was going to be the party.  Peter hadn’t been quite sure what she meant by that.
Jess had found out about the party on the Internet. Peter wasn’t so sure when Jess told him that she “hadn’t been invited per-say,” but that it was basically an open invitation, because why else would they be posting about it all over the place? To Jess it sounded all right.  And there was going to be a keg.  That logic clicked with Peter.
As they walked down the uneven sidewalk Peter could see Jess starting to sweat, and she was trying to cool herself without Peter seeing, and Peter let her think he hadn’t noticed each time she fanned her face or pulled the sweatshirt away from her body to try and allow air to get in.  He didn’t want to put Jess in a poor mood and figured that she wouldn’t listen to any criticism he offered. She would learn better on her own.
Peter and Jess walked on in silence, Jess trying to hide her discomfort while Peter tried hard to hold his tongue.  Their silence was interrupted as they approached the townhouse where the party was being held.  It was an old building with light blue paint blended with the old rotted wood showing through in rigid spots.  There was a front porch full of people already past the limits of their ability to function properly under the influence.  They were all talking way too loud and each time one of them went to stand up from their seat they would fall back at least once before gaining their balance.
Jess and Peter walked up towards the front door, which was wide open and letting the drone of music stumble out into the street. A handwritten note on the glass-pane window of the door instructed people to go around back, but seeing as how the door was already open the pair assumed it to be a perfectly acceptable means of entry and went ahead in.
Right inside the house Jess and Peter found themselves having to either push against the flow of body traffic in the hallway or else just go along with it. Peter assumed that the crowd was the line for the keg and squeezed in between an excited looking pair of girls and a tall guy with dreadlocks and an especially strong scent that suggested he hadn’t showered in at least a few days.
The girls behind Peter reminded him of Jess at that first party where they had met. They had a highly suggestive air about them that had Peter assuming they were freshmen.
– They’re the kind of girls who probably had been to a lot of parties in high school but were excited to be at a college party now under the assumption that they were now grown up, Peter though to himself. They were the kind of girls whom Peter wouldn’t have believed were virgins even if they provided a doctor’s note to back it up.  That’s wrong.  Well, probably not, but wrong to be thinking about, he said in his head.
One of the girls gave Peter a kind of heavily offended look.  Peter’s first thought was that the girls had heard his thoughts.  It took longer than it should have for him to convince himself that wasn’t the case.
“What?” Peter asked. The girls both just sort of scoffed and shook their heads. Peter realized it might have seemed odd that he was standing in the line facing the wrong direction, that maybe the girls thought he had been staring at them.
“Oh, sorry. Yeah…I’m not staring. It’s just that, this guy in front of me, I’m just trying to point my nose away.” The girls just gave another slightly disgusted “whatever” look in Peter’s direction and the line inched forward a little and Peter used it as a chance to turn around and not let the girls think they had affected him in any way.  He figured a noseful of dirty hippie was better than the incredulous glare of a couple of uppity freshmen.
******
Jess walked from the front door, through the house and back to the door leading out to the deck.  She wasn’t sure who she was looking for, or if there was anyone here she would know well enough to say “hi” to.   The people she knew were going to be at the party, the people she had told Peter she knew would be there, weren’t really her friends.  She knew who they were.  She had seen them on campus and had followed them online.  She was pretty sure they had all become friends in the dorms, after she left, or had known each other before coming to college. Jess had only made friends with Maggie.
As Jess passed from room to room on her way through the house she saw faces that she knew, but the people were all strangers.
One room was full of people sitting on couches. It was like the scene on the front porch. People were sitting on couches and chairs till each piece of furniture looked like it was going to collapse. Everyone had a red plastic cup in their hand and there were multiple conversations happening at the same time.  Rarely was there a conversation being held by neighbors; instead, there was shouting across the room, from one wall to the other so that Jess couldn’t get a fix on any one thing that was being discussed.  The myriad conversations were further drowned out by the music coming from the room furthest back in the house, near the door to the deck.  This was where the bass flooding out of the front door was coming from. This room was apparently the designated dance floor.  There was a big stereo against one wall with electronic bass and bleeps pounding from its speakers.  The people were packed so tightly together that the only form of dancing they could manage was to flail their arms wildly in the air, and everybody seemed content with just that.  The hot air coming from the undulating knot of bodies blasted at Jess through the entrance to the room and reminded her of what she was wearing.
–Fucking hoodie, she thought to herself and unzipped the front of her sweatshirt.  She walked passed the dance room and out through the backdoor.  It was dark.  Even though it was nighttime Jess had thought there might be some sort of light out on the deck, but there wasn’t.  The only light was of that coming through the doorway that she was standing in and the ends of the cigarettes that were in the hands of just about everybody standing outside.
Jess was sort of taken aback at how the deck resembled the same scene as the porch and the room full of couches.  Everyone was sitting or leaning on anything they could find.  The smoking was the only difference.  It helped obscure what little light there was and caused Jess to start coughing.  From her coughs she apparently caught somebody’s attention. She heard her name being called from a corner of the deck.  All that Jess could see was the embers of a cigarette being held at waist level.
“Jess!  Oh my god! Jess! Hey!”
Jess was still confused as to who was shouting at her but she noticed that everyone was now staring at her, sure that she was the Jess in question.  She just began walking in the direction of the voice, hoping that the eyes all around her wouldn’t give chase and just go back to their conversations in the dark.
About halfway across the deck somebody lunged at Jess, arms outstretched and grabbed her in a big hug.  It was Maggie, and she was drunk and still had her cigarette in hand, a bit too close to Jess’s hair for comfort.
“What the fuck, man?  What’re you doing here?” Maggie asked.  Jess had a hard time taking offense at how surprised Maggie seemed at seeing Jess out in a social environment.  Besides the fact that Maggie was drunk, it was somewhat of a rare occasion for Jess to go out to a party.
Once Jess had started hanging out with Peter, Maggie turned to parties to find new friends.  She would always try to invite Jess out, but Jess always had plans with Peter.  Jess wasn’t sure whether or not Maggie would have been as happy to see her if Maggie hadn’t been so drunk.  They hadn’t talked since they both moved out of their old place, and even that was a mostly silent experience.  But now, here they were and Maggie was going on about what she had been up to and how great of a party it was and asking Jess how she had been.  With every word from Maggie Jess got a whiff of malt liquor and cigarettes that made her stomach turn.
“Wait a minute,” Maggie said, finally pausing a moment and pointing a wobbly finger at Jess.  “Are you wearing a hoodie?”
“Yeah, but I-,” Jess was cut off.
“What the fuck?  It’s like 80 degrees out here, and humid as fuck. Take that thing off.”
Jess looked around herself, as if she was looking for a place to lay her hoodie down, but really she was looking for an escape.  She turned towards the door where she had come through and saw Peter standing there, glowing from the light from inside the house.  He was craning his neck around and straining his eyes.  He wasn’t making any effort to move further onto the deck and had to keep moving out of the way to let others pass by.
Jess gave a little wave in Peter’s direction and he waved back at her telling her to make her way over to him.  It was the out she needed to get away from Maggie.  She turned back to Maggie to excuse herself but Maggie had already moved on and was back in the darkness.
Jess waded back through the crowd on the deck, making sure not to trip over any feet and trying her hardest to turn the other way when somebody blew smoke from their cigarette in her direction.  She made her way to where Peter stood in the doorway.
“Can we go?” Jess asked.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Very seriously,” Jess said.  Peter could see he wasn’t going to get any other explanation.
“Thank God,” Peter said with an exaggerated sigh of relief.
“Sorry I dragged you here,” Jess said as she walked back into the house.  Peter decided it might help Jess if he gave Jess the excuse for them leaving the party and made it so she could say it was his decision.
“I would have been fine, but by the time I got to the keg it was empty.  The whole party will probably start to dwindle now, once word spreads.”
“I just want to get out of this stupid fucking sweatshirt,” Jess said.
“Want me to hold it?” Peter said, offering his arm for her to drape the sweatshirt over.
“Well, duh. Already told you that that was the plan.”  Jess took the hoodie off and tossed it to Peter and headed for the front door.  Peter followed behind her as they passed the dance floor and the room of overflowing couches.  They went out through the still wide-open front door and passed all of the same people still draping their bodies around the porch.
The music from inside of the house followed the pair as they began walking down the block in the direction of Jess’s apartment.  A crack of thunder sounded overhead and the smell of ozone filled the air.  Peter shot a concerned look towards the sky.  Jess ignored the thunder, or pretended too.  She had begun to walk a little bit faster.
There was a second thunder crash, and this time Jess, standing at an intersection waiting for the “DO NOT WALK” to become the little walking man, looked up this time and rain drops began falling onto her face.  Peter had caught up to her now and they both looked back to the house they had just left.  The front porch emptied and the door was slammed shut.
Peter and Jess crossed the street, deciding not to wait for the sign to change, as the rain began falling harder.  They decided it was best to run.  As they ran Peter looked down at the hoodie in his hands and tried handing it to Jess.
“Fuck that,” she shouted, less in any sort of anger and more to be heard over the rain and the loud splashes their footsteps were now making.  “I’m already wet, I don’t want to be burning up, too.  You’re stuck carrying it now.”
“I thought you might want it to cover yourself from the rain,” Peter tried saying, but Jess wasn’t listening to him.  He decided to get behind Jess and attempted to hold the sweatshirt open over the both of them.  The sweatshirt was quickly bogged down and the rain was dripping through onto their heads.
Jess reached up and grabbed her hoodie out of Peter’s hands.  At this point it wasn’t helping at all so he let her have it.  It was really pouring now.  All of the pent up humidity the sky had been storing each day had finally manifested itself as a torrential downpour.  The temperature had already dropped a considerable amount and Jess was beginning to shiver.  Peter put his arm around Jess as they continued to run and she gladly welcomed the warmth, even pulling herself closer to his body.  They continued running on together as the rain showed no sign of slowing.  They landed in puddles with every other step, soaking their shoes through.
The rain did finally lessen as Peter and Jess approached the last block before her apartment.  They began walking now, and their shoes were making sloshing sounds with every step that they took.  The summer rain was soon reduced to just a few stray drops and had all but stopped by the time they took out front of Jess’s apartment.  Peter’s arm was still around Jess, though didn’t realize it until she looked up at him and gave him a little nudge.
Neither of them had noticed how cool it hadn’t gotten until they were separated.  Jess reached into her left hip pocket and pulled out her keys and opened to the door to the building.  She took off up the stairs.  Peter could here her already opening the door to her apartment by the time he was just starting up the steps.  His shoes were slick from the rain and he wondered how Jess made it up so quickly without slipping.
Peter walked into her apartment and shut the door behind him.  Jess came out of her bedroom, drying her hair with a big white bath towel that was taller than she was.  Peter just stayed standing in front of the closed door.  He wasn’t yet accustomed to the new place Jess was living in.  He had always felt comfortable in her old place and often made himself at home.  He figured it would take a little getting used to for the new apartment to feel the same way.
Peter decided that the fact that he was standing dripping-wet on Jess’s door mat and had yet to be offered a towel of his own proved that despite her new home, Jess was still the same.
“You gonna come in and dry off, or what?” Jess asked.
“I…my clothes are pretty soaked.  I don’t think a towel is going to do much there.  I should probably just go home and change.”
“Dude, just, take your shit off, we’ll throw it in the dryers.”
“But…my clothes are…my only clothes.”
“Wrap up in a towel, or a blanket, something. It’ll be fine.  I just don’t want to see your scrawny ass naked.” Jess didn’t notice the slight offense Peter seemed to take at this remark.  “So, just make yourself some sort of decent and we’ll put on a movie while your clothes dry.”  Jess pointed Peter to the bathroom and handed her the towel she had just used to dry off.  “It’s the only one I’ve got.  Sorry.  You should have grabbed it first.”
He went into the bathroom and closed the door.  He dried off as best he could, though Jess had saturated most of the towel.  He gathered his wet clothes in a pile and carried them back out with him.  Jess took the soggy pile of shirt, pants, underwear and sock from Peter and put everything into the dryer.”
“You’re going to have to worry about your shoes yourself,” Jess told Peter as she went and sat next to him on a couch in front of her TV.
“So, what are we watching?” Jess asked, bouncing back off of the couch and over to her disjointed stack of DVDs sitting in a corner of the room.
“I dunno. Whatever you’re in the mood for.”  Jess’s question had been mostly rhetorical, and even if Peter had made a real recommendation she wouldn’t have been paying any attention to it.  Jess was sitting cross-legged, examining the backsides of two DVD cases, comparing plots and run times.
“I want something long,” Jess said.  Peter wasn’t sure if she was talking to him this time or not.  “I drank too much coffee today.  I was planning on needing to stay awake for that party longer.”  There was silence.  Peter wasn’t hearing anything he felt warranted a response.
“So, what’s so wrong with me that makes you do disgusted at even the prospect of seeming me naked?”  Peter finally said, not turning in Jess’s direction and kind half hoping she still wasn’t listening.  He waited for a response, and when he didn’t get one he turn his body half way around to where Jess had been looking through the movies.
Jess had been on her way back to the couch when Peter had asked his question and she was now standing right behind him, a copy of Apocalypse Now in her hands and a half confused/ half offended look on her face.
Peter thought he had phrased his question careful, in a way that would allow him to brush it off as a joke if necessary, though he really was curious.  He had always thought of Jess as beautiful, despite he best efforts of not trying, though that isn’t to say Peter fantasized about her in any way.  Jess was just a girl that Peter thought he could date.  He’d always tell himself, “It could happen. You know, if it wasn’t Jess.”
Peter had once had the idea that maybe they would make some sort of deal.  If neither of them married by a certain point in time, they would marry each other.  Jess had never mentioned having had a boyfriend and Peter hadn’t had a girlfriend since he ended his last relationship just before summer had started.  Just before Jess went home for summer vacation.  He thought the two of them obviously made a good pair.
“Shit, Peter,” Jess said. Her shocked tone of voice didn’t ease his worries that he disgusted Jess. “You’re like my older brother.  My slightly older, slightly uncool, older brother; and I don’t want to be having those kind of images in my head.  It’s like, my friends could tell me how hot you are, they could tell me all day every day, and I’d never see it.”
“Your friends think I’m hot?” Peter asked.  He realized how excited he had asked that and immediately felt embarrassed and felt his ears go red.
“Ha! We both know I don’t have any other friends besides you, and man, that would make you pretty fucking full of yourself.”

END