Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [141]
Hannah
She might have looked eighteen, but Hannah felt distinctly thirteen. She felt like she was still Nickelodeon and that this was a very MTV crowd. The kid whose house it was—his parents were away, too. Nathan said they’d given their permission for the party, but Hannah suddenly doubted it. She’d been to loads of parties where people were drinking. She’d drunk her fair share of the bizarre cocktail that was teenage contraband—everything from cider to campari, and once, memorably (but for all the wrong reasons), anisette. But she’d never been somewhere where there were drugs. People were smoking joints here. And passing them to her. The first time she’d said no, thanks, and raised her plastic glass of nasty wine in unsolicited explanation. The second time, she’d watched Nathan watch her say no, and she didn’t like the look he gave her, so the third time she nodded and took the shortest drag possible, letting the herbal smoke seep from the side of her mouth before it got past her teeth and resisting the urge to splutter. She’d tried smoking, but hated the taste and the sensation of dirty smokiness in her throat and lungs. This tasted the same, with a sweet, flowery sort of add-on. She waited to feel dizzy or strange, but nothing happened. She supposed she hadn’t inhaled much.
Girls were dancing. The music was loud and thumpy. Even people not dancing—that is, the blokes—were moving their heads back and forth to its insistent rhythm. The girls looked much older to Hannah. Their eyes were closed, their arms above their heads. They looked sort of dreamy. A couple of hours ago, it had seemed thrilling. Now it was disconcerting. The joint kept coming back around. She kept puffing on it, hoping it would be okay.
The atmosphere had deepened somehow. The party had grown more volatile and unpredictable, the dancing more trancelike, the air foggier. People were coupling up, sloping off. Hannah didn’t know what she was doing, not really. She didn’t belong here. She felt a bit sick. When she looked at her watch, and was able to focus, she was almost relieved to see it was 12:30 A.M. Nathan had promised he’d have her home in time. Drop her off on the corner.
Nathan had been drinking and smoking. She’d seen him. He wasn’t falling down drunk or anything; he was still coherent. She couldn’t see him at the moment. He must be in another room. She wasn’t sure which one.
Pushing her way through two huge guys in the door frame, she went through the kitchen. He wasn’t there. It was still too noisy to hear, so she moved farther away, into the small utility room at the back of the house. She wondered, briefly, as she passed, about the family who lived here, who must have gone leaving the white Formica surfaces clear and clean. Now there were empty bottles and piles of ash and spilled bags of crisps everywhere. It was a complete mess. Her head was starting to throb in time with the music, and it was a relief to be in the cool silence of this tiny room, which smelled only of legal things, like fabric softener and furniture polish.
She dialed the number of a taxi firm. The guy who answered told her he didn’t have any cabs for an hour. Busiest time, he said. She should have booked. She tried another one, where the woman said the same thing. Her drivers were all out on jobs, and there were more booked. When Hannah expressed dismay, the woman sounded suddenly maternal. “Are you somewhere safe, love?” she asked. It shocked Hannah to realize that she didn’t actually know where she was. She knew roughly, but she couldn’t have given a house number. What an idiot. “I’ll try and switch a few fellas around, get someone there in forty minutes or so.” Hannah looked at her watch: 12:45. She was already late. She began to panic. Bloody hell…She thanked the woman and said she was fine and that she’d try someone else. But she couldn’t remember any more taxi numbers.
She knew she should ring Dad. She knew he’d still be half awake, waiting to hear her. But she’d have to