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Amy and I were birthday twins. We'd been sharing a cake and a venue since we were born. Our moms threw their baby showers together. Matching outfits. Matching hobbies. Halloween costumes always coordinated. Our parties always at the same venue.

This worked out well for me. Amy was well off and I was, well, not.

I was almost doomed to a life of off brand, single cupcake parties with matches for candles. Lit with a clear Bic lighter by my mother's shaking hand in front of our broken A/C. Hacking, the old unit would freeze up weekly and thaw out all over the floor and mildew.

Nope. Amy's mom doesn't throw a party, she plans an event. Trucks and trucks would unload everything for three days prior unless they needed major infrastructure built like when we needed a real carousal for the carnival theme with rides and games and food vendors. Did you know you can buy a truck full of balloons already blown up? You can. Rich people don't waste their breath. Helium would come in handy much later when these parties seemed lame because of how much sheer effort went into them. A small group of us would break off from the party and suck the helium out of the balloons. Amy does a really good impression of her mom's angry voice on helium. Ask her.

Our nineteenth birthday was no different. I'm not sure why I expected it to be. I'd taken a job right after school on a cruise line. Busting my ass twelve weeks straight with no days off and loving every moment of it. Housekeeping. Cleaning stomach churning amounts of gross faster than anyone else on my team. There was no limit to the hours I'd work or how hard I would push myself to get a mess clean. After a few contracts, one line signed me on as a manager and now I had a good paying job without the large gaps of unemployment coin digging between. I figured I'd have my own birthday this year.

Which made me feel like shit. For the first time I could afford my own party and I was bailing on my friend who could always throw her own and chose not to.

Amy wasn't great at making friends. She was shy and though she'd made a few friends at Yale, she didn't yet have drinking buddies. Nobody to stuff your face with pizza bought with daddy's credit card and beer bought by someone's older boyfriend. No, Amy didn't do the rich girl shit right. She studied. She passed her exams. She read the reading material. The post master would always purse her lips as I came to collect my mail after months away. Weekly letters from Amy crammed inside until it jammed and my key was no longer good. I'd have to go through the little glass door, past the metal detectors, and ring the little bell. I'm having a little trouble with my box. Yes, again. I'm sooo sorry. Last time, I promise. I work on a cruise line it's a lot of fun but I don't come home much okay yes sure walk away in the middle of my sentence. No big deal.. hag. Then she was back. Red nails digging into the bulky stack of mail, narrowed dragon eyes. See you in three months, Dianne.

I love Amy. She's like a sister to me. We are different people though. Regardless of how often I was told we weren't.

Coming home, I'd pick up my mail and Whataburger and make a few nights out of going through the letters. Amy can write. Photos of Connecticut, copies of short stories and essays, burned CDs with Sharpie illustrations. After a few hours, I'd call her and we'd listen to each other's voices too intently. Reminding ourselves of a home and the comfort of a sturdy, old friendship.

So I didn't refuse or correct her when birthday plans started coming in. We used to plan them in the library. Between classes. At lunch. On her bed while her brother, Max, gave us the finger every time he walked down the hall. I took a longer cruise, freed the week of my birthday, and regretted it quietly. Like a good friend.

For the first time in my life I was making good money. I wanted to spend my nineteenth birthday with my crew family deep in Mississippi. Under Spanish moss and surrounded by deep green rifts of kudzu. Drunk off stolen wine, swamp tours, watching Kel makeout with museum girls dressed up as antebellum southern belles.

"How long does it take them to get out of those?" I'd whisper, leaning on him. Kel and I occasionally fucked, casually and somehow sweet.

"Oh, shit. Forever. Just hitch it up and find a path. If you wait for them to get naked, you'll lose your erection thinking about how fucked up this all is." Kel snaked his hand up my skirt, a one layer pencil skirt with no frills to be seen, and smiled when he felt skin. "No panties. You're my fucking favorite."

Kel promised to fuck me nineteen times in nineteen different places in whatever state my birthday port led to. Now he was off in New Hampshire, playing video games with friends. He kept making chicken noises at me after I told him about the history of the party and how I had to go home and do this.

"Chelsea, love of my life, first mate, thin skirt, no panties, kaiju of the sea, you don't have to do shit. You know that, right?" His lips had smiled around a bottle of beer. Bright yellow Corona, I could smell Van Escort the skunky after taste.

****

Bright white lights lit Amy's house. The place looked like a freaking Pinterest photograph. Her mother hired a planner and insisted this party feel a little bit more grown up. No more margarita mix, no more pizza rolls. Shrimp puffs, white linen, champagne. I relieved a butler of his entire tray of puffs and grabbed a flute from another.

Amy's mom was in fine form. Gray skirt, white button up, pearls. Her dad was in a matching gray suit. I imagined them getting dressed together. Watered down Mr. and Mrs. Smith style. They stand together at the edge of their Princess and the Pea bed, hangers clink until they find the perfect pewter. Holding it up to their chest and intently gazing at something nobody else can see in those tall, tall mirrors. Everything in their room is much too tall.

"Darling do you think this one will do?" "Oh no, dear. We wore that to a luncheon. How about this identical one with a different texture? Not that anyone would ever feel it, could you imagine? We haven't fucked in.. how old is our youngest?" "Nineteen soon. Oh, I should ruin Chelsea's plan by throwing a big boring party in our backyard." That's exactly how it happened. I need another drink.

At the bar, glass bottles filled with clear and copper liquid shined like little beacons of hope. Endurance potions. All sorted on the bar with no bartender, I'm sure Amy's mom thought it horribly hip. Serve yourself, kids. We're all adults here. So I did.

Whiskey with gin with white wine. It was my version of the suicides we'd use to get at fast food places. Our paper cups crushed against the hard plastic of the soda triggers. Dr. Pepper. Spoosh! Pepsi. Spoosh! Coke. Spoosh! Sprite. Spoosh! Root Beer. Spoosh! Lemonade. Spoosh! Bonus points for: Coffee, tea, water.

Max hung around a group of his friends, Yale T-shirt, with his hands shoved in his jean pockets. Our eyes caught, triggering a sly smile to spread across his face as he glanced down at my drink. Impossibly tall, he stood half a foot over his friend's. He winked at me before going back to his conversation. Sipping a smuggled-in long neck beer.

I kept my head down. Wearing the best blouse I owned that dipped a little too low, showing skin where cleavage should have been. I wore this for the express purpose of pissing off Amy's mom but I wouldn't admit it out loud. It felt petty. And good.

Amy was stretching to fill the tiki torches when she spotted me and my non-cleavage, she couldn't help but laugh. Her mother made her wear prom dresses with sleeves. Meanwhile, I tortured her with short shorts in the summer and skirts with slits up to my throat.

Amy looked adorable. Her little flowery dress with the back cut out and low, I was shocked. She hugged me, pressing into me. "I'm sorry about all this. I insisted on a quiet weekend to myself. A family dinner. Mom wanted to throw the party and to throw the party she needs you. I guess she thought she could still pull your old high school friends in but most of them are away at college."

I looked around. The turn out was pretty slim. I'd never had too many friends in school but I was well-liked. The normal fried-blonde crowd wasn't here, nor the studious types, nor the FHA crowd. "Your mother is going to stroke out if nobody shows up soon."

"She already did. Only eleven people RSVP'd and she already ordered the lobster from Maine and when dad got the bill he wouldn't let her cancel. It was all none refundable. These people are from her clubs. That lady over there runs her book club. Mom fired the last one for suggesting dirty books. Ya-Ya Sistrehood." She nodded toward a skinny woman with giant brown eyes, desperately looking for somewhere to put down the lobster puff she'd taken a single bite out of. Amy's round cheeks were flushed, she was smiling. Normally, when discussing her parents spats, she'd be teary eyed. Yale must be doing some good. "You only have to stay through dinner then we'll cut the cake and we're done here. I'm driving back to New Haven tonight."

I cocked my head. "You're driving back to a dorm you share with three other girls instead of sleeping in your king size butter bed, sleeping in, and eating Essie's French toast and bacon? Are you feeling sick?" Amy ducked away from my hand as I tried to get her temperature. Essie has been their cook for fifteen years and her food was the kind of effortless southern style cooking you couldn't find anywhere else. Especially not at places that bragged about it. I found that out in South Carolina when I almost choked on the driest cornbread known to man while Kel doubled over in laughter. The sign on the window had peddled it as "World famous, grandma's recipe." Well, grandma sucked at cooking, move on.

"I have my reasons."

"If it were anyone else I'd guess this had something to do with a boy but I know you. I just read eight letters from you and there is no mention of a boy."

Amy turned pink. "Keep reading."

I smacked her arm. "You're shitting me! Van Escort Bayan Who is he?"

"Shh," she laughed, slipping her arm through mine and pulling me away from the guests. Our guests. None of which we knew. "First, it's not a boy."

"Bullshit."

"Her name is Cory."

"Holy shit."

"Picked up quite a vocabulary on that cruise ship."

"Sailor's mouth and all that. So when did you start-"

She smiled, waving me off. "Do you remember Heather Sou?"

"That was freshman year! I hate you. You never told me."

"I know, I know. Forgive me I wanted to keep one thing to myself. Growing up it was like we had two heads and I love you but.."

"We're different people." I smiled. "I know."

She gave me a sad smile, leaned against me. "I'm sorry you had to take time off work. I promise, I'll put a stop to all of this in plenty of time next year. We'll do the grownup thing and plan to get a drink as close to our birthdays as we can and then play cancel-chicken with one another."

"Do it and die," I warned. "Next time I'm home, I'm gonna wrangle your letters from my bitch of a post office lady. Then I'm bringing you wine and tacos and you're going to tell me about your expertise eating said tacos."

She nudged me. "Shut up."

Amy abandoned me to make rounds or else her mother would confetti burst and turn into acid rain. I had a feeling, from the icy look our hostess had thrown my way, Mother Dearest thought it was my fault. I'd gotten a job and not kept in touch. I wasn't likable enough for her to throw these shindigs anymore. She'd had to invite her church pianist and a dental assistant. I got some distance, moving around the pool and skirting the very edge of the party where the light started running out.

*

Tacki Tiki Hut was installed in the backyard when Max moved off to college. Home renovation followed each of the kids college departures. Ten thousand dollars worth of jungle theme renovation arrived while Amy was arranging her highlighters and listening to men sing the Yale fight song. Their parents plucked ideas from magazines and never changed an inch of the design. Creativity was for people who couldn't afford the styled design.

Refugee'd amongst the whicker and Eastern Island Head adult sippy cups was my only option. Guests were starting to do the polite thing of introducing themselves to me. Big Teeth, the real estate agent, wished me a happy birthday and had heard I was sleeping at a friend's house. She offered me a card. I was at sea most of the year. There was no amount of ass kissing that would lead me to send seventeen hundred of my hard earned dollars to a landlady back home every month. I was currently crashing at Kyle's who had a nice apartment, a spare bedroom, and occasionally we'd make out and cuddle up next to one another to watch whatever Netflix movie could keep it to a tight ninety minutes.

Sleek and shiny, the metal grill was brand new. If Essie had cooked here, she'd scrubbed it down afterward until it shined. Amy's dad was as likely to use this place as he was to unzip right now and piss in the pool. Cooking outside? Like vagrants? Like the homeless? What would our neighbors think?

"Aren't y'all gettin too old for this?" A deep voice said behind me.

I turned into a bright, white Y in a sea of deep blue cotton. "Hey Max."

"Hey, kid." He grinned, sliding himself onto the counter.

"Isn't your mother getting too old for this?" I asked.

Max ran his hand along the shiny new metal. "We're trying to convince her to get a puppy. Something to take care of while her son's breaking her heart and her daughter is munching cunt at the school she paid half a million for us to attend."

"She told you before she told me?"

"They made out at a party. I heard it through the grapevine, kiddo. That and I saw a video of it. A freshman with the reddest face I'd ever seen was practically hopping on his heels to show everyone. I would have punched him but my sister had been making out in public, at a party, and with a girl so I was in shock."

I raised my eyebrows. "Sounds like college is doing its job. How are you breaking their heart? Gay porn? Did you buy an American car? Lower back tattoo that says 'poverty aint no crime'?"

"Going to MIT for grad school. I'm taking another gap year, turning twenty-five, and then using my trust-fund to pay for it."

This was truly shocking. Max not attending Yale for grad school, Plus, Amy ditching a mandatory family party to go play touch tiddies at college.. What the hell happened to these kids while I was gone? How was I not a bad influence on them while I was here. Honestly, I'm a little insulted.

"Using your own money to go to school. You must be the first one in your family to do that since, okay which one made the majority of y'alls money? Was it the oil guy, the railroad guy, or.." I trailed off, grinning so hard I was hurting.

"You," Max warned. "Know exactly which one it was."

"Oh come on, no I don't. I know they all made you a couple hundred Escort Van thousand dollars but who was it that struck the million? The railroad guy, right?"

Max crossed his arms. "He was beheaded by John Brown." He shrugged. "He deserved that one."

"Must be the oilfield one."

"Made a fortune but he had twenty-seven children with three different women."

He wasn't going to give in.

"There was a scientist though," I got a little closer, propping myself up next to him and nudging him. "Come on, jog my memory. It's been a long time."

Max sighed, shaking his head and staring forward. "Therapist."

"Oh yeah." I leaned back, victorious.

"Studying hysteria."

"What a brave man."

"He and a business partner got rich off selling rich white women vibrators and fucking the poor ones pro-bono. Are you happy?"

"Ecstatic." My hyena laugh, always too high and shrill, attracted the attention of stares from the party, trying to find where we were off in the dark. Max pulled me to him, leaning until the house blocked their view.

"If you get us caught and I'm forced to go around shaking hands with my dad's business executives while he tells them I'm going to a trade school, I'll beat you."

"Promise?" It just slipped out. I was used to talking to the rough necks on the ship like that and.. well this was Max. Adorable. Big brother of best friend, used to make me piss myself by chasing me with an electric flyswatter.

He raised an eyebrow. "I would but then I'd have nothing to give you for your birthday."

"Seeing as how you've signed your name to whatever your parents have gotten us for the last decade, I'm concerned."

Max smiled and his eyes kept drifting down to my lips. I could practically hear his thoughts. About me being his sister's friend and how he saw me go through all the awkward phases one person could force themselves through with gusto. But here's the thing. I was so fucking tired of putting too much thought into shit. You have a certain amount of time. Crews change. Contracts end. Feelings are repairable.

I leaned forward and kissed Max. My hand under his chin, feeling the stubble that was slowly turning into beard. His lips were so soft. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth, tasting like whatever candy-flavored liquor he'd been sucking on with his friends and the yeasty Miller he preferred. The kiss was great. My fist wound up in his t-shirt without my knowledge of ever grabbing hold. We pulled back, both catching our breath. His eyes were dark blue, almost black. Staring into mine.

"What the fuck," he laughed, pulling my hand from his shirt and lacing his fingers through mine. "Not that I'm complaining."

I shook my head. "This cutesy maybe or maybe-not shit is over for me. Takes too long."

"Yeah?" He asked, studying my face, leaning his forehead against mine.

I nodded.

"I wanna fuck you," he whispered.

"I know."

And we were smiling, and kissing, and then he was tugging me from The Tacky Tiki. We walked around to the kitchen entrance and slid past caterers having meltdowns, stole a full bottle of champagne and half a peach pie. Giggled our way upstairs to his old room, right at the end of the hallway. The door latching as we kicked our shoes off and kept kissing, fingers in each other's hair.

Rich people keep their kid's bedrooms exactly the same. They have enough space for a sewing room or a gym or a spa so I informed Max that his room looked like he died in a car crash and his parents had kept the door firmly shut this whole time.

"Yeah right," he muttered. "They clean in here every week. For the first month of college I kept waking up with cold sweats worrying that I forgot where all my porn was hidden or a stale sock or the lube at the top of my closet."

"You were a deviant."

I had wandered over to his closet, tip-toeing to get a look at the top shelf like maybe he had forgotten some long lost lube. Max grabbed my hand and pulled me to his chest with a growl. "Well I was a teenager and you were traipsing around here half naked all the time. Time to pay up."

"Aw, mildly creepy."

We kissed again. And again. And again. Max sat on his bed and pulled me into his lap. The soft blanket cushioning my knees on either side as I straddled him. His hands running up my hips, fingers digging into the skin in a desperate attempt to get me closer than I already was. I had my hands in his hair, focusing all my energy on the small kisses. No tongue, no biting, no licking. Our eyes locking on one another. I felt completely in control until suddenly I was on my back.

Max rolled us quickly, resuming our kiss as I clenched my thighs against him and laughed against his mouth.

Both of us happy-stupid. Grinding and grinning, whispering dirty words and getting more daring with each one. Max bit at my shirt collar, licking my neck. His hands roamed underneath the lace across my stomach and gripping my hips. Getting a feel for my naked skin before he'd even seen it. I lifted my arms as he pulled it off me. No bra. Never needed one really, my tits were small. A mouth full. Max smiled, licking my nipple and sucking it into his mouth. "Your turn," I whispered. He didn't budge. I wanted him naked. I wanted him naked and on top of me and, "Now," I said, tugging at his shirt.