The door is open and some people are sitting on the porch steps drinking vodka shots from plastic cups. Natalie gets a beer from the cooler and sits on the couch in the living room. Some guy is standing in front of the only working fan with his shirt puffed out over it, and when he sees her looking at him he raises his cup and smiles. What’s up? he says. Natalie shrugs. I don’t know, she says. Nothing. * * * After two beers she walks home, her toes blistering in her shoes. It’s nine o’clock but it’s still hot and the sky is bright purple. Boredom is like a virus wrestling in her stomach and her jaw aches from what the boy at the party did to her, taking his time; she almost fell asleep. She wonders if her neighbors have any weed they will give her. On her street she sees Frog riding his skateboard, smiling his stupid smile. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with him exactly that he smiles like that, like a dog, at everything and everybody, even when someone is calling him Faggot or Freak or Frog, or messing with his skateboard, threatening to kick his ass.
