We All Fall Down
an excerpt

“So you name them, then. You do it right.”
“I don’t know it. I just know that’s not it. Honey, I hope you’re not applying lessons learned from a cartoon to everyday life. Look at what happened to that coyote, no matter how hard he tried. I don’t want that to be you.” She was trying so hard not to laugh; all I wanted to do was slap her.
I can usually laugh at myself. When I mess up, or make a huge fool of myself, the best thing to do is to just laugh it off. If you act embarrassed or try to cover it up, people just make fun of you. That’s the last thing anyone needs. Joking around is fine, but when they’re being mean, then you’re doing something wrong. So I’ve learned that instead of pretending you “meant to do that” or whatever, it’s best to just say “can you believe I did that?” and laugh about it with everyone else. They’ll probably still make jokes about it, but it will be friendlier and they’ll get over it faster. It’s like Danella’s custom jeans; if she hadn’t denied it, nobody would’ve cared. But she had to make a big deal about how it wasn’t true and it wasn’t fair to poke fun at her, and nobody stopped laughing about it for a good three months.
This time, though, it wasn’t about embarrassment. I wasn’t embarrassed that I turned out to be wrong. I wasn’t going to deny it, either. Fine, I got it mixed up. It was the fact that Madison was being so darn sly about it, acting like she felt bad for me making a mistake. The fact that she got joy out of it. I shouldn’t have been surprised; Madison had always been the type to find pleasure in watching others fail. In ninth grade, it was between her, me, and this girl name Leigh for Freshman Princess. Leigh beat us both, which was fine by me because Leigh was this really sweet girl who was always kind of the underdog and deserved to win. But Madison threw a fit in the girls’ bathroom until she heard that Leigh had tripped over her own dress during the Prince and Princess dance and broke her nose in the fall. Madison crowed about it for a week, talking about how terrible it was that Leigh had to wear that awful bandage on her face, but she had this huge smile on whenever it was brought up. She can be a good ally to have, since she’s been behind seventy-five percent of all the rumors started at our high school; staying on her good side almost guarantees that nobody will be whispering anything bad about you. Sometimes, though, putting up with that blood-thirsty attitude of hers got to be a bit much.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, although she was still giggling. “It’s stupid. Who cares what order the planets are in? It’s not like it affects us anyway.”
I nodded shortly, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t the silent treatment, really, because that would’ve included ignoring her comment altogether. That would’ve given away my tactic instantly, because Madison was no stranger to the silent treatment, and she would’ve just gotten pissed off and left. However, I’d found that if you still paid attention to someone and just didn’t talk, they got more desperate to make you talk back. Kind of like me and Dawn in eighth grade. Madison always fell right for it.
“Forget about Astronomy. Let’s have a Christmas party, okay? You and me, we’ll throw it and invite everyone and it’ll be awesome!” she suggested, smiling an actual genuine smile.
Well, I couldn’t resist parties. Especially Christmas parties.
“Okay! At your house, though. My parents were kind of annoyed at how the Halloween party turned out.” I said.
She nodded quickly. “Right, right. Understandable. My parents are going to some medical convention right before Christmas, do you want to have it then? It would be on, like, the 22nd or something.”
“That’s great. Who’s invited?” This part was crucial; all the right people had to show up, and I mean all of them. If only half of the right people came, they would just complain the whole time about how so many cool people weren’t there. Then, no matter how awesome the party really was, it would be remembered as a suck fest.
“Everyone in the crowd, obviously,” Madison began scribbling names on a piece of paper. The “crowd” was my old gang of friends, consisting of about fifteen privileged teenagers. Not that they weren’t still my friends, but they weren’t who I hung out with as much anymore. Madison was still in pretty tight with them, and Stacy was friendly with them too. I still got invited to a lot of their parties, although I only went to about half of them, depending on who exactly was throwing it.
“Okay, so that makes seventeen, with Andrew,” I tapped the paper and she added his name.
“Who else, who else…Danella Monroe, she hangs out with everyone…”
I scowled at the mention of her name. That little guppy. She sucked up to anyone of a higher station than her, and expected to be rewarded for it. I knew for a fact that most of my old friends didn’t even like her that much, just kind of tolerated her because she had a huge house with an indoor pool. Sometimes I almost felt pity for her, since she seemed to have no real friends and an ultra superficial life. Mostly, though, I despised her. She wasn’t even a senior; if I had known she was a year behind me when I first met her, I never would have bothered with her at all. It was only because she was hanging out with Madison and Hank when I met her that I put up with her introduction, and she wasted no time in pointing out that I was really skinny for my height. The little bitch. I’m sorry we can’t all be five feet and three hundred pounds no matter how much we throw up, but I guess only Danella is that lucky.
“Do we have to invite her? Isn’t she too young to be out late with us?” I complained.
Madison rolled her eyes at me. “Asia, I don’t know about you, but most of us have eleven o’clock curfews on our licenses. We can’t be out that late.”
Bullshit if I ever heard it, you hypocrite.
“Besides, Danella’s our friend. We have to at least invite her, maybe she won’t even want to come.”
Oh, she’d want to come all right. A leech like her never passed up an opportunity to hang out with people cooler than herself. At least she was going to be at Madison’s house instead of mine; I didn’t want to risk anything being stolen.
“Fine, whatever. Don’t forget Stacy.”
Madison was frantically scribbling. “Duh, she’s like, in the group.”
“And Dawn and Maggie too, get them on there.”
Madison’s hand slowed and she glanced over at me. “Dawn Chilingarian and Maggie Ironpride, at a party with everyone? Will they even want to come?”
“We have to at least invite them, right? Come on, what’s wrong with Dawn and Maggie? They’re our friends too.” Well, they were really more my friends. It had taken Madison a long time to warm up to the idea of hanging out around the two of them, and even then it was only when no one else from the old crowd was around. It’s not like there was some negative stigma attached to them, as far as I knew there was nothing about Dawn or Maggie that would cause some social repercussion from being seen with them. Madison was just weird, that was all. It didn’t matter much, because I always got the feeling that Dawn especially was happier when Madison wasn’t with us. It’s just hard trying to juggle two separate groups of friends. Even though Madison is closer to the old group, she and I are still really close. It sucks that she can’t hang out with me and the girls that much.
“Nothing’s wrong with them, they’re just…a little socially awkward, that’s all.” Madison said slowly. “Look, they’re nice girls, but have you ever actually seen Dawn at one of our parties? She looked totally miserable the whole time.”
The last time Dawn had come to a party involving everyone on Madison’s current list was at my back-to-school bash just before junior year started, and it was true that she had been absolutely depressed during it. That was because her dog had been missing for the past two days and she was only at the party because her parents forced her to leave the house. Anyone would be a downer if they thought their dog was dead, but I guess I should’ve explained that to Madison.
“Just put them on the list, and I’ll tell them to be friendlier while they’re there.” I commanded. Madison sighed and, like magic, the names appeared on the paper.
“They just better not be wallflowers this time. It wouldn’t be so bad if they’d engage someone in conversation…” Madison muttered. I didn’t know if I should remind her or not that all of Madison’s parties involved drinking and there would most likely not be the kind of conversation that Dawn and Maggie enjoyed. I decided not to; it was hard to explain to someone who loved beer why anyone would be uncomfortable around drunks.
The bell rang eventually and we herded into the hallway. It was Thursday, which meant Dawn had piano lessons, which meant I had to find another way home. Madison, perhaps? Except sometimes I could only take ninety minutes at a time with her, and as luck would have it, that’s how long Study Hall lasted.
“I’ll mail out the invitations by Saturday, once I clear it with my parents. That won’t be a big deal. Just make sure you tell Dawn and Maggie, of course they’re welcomed to come, but I don’t want them to be all gloomy and whatever.” Madison said as we walked. She always jabbed a finger if she was in an on-the-go conversation, like she was repeatedly making a point. It was more distracting than anything else.
“Don’t worry, I will,” I assured her. We rounded a corner and I saw Dawn halfway down the hall, digging through her purse as she ambled along the wall. I felt bad for her, her and Maggie. It wasn’t their fault that they didn’t have fun at big parties. That just wasn’t their scene. And I really didn’t like Madison telling me to make them behave differently, as if I had any control over it. Maybe I could’ve pressured Maggie into being outgoing, if I worked at it long enough, but there was no controlling Dawn; she was immune to me. They probably wouldn’t go anyway, which made me sad because they were my best friends. I wanted them at the party.
Almost as if she’d heard my thoughts, Dawn turned around and found me immediately. She seemed confused for a moment, but then smiled. A real Dawn smile, with her eyes and everything. I tossed a goodbye to Madison and crossed the hall, not just because Dawn was really the better friend, but also because I was feeling a little defensive of her.
“I can give you a ride home if you need one,” she said by way of a greeting, going back to digging in her purse.
“No piano today?” I was surprise; it was a rare Thursday that Dawn wasn’t behind that piano.
“Nope. Apparently my instructor’s wife has this big art thing going on so he has to baby-sit all night. Can’t very easily teach piano with an infant on your lap.” She very nearly laughed, but being who she was, restrained.
“Cool. What are you looking for?”
“My keys. I know they’re here somewhere…”
Her purse was no more than a small handbag for loose change and lip gloss, but Dawn had crammed in her phone, wads of cash, pocketfuls of coins, folded papers, her school ID, her license, her library card, a million other cards I didn’t recognize, and apparently her keys.
“Oh Little Dawn, you need a bigger purse.”
“No, I just need to organize. Any bigger will be too big.”
So not true. “I’ll get you one for Christmas, probably just slightly larger than what you have now. How do you feel about Kate Spade? I saw a really cute one, but it doesn’t have a strap like that, you’d have to hold it in your hand instead…”
“I won’t use it, don’t waste your money.”
“You are in desperate need of a new purse. Now, I’m not talking about something you can stuff a little dog into, just something that will actually fit all that crap you carry around.” I insisted.
Dawn yanked out her keys and somehow managed to avoid spilling the other contents all over the floor. “Found them. Forget the new purse. Let’s go, I still want to practice piano at home.” She began power walking towards the parking lot, leaving the conversation behind her. I could just imagine her doing that at Madison’s party; talking with someone, growing annoyed, storming off. She’d actually come close to fitting right in.