Fur tickles my nose as I slump in my chair and I groan. I love my sister, truly I do. But she has the worst taste. This dress takes the winter wedding theme way too far. Silky fur collars over ballgowns? It's like hunting lodge meets haute couture, where nobody wins.
"That squirrel carcass would bother you less if it wasn't up around your throat." My roommate and fellow bridesmaid, Johanna, drops into the chair beside me. The fluffy collar of her ridiculous dress sits decidedly lower than mine, barely skimming her collarbones. But she still looks just as stupid as I do. I don't tell her that though, because she's holding two bottles of champagne that she's managed to pilfer from the bar. And God knows I'm going to need more booze to get through this interminable evening.
"If I pull it down any further I'm going to give the groomsmen an eyeful," I groan, snatching one of the bottles away and taking a deep swallow. Jo snorts.
"Maybe half an eyeful," she laughs, glancing at my chest. Even with the ridiculous push up bra I forked over fifty dollars for, I'm not exactly filling out the silver satin.
"Screw you," I grumble, but with no bite. Jo and I have been friends since college and roommates for almost three years. She's seen the girls in all of their tiny glory more than I'd like to think about. More than anyone else, probably. Now that's a sad thought.
"Besides," she slurs, demonstrating that she's had far more to drink than just the part-bottle of champagne she's tonguing like she's envisioning something else entirely. "There are some maybes in the groomsmen group." I follow her line of sight to where Vick, my new brother-in-law's younger brother, is in conversation with my mom.
"Are you nuts, Jo? He's just a kid!"
"He's legal."
"Barely." I glance at the amber bottle in his hand. I'm pretty sure he's not even old enough to be drinking that. "What would the two of you even talk about?" She snorts again.
"We won't be talking, Brainless. He's plenty old enough for what I'll be doing to him." I shudder and take another swig from the bottle. I've heard far too many of the things Johanna likes to do through the paper-thin walls of our shared apartment. She looks at me appraisingly. "You never fuck for fun, do you?"
Champagne nearly comes out my nose. "I- damn it, Jo, that's not funny," I hiss, looking around to see if anyone has heard. But she's not smiling, not even a little.
"I'm serious," she confirms. "When was the last time you did anything for fun?"
"I hung out with Finn and Annie last Thursday. We played board games."
"Good times, Pollyanna," she snickers. "But that's not the kind of fun I mean. When's the last time you had fun?" She waggles her eyebrows at me and I take another gulp of bubbly.
"I've had plenty of lovers," I sniff. Three, in fact.
"Lovers?" Johanna practically chortles, so loudly that a couple of people look over at us. I try to hide in my fur collar. "Who the hell says lovers?" she gasps in between peals of laughter. "Sounds like something an old, mustachioed Frenchman would say."
"We're not all potty mouths like you are," I grumble. She only laughs harder.
"Potty mouths! Damn, Brainless, you are so pure."
"Shut up, Johanna."
"Seriously," she says, though Johanna is never truly serious, and she's still snickering. "Have you ever done anything even vaguely wicked?" I shrug, and Jo rolls her eyes. "Even been arrested?"
"No," I scoff.
"Okay, let's start smaller. Have you ever shoplifted?"
"How's that smaller?"
"Right. Gone naked in public?"
"Who does that?"
"Who doesn't? Come on, Brainless, you've never flashed the jugs at a hot stranger?" She glances down again at the slight swell of fur. "Or the ping pong balls in your case." I reach over and shove her, but with no real malice, and she's laughing as she wobbles in her chair. Jo is brash and rude and in-your-face, but she's also loyal and I love her in spite of it all.
There's a pause where we sip our champagne in peace, watching the drunken guests Macarena on the dance floor and shuddering. "Can you name even five naughty things you've done in your life," Jo finally says and I sigh. I should have known she wasn't going to drop it that easily.
"I'm chugging champagne out of the bottle right now," I say. Jo just shakes her head.
My mother wanders over, hopefully to save me from Jo's torment. "You girls look beautiful," she says, bending to tuck a long, carefully spiralled lock of my hair behind my ear. There was a time when little caresses like this from my mother were rare. But we've healed a lot in the past few years, built a real relationship again.
"Mrs. E," Johanna slurs. "You're exactly the right person to ask. This one," she gestures in my direction with the champagne bottle, foam sloshes down the neck. My mother deftly takes it from Johanna's hands and takes a large swig from the bottle. Guess that's not as risqué as I thought. Jo laughs at my mother before continuing. "Has she ever gotten into trouble? Was she a total hellcat in her teens? A hooligan?"
My mother smiles at me, and the fondness in her expression is underpinned by a current of regret, the same one I see every time someone asks about my childhood or Prim's. "Katniss has always been the responsible one," she says, and I squeeze her hand. We've worked hard to get past my anger and her guilt about the years I kept our little family afloat, when she'd mentally checked out on me and Prim after my father's death. But the sadness is something we'll probably always live with. "That one over there, on the other hand…" My mother trails off, smirking at the dance floor where several guys are holding Rory by the arms and legs, Superman style, and Prim is attempting to limbo underneath his body. Good thing she'll only be wearing that dress once since it's practically a swiffer right now.
Johanna, for once in her life, accepts the attempt to change the subject, and the three of us chat pleasantly about Prim for a while. But Jo is tenacious. When my mother wanders away to speak with some of Rory's family, Jo starts up again. "You are the friend that fun forgot. You never even missed curfew, did you?"
Though she knows a little of my past, Johanna doesn't know just how bad things were when I was young. How I was forced to grow up far too fast, just to keep us all alive. By the time my mother came back to us, I was well beyond the youthful indiscretion age, and focussed on finishing college and getting the kind of job that would ensure none of the Everdeen women would ever go hungry again.
"I never had a curfew, Jo." Her brows furrow, and I feel compelled to continue. "I never had time to do stupid things. I spent all of my time working, taking care of Prim, the house... " The champagne is keeping me from sounding too defensive, but sometimes, sometimes, I do feel like I missed out a little. Not on flashing my boobs for Mardi Gras beads, but on being carefree.
Jo nods. "You're more of a mother to Prim than a big sister." I shrug; in many ways she's right. Just one more thing that was stolen from me. My sister. Or at least the sisterly relationship we should have had. But I worked hard to make sure that she didn't lose her childhood. And in a way, I lived vicariously through her. While I stayed in Panem for college, lived at home while working both on my degree, and as an instructor at the rec centre, I made sure that Prim could go away to college. Her weekly Skype sessions were my window into coed life.
Even on her wedding day, I'm still living through her, basking in her joy as she experiences yet another thing I may never have.
"We're going to change that now," Jo says, and it's on the tip of my tongue to tell her that you can't change the past, but she's got this strange look on her face that makes me a little uneasy. Nothing good ever comes out of an expression like that. "We're going to have a challenge," she says, confirming my suspicions. "No, a bet. I bet you can't do five naughty things before your birthday."
I snort. "Honestly, Jo, you think I'm some sort of saint. I'm not. I just have no need to be reckless."
"Chicken?" she taunts, and I roll my eyes. I'm not falling for that.
"Grow up," I tell her.
"Live a little, Everdeen. You're only twenty-seven. That's far too young to be an old fogey." I shake my head at her, done with this conversation. "Five things, my choice. You complete them all before your birthday I'll talk uncle Haymitch into lending me his cabin for your birthday weekend." That catches my attention. Haymitch is awful, but his cabin is my favourite place on earth, tucked away on the shore of tiny Seam lake with the best fishing I've ever seen.
Johanna can smell the changing tide and smirks. "So what's it gonna be?" Damn her, I am sorely tempted.
"Nothing illegal," I say, and she rolls her eyes. "And nothing that'll cost me my job or hurt anyone."
"Noted." She reaches out her hand, and I only pause a moment before shaking it. "Five challenges. Three months," she says. "And to give you more incentive, if you fail, we switch bedrooms."
I scowl. When we got the apartment together I scored the better of the two bedrooms, and Jo's been coveting it the entire three years. "Won't be a problem because I'm not going to fail," I tell her.