THE FIRST TIME

CHAPTER NINE - GET THE PARTY STARTED

"I'm coming up, so you better get this party started!"

PINK (From the album "Missundaztood" (2001)

"If you're planning on going without any of the fun stuff all the way through high school, I hate to break it to you, Jen. I just don't see it happening" Abby told her at their lunch table in her classic, never hold any punches kind of way.

"She can, if she wants to! Don't tell her something like that, or it could lead to her falling in again!" Joey (as it usually was whenever Abby stated any kind of point of view, or if it was Joey stating something and it was the other way around) disagreed with her.

"It isn't like I'm for sure planning to ..." was all that Jen got out, before the two fighting hens she was eating lunch with, started another round of verbal sparring. As she had quickly come to realize, finding any kind of common ground between her two best girlfriends was harder, than it would have been to magically make her crush on Pacey go away, another thing that wasn't going all that well for herself either.

"Just because you've always been prude, doesn't mean that she has to turn into one too!" Abby snarled at Joey, who was getting so hyped up, that Jen could have sworn that it she herself hadn't been there, it would have ended with blood being shed, right in the middle of the cafeteria!

"I'm a prude? Why is it that I've never seen you with a guy, Abby? There has to one among this group of boys here, that tickles your fancy, so what's stopping you?" Joey fired back at her, while Jen rubbed her temples to get rid of the massive headache, the two of them were giving her. As much as she loved both of them, there was also a small part of her that wanted to bang their heads together, as hard as she could and tell the both of them to just grow up already!

"Unlike you, I'm not skanky enough to throw myself at the first guy, who shows any interest in me!" Abby tauntingly shot of the next volley.

"How would you know, when no guy has ever shown an interest in you?" Joey returned fire with and seeing as almost everyone around where they were sitting, were now watching this girly horror show unfold, Jen finally thought it necessary to call an end to the battle.

"Okay, I think that has to be enough for this day! Not just for you two, it's mostly for my own sanity's sake! Both of you, go to your corners and just shut up, please!" Jen sternly told them and to a small extent, it worked. For around ten seconds or so.

"I could get a guy to make out with me, if I wanted to! It can't be that hard, if you can do it, Joey!" Abby started off round six of their lunch break with.

"Prove it, then, Abby. I dare you to get one romantic looking kiss on the mouth, in the company of someone, I can trust, who'll testify to it!" Joey dared Abby and if there was one thing Jen had learned about the two of them, it was that they rarely backed down, if anyone said that magic four letter word.

"Care to make it more interesting, Joey?" Abby continued, while Jen tried her best to hide her face behind her arm from some older girls, who were by now clearly whispering about them and the unusual form of entertainment, they were supplying to them in all too great doses. "Twenty, nay thirty dollars says that I can and when you present me my winnings, I want you to say "You were right, Abby. Just like you always have been right about everything!"

"You're on! This has to be the easiest thirty bucks, I've ever made!" Joey smirkingly told Abby back and to Jen's complete and utter joy, her two friends managed to spend the rest of the lunch break in total silence.

"Jen, how do you actually score with a guy?" Abby had to ask her best female friend on their way to class, seeing as (in spite of the many, many chick flicks that she'd watched), she really didn't have any kind of a clue how to do it in practice.

"Abby, I know that you and Joey are both total out of your tiny little minds freaks, when it comes anyone telling you that you can't do something, but just take a minute to think about this, please? I mean, do you really want your first kiss to be with someone, you might not even like? Hand on your heart, how many guys here could you see yourself kissing?"

"Not really any. I can't just let her win either!"

"Why not, when it would be the only sane thing to do in this situation?"

"It's complicated", Abby began to explain. "See, Joey and I, we've always had this very delicate power balance, going to back to when we were little kids on the playground. If I wanted to go on the swings, then suddenly she wanted to use them and would snatch them right in front of me with this annoying "Ha, ha, I won!" look on her face. So, say that if she wanted to go on the big slide, then I would try to snatch her turn in front of her and give her my "Ha, ha, I won!" look. Are you beginning to understand now?"

"I understand that both of you desperately need psychotherapy! Why would you do that or for that matter, keep up the hatred for so many years?" Jen had to ask and it made Abby look at her, like she hadn't understood anything.

"I've never hated Joey! Where on earth would you get that from?" Abby asked back and by now, all Jen could say, was that she was extremely confused!

"The way you talk to one another, for one thing?"

"You mean that thing in the cafeteria? That was peanuts compared to some of the really terrible things, we've called and said to one another over the years! I'm talking serious, way below the belt, probably should have both been sent to a shrink afterwards, kind of stuff to hurt the other girl! The thing with me is that as much as I'm loving this whole big "Wholesome Best Friends" thing, you and I have going on, I also need someone like her in her life, to argue with and give me proper verbal sparring back. I've tried it with other girls, but none of them came close to how good, she is at it!"

"I'm starting see to why both of you were friendless wonders, as it attains to other girls, when I came here!"

"I'd like to think that she sees me the same way, as the friend/enemy that she has to admit to herself to needing too and will miss some day, when we've all left school. Don't tell her this, but I know for sure, that I'll miss the heck out of her! The thing is that this whole "Frenemy" thing we have, or whatever you want to call it, it all relies on us keeping the very gentle power balance between us relatively even. Lately, with her having Pacey and so many girls being jealous of her, it's shifted way too far in her favor. If I win this one ..."

"It'll bring balance back to the force again. As crazy as it sounds to my own ears to say so, Lukina Skywalker, I sort of get where your warped mind is coming from!" Jen headshaking said, just before a rather unwelcome face came over to them. That face belonged to Chris Wolfe, a rather unintelligent and equally uninteresting jock, who'd asked her out several times already. However, he was also giving her such enormous creep vibes, that she would rather go on a date with anyone else at their school, all of the girls and teachers, even the janitor, the gardener and the lunch lady included, before she would begin to consider going on a date with him.

"There's a party at my house on Saturday, if you want to come, Jen. There's going to be beer there, booze and best of all, I'll be there to keep your fine self well entertained all evening! I have a king-size bed, you know?" he asked with a flirty smile, that almost made Abby laugh out loud and herself throw up in her mouth a tiny bit.

"Maybe someday, when hell freezes over, Chris. Either that or when we get universal peace, we've ended all hunger in the third world and have destroyed every nuclear weapon in existence, whichever comes first!" Jen told him back, hoping that he would get the message.

"Wait here for a moment, Chris" Abby told him, while dragging Jen a little away.

"Can you believe that boneheaded narcissist? "I have a king-size bed, you know?" I'm almost surprised that he didn't follow up that incredible line with "Want to be the next slut who spends fifteen minutes in it with me?" Jen had to exclaim, and it made it impossible for Abby to hold back her giggles anymore.

"You really think Chris Wolfe is capable of lasting that long?" Abby grinningly asked her.

"You're right. I should have said fifteen seconds!" Jen corrected herself.

"Probably. He did give me an idea on how to win my bet with Joey, though. A party, everyone's been drinking, and inhibitions have started to go away at the same pace, as those drinks went down. Need I say anymore?" Abby pleadingly asked her that last part and while Jen didn't really feel like going to any event, where Chris would be in constant close enough proximity to her, to try to drunkenly flirt with her, there was also another part of her. A part, that was getting sick and tired of spending so much time pining over a guy, who she had to come to terms with by now, had very obviously friend-zoned her and that Jen could definitely use an evening full of distractions, to stop herself from thinking too much about him.

Kegger at Chris Wolfe's house. It would be hard to find five words in the English language, that fit worse with Joey or what she preferred to spend her Saturday evening doing. Nevertheless, that was how she would be spending most of it, tagging along with Jen and Abby (another thing she'd never imagined herself doing).

"Remember that murder is still illegal, even if you think that Abby has bugged you enough for it to feel justified in your own eyes" Pacey told her jokingly, while he was helping her with figuring out what to wear for the party. It had to be an outfit that both said, "I'm not so poor that I have to wear rags every day" and at the same time unsexy enough, that she wouldn't have too many drunk guys hitting on her.

"You know, you could come along and make sure, that it doesn't end in bloodshed?" she leadingly asked him in the hope that his answer had changed from what it had been, all of the other times, she'd tried to get him to come with her.

"As highly amusing to me, as it would be to watch you make a drunken ass of yourself, there's no getting out of this evening's family dinner at the Witter house. Ma has made it clear as day, that no excuses will be deemed acceptable other than my own death or perhaps being held hostage at gunpoint. Although, if you want the truth, I'm not entirely certain that even that would be a good enough excuse for her!" he told her again and it wasn't like she didn't understand that his family had to come first during this time, when his folks were about to go through a divorce in the coming months. From what she'd understood, the evening ahead would be about laying the news on Pacey's sister Gretchen, who was coming home for college for the occasion and as much as Pacey tried to pretend not to be looking forward to it, she also knew him well enough to know how much he'd been missing his much-beloved sister, since she'd left for college that previous fall.

"You think Gretchen will be happy that you've started dating the daughter of an infamous drug smuggler?"

"Yeah, I couldn't imagine her reacting in any other ways. Knowing how much she's always liked you; she'll just be glad for me that I finally made a smart choice in my life" Pacey said with a smile that did little to hide how much he was looking forward to telling his Sis. In many ways too, growing up Gretchen had been like a spare older sister to her and had in addition been the first one to predict what was happening between them now, where it was safe to say that the "Just Friends" stage of their relationship was quickly turning into a mere memory.

"How about this stylish combo?" Joey threw out there while holding up a ski jacket in one hand, with the pants to match with it in the other.

"A spectacular choice, I must say! Especially, if your plan is to pass out from heatstroke within the first half hour of arriving!" he quipped, which in turn made her smile to herself.

"Am I the only one, who'd rather just get this over with?" Doug asked him, while they were waiting at Capeside Train Station for their shared sister to arrive on the 5.46 from Boston.

"As in, all of this divorce BS? No, you aren't!" Pacey told his brother, who was arguably suffering the worst through all of this, seeing as he by having his own apartment, also by default had become the one to house their father, John.

"What do you have to complain about, Pacey? You don't have anything worth getting stressed out over, no bills to pay and you're already dating the girl, you'll surely end up with. There aren't many guys in this town, who wouldn't want to trade places with you".

"You really think Joey and I are a "Live Happily Ever After" couple?"

"I can't say for sure, if you won't screw it up royally some way, considering your history of doing dumb things, that no one else would have ever thought about doing!"

"Thanks, Doug. I always love it when you build up my confidence by reminding me of what a screw-up, I am!" he said sarcastically, which only drew a headshake from his brother.

"All I meant to say was that Joey is clearly over the moon for you and unless, you really do something crazy like sleep around on her, she'll forgive you for it. Lord knows why, since she's always seemed like a rather clever girl to me! Then again, I guess it goes to show that even the worst dog gets his day sometimes! Dad's happy for you too, even if he won't tell you so to your face" his brother told Pacey, who had to bat an eye at Doug's remark.

"I thought, that if anyone ..."

"As gruff and tough as he can appear to be sometimes, he does love you and wants the best for you. While I'm sure that his dream daughter-in-law wasn't someone with a dad in jail for dealing drugs, he also knows that you need someone, who'll be as tough on you as he is and that Joey has never been one to hold herself back, when it comes to scolding you. I still remember the first time we saw it in person, when I think you were around seven or eight and how much he laughed his ass off at the sight of it. You know what he said that day?" Doug asked and only got a headshake as his reply. "He said and I quote: Those two will end up together, you just wait and see".

"And Joey's dad winding up being a jailbird hasn't changed that?"

"I don't think the arrest came as too much of a surprise to him, if you want my opinion. From what he's told me, it sounded to me like Mike Potter was never anything approaching an angel, even before it seriously went downhill for him. He's also told me that if it hadn't been for him first meeting and then marrying Lily, Mike probably would have wound up behind bars much sooner, than he has. Dad tried more than enough of being judged for his father's sins, when he was your age now, to know perhaps better than anyone, how unfair it is to be the one, who constantly gets the sentence handed to them, without having done any of the crimes to deserve it" Doug shared.

It wasn't all that well-kept of a Witter family secret, that their grand-dad on their father's side, whose liver had given up before he turned forty, after years of extreme alcohol abuse and Pacey only had a few faint memories of having met, when he was still just a tiny little kid, had been a black sheep in their family that both liked to get into fights, whenever he got the chance to and had most likely fathered several illegitimate kids in his short lifetime, most of whom he'd cleverly avoided ever paying a dime in child support for. Pacey's dad, whom Pacey could easily guess had only rarely been given any reason not to be ashamed of the man who fathered him, would always try to steer the conversation in another direction, whenever his own old man's name was brought up and from the look of him, whenever it was, it was clear to all of his children that the memories of him were simply too painful to think about.

At parties home in NYC, Jen had rarely held herself back, but at this one in Capeside, her role was more that of a mentor to the two total rookies in the world of partying, she'd brought along with her. Joey was the most of out of place, being the epitome of a fish out of water among the people, who either ignored her or talked down to her, when she met them in school. Abby should have felt more at home, seeing as she actually knew a few people there, but her pathetic attempts at scoring were so bad, that Jen felt embarrassed by proxy, for having been the one that brought her there. The one plus was that Chris had hooked up with some girl from the cheerleading squad and hadn't hit on her at all, a slight reprieve from his advances that she was sure would be continuing on the following Monday, whether she wanted him to or not.

"Is this how beer is supposed to taste?" Joey asked her, while making a face that cut it out in cardboard, how little she was liking the taste of the beverage in the red cup, she was holding.

"Pretty much, from how I remember it" Jen answered, before taking a sip of her own cup that was filled with what she gathered was about the cheapest beer, money could buy you. It was drinkable for sure, and it would get you drunk too, but as for it being an enjoyable taste, even she had to admit that it would be pushing the bounds of reality too far, to call it that.

"It isn't a hit with me, that's for sure!" Joey exclaimed, before yet another unwanted suitor, this time one who was so drunk, that he could barely stand up, came over to try to hit on her.

"Wanna dance, Hot Stuff?" he asked with words so slurred, that they were only barely intelligible.

"I'll pass, seeing as I have a working brain, but I know that she does" Joey told him, while pointing over at Abby, who looked like she was bombing it with yet another guy. It worked as well and moments later, Abby was the one who had to deal with his horned-out self.

"That was mean!" Jen scolded her friend, although it looked more to her like Joey was pleased with herself over what she'd just done.

"What was? All I did was helping her to win that bet, against my own best interest, I might add!" Joey answered in one of the worst attempts at playing innocent, that Jen could remember having seen yet.

"What odds do you give her?"

"Care to make another bet, eh?"

"You already make far too many bets, as it is! At least, you didn't bet your boyfriend having to make out with someone else this time, so that's a step up for you!"

"I'll give you ten to one, that she strikes out with every guy here?"

"I'll still pass" Jen told her friend back, while a strange thought began to crawl into the back of her mind. What if it wasn't a guy, Abby should be looking for at all? With how she'd been talking about the guys at school in the least flattering way you could, Abby's personal hero and savior Pacey very obviously excluded, maybe there was something, her vertically challenged friend was doing a very bad job at hiding.

Abby's plan for evening had been a rather simple one. Find a guy, get him to kiss herself and afterwards, doing a whole lot of gloating to Joey's face, it just wasn't working out that way for her. Either the guy would do or say something to turn her off (like the one who said that he'd do her, as long as she never told anyone about it or the guy, who in the middle of their conversation had stuck his hand down the back of his pants to scratch a place, she didn't want to picture in her mind), and after a few hours of going through this charade, it was becoming clear as daylight to her, that picking up guys was perhaps the one thing, she was worst at, when push came to shove.

It wasn't either that there hadn't been a few hot ones among them, there were just none of them that did it for her, like Pacey could. He understood her and unlike all of the other guys her age that she'd met, he both knew when to be gentle with her (if that was what she needed) and when to give her some of her own medicine back, when it came to them playfully teasing one another. If there had been two of him and one of them were single, sure, she'd be more than willing to make out with him, but when she looked around at the rest of the selection, there wasn't anyone, she could see as being worthy of granting her the first kiss of her life.

While she didn't consider herself to be overly romantic of mind, she still wanted her first kiss to be with someone, that she (as a minimum) liked to hang out with and that by itself, ruled out almost everyone in her hometown. People, who either annoyed her on a daily basis (and made up nine out of ten of them) or were guys that she couldn't see herself in a million years having any kind of romantic relationship with.

If she had to be one hundred percent honest, there was only one person at that party, she would want to kiss and it wasn't a guy. It was that girl from New York, who was the only other one, that understood her like Pacey did.

To say that Joey was enjoying herself at Chris Wolfe's wild kegger was the equivalent to saying, that she'd enjoyed it when she broke her arm falling down from a tree as a kid or that she'd enjoyed it that time, when a small child at the Ice House had thrown up his fries and chicken nuggets all over her clothes. The beer wasn't sitting with her well either and knowing that Bessie would tear her a new one, if she came home visibly drunk, also meant that she didn't want to drink herself into a stupor (like almost everyone else there was) and that left her with little more to do, than observing this as an anthropological experiment of what happens when you introduce the element of alcohol into the bodies of a bunch of teenagers, who for the most part were already seriously hormonally crazed to begin with.

The one thing that at first had kept her amused was watching Abby cluelessly hit on one guy after another, but even that was starting to turn into a sad sight. Truth be told, she was starting to feel sorry for her "Frenemy" more than anything else and in turn, starting to feel pretty terrible inside over knowing that she was the sole reason, why Abby was selling herself like this to boys, Joey could see plain as day that she didn't like or want to make out with. Even if they'd had more than their share of spats over the years and a few among them, Joey preferred it if she could just forget, it wasn't like she wanted anything really bad to happen to her old rival and seeing Abby lose hope more with every guy that turned her down, made the knot inside of Joey's own stomach grow larger with each passing one.

She could of course talk to Abby about giving up the bet and the longer amount of time that passed, the more it seemed like it would be by far the better option for the both of them. If it had been anyone else, then she surely would have.

After the drive back to his house, where Gretchen had delighted in reminding both himself and Doug several times, of how she'd been the first one to predict that him and Joey had almost been destined to become a couple, once they became old enough to, they'd settled into the usual small talk about how Gretchen was doing at college and whatever small things, his sister had missed out on by not being a citizen of her hometown anymore. One subject, that had been carefully glossed over was why their dad wasn't there and Pacey could tell from his mother Mary's demeanor that this wasn't the kind of news, she wanted to lay on a daughter, who already had enough on her plate, as it was. Eventually though, it would have come out and that moment came shortly after dinner, consisting of a stew that while not being a five-star meal, also was one of his mom's better dishes.

"I suppose, you're wondering why your father isn't joining us tonight" his mom had tentatively said, wanting to judge what Gretchen's reaction was first, before she continued.

"Isn't he just working late?" Gretchen had asked back and the silence her question was first met with, must have told her that something was up.

"We're ..." was all his mom got out, before the ringing of the phone made for an unwelcome distraction.

"I'll get it, ma. It's probably just some salesman, that I can tell where to shove his, what is bound to be a "Once in a Lifetime Offer" he quickly said, also grabbing the chance to get away from a dinner table, where tension was becoming so thick, that it would take a freshly sharpened knife to cut through it.

"Witter residence" he spoke cheerily into the phone, slightly hoping that it was Joey, who was calling to beg him to pick her up from Chris Wolfe's house, where she would surely be having a far more miserable time than most of the other partygoers there, if it wasn't all of them.

"Hi, Pacey. It's lieutenant Peterson from down at the station. Is your mom there?" the voice on the other end, who Pacey knew belonged to one of his dad's oldest and best friends, asked him.

"She's unavailable right now, but I can pass a message on to her, if you'd like?"

"I suppose, you're bound to hear sooner or later. It's about your dad. He's piss-ass drunk and making a complete ass of himself down at one of the bars down by the pier called "The Watering Hole". The owner called here to see if we wouldn't try to talk him into leaving the premises, and I told him that we'd try all we could, I just don't think we can. His mind is in a really bad place right now, Pacey, and I don't think any of us here at the station can talk sense into him. If he really makes a giant ass of himself tonight, he could lose his job over it. I'm sure none of you in that house of yours would want that either".

As Pacey hung up the phone moments after, it was with a well of emotions rising up inside of him. The biggest of them being pure, unadulterated fear, for how the rest of this evening and night would turn out and what the consequences of it would be the morning after.

END OF CHAPTER NINE