By Bruised, Achae and Brandied

It was finally the nineteenth of April, and Steve came to Sharon's party wearing cargo pants and a striped T-shirt. Richie was walking along with him. The two walked down Marigold Lane and turned a corner onto Sunset Road. They saw a wanted poster with the faces of Lee, Switcher, John and Frank on a wall as they turned the corner. They learned that Lee's full name was Lee Wayne Sutherland.

Finally they got to Sharon's house. It was a Cape Cod, painted a peach color on the outside. Her front door was open, and Steve and Richie walked right in.

"Have you had dinner?", Richie asked.

"No, I saved my whole appetite for the party food," said Steve.

"So did I. Hey, you think they'll have oatmeal cookies?"

"I dunno. They had macaroons and Pepperidge Farm last time. But it's something different every time."

"I really hope they have oatmeal this time. Or Fig Newtons."

"I hope so, too, Richie," said Steve, hoping for his friend's sake.

Steve looked around the room. There was a music video with Aquetta in the videogram. It was for her song "Bring Me the Day". Aquetta was doing yoga underwater, lifting herself up in her lotus position as she mouthed to the words, floating up again and again line by line. Three girls were dancing to the video.

"See anyone we know?", asked Richie.

Steve continued looking around. "Well, there's Adrian."

"He's all scrappy."

"We could watch Aquetta."

"Nah." Richie turned his head down in disinterest.

"Maybe something good is going to come on next. They could play Bleach."

"They'll probably play a few rap videos first," said Richie. He had a horrified look in his eyes as he said the word "rap".

"Well, we'll see. Something rap could be next. Strait Off Gibraltar could be next. Bleach could be next."

"Hey, how long are we going to stay here?"

"Well, I'm planning to stay until the end of the party." Steve looked at Richie then asked, "How about you?"

"Just long enough to see some good music videos and catch 'All Fed Up'", said Richie, referring to Bleach's hit single of the year.

"Do you want to talk to Jessica? Jessica's supposed to come tonight."

"Sure."

"Well, you can hang around with Jessica and me at the end of the party and we'll watch music videos together. It will be like watching the tube together. Just after ten or so."

Steve looked across the living room and dining room some more. Kevin Flax had read an Internet treatise about how the war in China had aided the breakdown of Communism in Cuba during the eleventies and was talking about it with some other partygoers. A bowl full of sapodilla juice sat on the table on the kitchen. Some psilocybin mushrooms were on a plate near the juice. A forty sat on the table nearby. In the middle of the living room, Jocasta Lin was doing backflips for an audience.

Steve walked into the living room where there was some more food set out atop an ottoman. A box of cashews sat near the edge, and next to it there was a plate of peanut brittle. Steve hated the peanut brittle. It would always get caught in his braces. How would he look then?

A coffee table was populated by several plates of coconut cake. Steve took a silver fork from the end of the table and tried one of the cake slices. He found it rather dry. He picked up one of the cups of coffee from the table and took his first sip.

He breathed out. The coffee was still fairly hot. He blew on it and lifted it up again. As he lifted his coffee cup up to his mouth again, Steve felt a tap on his left shoulder.

Steve turned around, spinning on his left foot and spilling some of the coffee in the process.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" said a breathless voice.

Steve grimaced at the burning on his hand from the coffee, and shook it off as he glanced up to see who the voice belonged to. An apologetic Jocasta beamed at Steve. She had long hair and was wearing a black halter top, a black skirt and black-and-purple-striped leggings. Her radiant smile caused Steve to instinctively smile back.

"You're very good at backflips," stated Steve, not knowing what else to say.

Jocasta's smile broadened and she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her right ear. Steve got the impression that she was nervous. He didn't understand how a girl doing backflips in the middle of a party could be nervous around him, so he ignored the feeling.

"You came here with Richie, right?"

"Yeah, he's . . . ." and Steve floundered to point out Richie in the crowd.

"That's cool, I mean, you didn't come with Jessica?"

"Um, no," and suddenly Steve felt his face flushing red.

Jessica's mouth formed a tight O as she took Steve's hand and led him into the middle of the room. Steve vaguely heard something rap playing, but he didn't resist.

Nor did he resist when Jocasta began to grind against him.

Steve turned around to see Jocasta up against his body. "Hey, do you want to dance?", he asked her innocently.

His blue eyes looked into her brown eyes. He could see fire growing in them.

"OK, let's . . . dance."

They began dancing to the rap song. Steve had never taken dancing lessons, so he was a little stale.

"Express yourself," Jocasta said.

Steve started to prance around on the floor more vigorously, but ended up dancing the way he had danced with several girls before, except this time with a coffee cup in his right hand. Jocasta twirled him around. Steve glanced over at Jessica and brushed his hair out of his face.

Jessica Bunce stood there in her white camisole, red tights and brown pumps. She had red hair fitted neatly in a pageboy, and green eyes. She gave him a look as if to say, "It's up to you".

"So, Steve, you're not dancing with Jessica, right?", Jocasta asked.

"We're not dating anymore," Steve explained.

"Oh, fine then," Jocasta said sheepishly.

The two of them heard a sweet, wet voice say, "I've never seen you two together before!" They looked up reflexively, but before they looked they both already knew that the voice belonged to the party's hostess, Sharon Moran.

Having brown hair and hazel eyes, Sharon was wearing a glitter-covered white top and orange skirt with Birkenstocks. Sharon was smiling at Steve.

"Glad to see you made it to the party!" She paused for three seconds. "I hope you have good luck with Jocasta, because she can really carry you down."

Steve wasn't sure what "carry you down" meant, but he nodded along, trusting Sharon's characterizations of people. Jocasta's eyebrows turned inward as a smirk developed on her face.

Steve finished his coffee, and told Jocasta "Wait right there" as he walked off to dispose of the paper cup. He noticed Adrian drinking the forty as he walked by. Then he walked back over towards Sharon.

"I want to tell you that if you go with Jocasta she'll be dashingly modern," Sharon said. "She's no Luann Meyer".

Steve smirked at Sharon and thanked her for her analogy.

Steve walked back to Jocasta and kept hearing Sharon's voice saying "She's no Luann Meyer." As if reading his mind, Jocasta did a few back flips.

Steve grimaced in pain, feeling as if something inside him had crystallized and shattered.

Noticing his pained expression, Jessica walked over.

"Are you okay, Steve?"

"Yeah, fine. I'm just starving!"

"Want me to bring you over some of your favorite foods?"

Steve cringed at her motherly tone of voice. "No, I can still walk you know."

That was when Steve heard a scream.

Steve turned from Jessica's pained expression at his slight to see what was going on and found that most of the room was now at a standstill staring at the door. There, to Steve's utter amazement, stood Richie, open mouthed and flabbergasted. Clearly the scream had come from Richie and it didn't take long for everyone to see why he was screaming.

Sharon always had a surprise for her guests, but this time she had clearly outdone herself. The guests nearest the door started parting and making a path lined with more open mouthed disbelief as Bleach made their way into the house.

"Oh my word! Is it really them?" breathed Jocasta in Steve's ear.

"Yeah" came Sharon's reply from nearby. Steve turned his head to see her pleased grin as she surveyed the surprise on everyone's faces.

"You've realy outdone yourself this time Sharon"

"Yeah, it'll be hard to top this one." Sharon turned from Steve and greeted the band then showed them to the corner of the room. Once everyone was cleared away from the area it was pretty easy to see that that corner had been set up for a band but no one had even noticed.

Steve followed behind Richie, who was literally on the band's heels, and the two of them plopped down on the floor in anticipation while the band got ready to play. Richie was still too amazed to even talk but Steve enjoyed watching the band set up even without Richie talking his ear off. This would be one for the history books and he knew that Richie would be talking about it for ages to come.

After a couple of songs Steve left Richie's side and waded back into the rest of the party goers. He stopped to talk to Adrian, who was pretty well wasted by now, and then went on to find other people to mingle with. Jessica caught up to him and asked him to dance to some random song that was playing as Bleach took a break. He agreed and let her lead him off to a less busy section of the floor.

"So, how have things been Steve?"

"Things have been good. How are things with you?"

"They're good." Jessica hesitated and could tell that Steve wasn't really interested in dancing with her. "Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you goin' to date Jocasta?"

"I duuno? I might, I might not. I haven't really given it much thought."

"That's not true and you know it Steve. I know you well enough to know you've already got the rest of the evening planned out as well as pretty much the rest of the week. You give everything too much thought. You don't have to answer if you don't want to. I was just curious is all."

"Yeah, well, I really have had a lot on my mind lately. I haven't given much thought to dating Jocasta until this evening when she asked me to dance."

"Oh, okay then." Jessica really did regret bringing the subject up now and scrounged around for a topic to change the subject. Since she couldn't think of anything more to say she just let the music do the talking and they finished dancing in silence. Thankfully when the song ended another one started up and Rochelle Conti appeared out of nowhere to ask for the next dance with Steve. Jessica faded off into the crowd and Steve turned to dance with Rochelle.

Rochelle was a pretty girl with bouncy blonde curls and lively hazel eyes. Tonight her eyes looked rather green in contrast to her blue baby doll dress. "Are you having fun Steve?"

"Yeah, this is shaping up to the best party of the year."

"Sharon always does throw a great party doesn't she? I think it's cause she knows how to read people, ya know. She's good at giving people what they like."

"Yeah, I've noticed." Steve glanced across the room at Sharon to find her watching Richie rocking out with Bleach.

"I think she has liked him for a while now." Steve glanced down to find Rochelle watching Sharon as well and knew she had said what he was thinking. "I think they'd make a great couple. Don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Steve stopped dancing as the song changed and asked Rochelle if she wanted him to get her a drink.

"No, I'm good, thanks though." She wandered off to find another dance partner as Steve walked toward the kitchen and the bowl full of sapodilla juice. Now he had just one more thing to think about along with everything else. He winced as he reached for a cup and though as he ladled some juice for himself that it was more out of physical pain from somewhere in his abdomen then from the thought of his friends dating each other He'd have to go to a doctor soon if these weird pains kept attacking him.

Oh well. Another thought for another day he figured as he downed his juice and trashed his cup. For tonight though he was going to find something to eat and look around for Avery. Avery always had some wild tale of some off adventure or another. Tonight was Steve's turn to wow Avery with his story of the AALL thieves.

Steve found Avery Graham sitting in an armchair with a couple of other kids telling them about some adventure. Steve waited until the group broke up and then went and sat on the footstool across from Avery. Avery was wearing his typical polo shirt and khaki cargo shorts and looked completely at home and relaxed as he lounged and listened to Steve's tale.

"Dude! I've seen the wanted posted all over for those guys. That was you?"

"Yeah, me and Pete." Steve couldn't hide the pride in his voice. He was glad to actually be the one telling of the adventure this time. Maybe he was getting a few things started on the right track for his life. He glanced up to find Jocasta listening as he answered Avery's questions about Saturday night. This really was shaping up to be a great party.