[INDENT][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black]JENNY VENOM[/color]
[color=006400] JENNY VENOM[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/INDENT][hr][INDENT][INDENT][COLOR=SILVER][SUP][I]Bordeaux House, October 18[sup]th[/sup][/I] // ft. [@Hillan] as Victor Bordeaux[/SUP][/COLOR][/INDENT][/INDENT]
The party was already in full swing when Jenny Venom and her cronies arrived. She’d had to walk, her parents refusing to give her a lift, and despite her father’s lucrative job they had not gifted her with her own vehicle upon her birthday, unlike many of her more fortunate peers. Micheal had offered his daughter use of his bike, a gesture that was equal parts genuine and passive-aggressive. Jennifer had quickly decided that the only way she would depart on the rusted, out-of-style old frame would be to ride it directly into River Shannon, and then dive in after it holding the sincere hope that no one she knew had seen her on its saddle in the first place. So she’d walked instead, setting off as early as she could so she could loop around into town to her usual hang-outs; it was there that she found, as she’d hoped, her usual companions, a mixed bag of Mathers Memorial students and alumni, all on the social fringes and united under a banner of defiance and ‘fuck you’. 

Whys and Hows and Whos aside, they arrived late. The gang immediately went for the kitchen, a roving pack of booze-seeking missiles; Jennifer hung quiet and secluded on the outer circle of the party, carefully observing. Everyone was here - most of MMH in fact - and as Jennifer’s eyes scanned the ebbs and flows of social interaction, cliques forming and breaking and reforming, she spotted the key players: Dexter, the ex of the star guest; Andy, the best friend; RJ, the bad-boy wannabe with a thing for the girl-next-door. Autumn was hanging around, by herself as usual, moping and likely pining for the birthday girl. Victor was flitting about as well, once again playing understudy at his own birthday. No one of note had noticed her belated entry, or the uninvited she’d brought with her. Better that way. She slunk across the living room towards the kitchen after her friends, silently sneering at the records piled up next to the stereo waiting to be played, and no sooner than she had crossed the threshold from beige carpet to white tile, she had a plastic cup of beer thrust into her hands. She drank quickly, handing it back to be filled again.

“Man it’s all kids here, Venom. The place reeks of freshmen. ’ Danny piped up, the oldest and tallest of the group, kept around by virtue of his fake ID being the one most consistently accepted. He’d passed the initial beer, and now passed her the refill, of which Jenny threw back half the cup before responding.
“It’s the Bordeaux’s party. Who did you think was gonna be here? Most of Mather’s here tonight.” 
Danny shrugged, looking to the others, who also shrugged. Half of them were Jennifer’s year anyway, and were well aware of Vanessa Bordeaux. The party had been well-anticipated by most of the school.
“If I didn’t show after getting Vanessa’s pity invite I’d have caught hell from most of everyone. I don’t need every grody loser and nerd getting rips on me for not being at the ‘It’ party of the year. Shit, half of these burnouts have just clawed their way up to zeek just by being here. ”
Danny nodded, half-listening. Jennifer was sour - it wasn’t a pity invite, it was Vanessa extending an olive branch, but Jenny wasn’t the accepting-olive-branches type, and she [i]damn[/i] sure wasn't going to show just what kind of years-old regret and heartache the gesture had dredged up in her. 
“Not even,” he eventually replied, but it was clear he was only rebutting for rebuttal’s sake, “but we’re bouncing anyway. Scoop a couple dollars and score some more booze from the 7-11 downtown. You in?”

Jennifer took stock. There wasn’t really anything here that she felt the need to hang around for; her face had been seen by the miscellaneous and she would be officially recorded as ‘in attendance’. But still, something wanted to linger here, a misplaced sense of wistfulness. Jenny looked around and saw, clear in her mind, a ‘What If’. She could have been here early, welcomed in by the twins before enjoying a slow glass of wine as more guests trickled in and then switching to beer as the energy and tempo in the house built. She could have kissed someone and laughed about it with Vanessa, speaking in hushed tones about who likes who and who had a totally hot bod and who needed to bag their face. Jenny put her hand in her jacket pocket and held a tight fist around the object she’d stashed in there to be presented tonight, crudely wrapped in some torn up newspaper. At the same time, she watched from the far side of the kitchen island as Vanessa trailed through the lounge straight to Andy’s side, dancing and laughing, before collapsing onto the sofa next to Autumn. Jenny’s knuckles were white gripped around her present as Vanessa led Autumn away by the hand to the upper stories of the house.

“I’m out.” She said simply, taking Danny’s cup of beer and swiping a liquor bottle from the countertop before pushing away from the kitchen, snaking her way through the lounge - swiping a pack of nails from someone’s back pocket as she did - before quietly climbing a short set of stairs and pushing through a door onto the balcony that overlooked the backyard. She finished the beer and poured in some liquor - gin? fucking [i]gin[/i]? - and then sipped that as she sparked up a cigarette. Her plan was to reluctantly sip the gin until everyone else was inebriated enough to sneak out, and then finish the cigs on the way home to cover the smell of booze. And then Jennifer heard the balcony door open and close behind her, and she stiffened up as she turned around to discover who had deliberately sought her out, despite her caution to avoid those that would otherwise only serve to make her uncomfortable, or instill her with melancholy nostalgia.

Out of the door stepped the older of the Bordeaux Twins. He had a sheepish smile on his face. He walked up next to Jennifer and leaned over the railing on the balcony, gazing out at the people in the yard. 
“Party too lame for you Jennifer?” He joked, as he got out a cigarette from his pack. Producing his father’s zippo lighter from the other pocket and lighting the smoke.
“Jenny.” She corrected emphatically. Victor conceded wordlessly as Jenny turned around to lean next to him.
“If I have to fake one more conversation about football, I’ll blow my brains out.” Victor said, miming two fingers next to his head.

Jenny “hmphed” instead of laughing, not wanting to give Vic the satisfaction, and they silently stood side-by-side, taking drags from their smokes and watching as the party began to spill out from the house into the spacious Bordeaux garden. She finished her measure of gin and poured another, pushing the cup across to Vic and keeping the bottle for herself. She sipped again before she spoke.
“You ever get sick of sharing your birthday, Vicky? Being overshadowed every year?”

Vic smiled as the cup slid it’s way over to him, catching it, he didn’t drink from it. He simply whisked the alcohol around in the cup by playing with it in his hand, watching the gin float from one side to the other. He glanced over at Jennifer and a soft smile crept up on his face. Dragging the last bit of tobacco out of his cigarette. 

“A little. But I often put myself in the background. My sister thrives in the spotlight. I think I work best in the shadows. Behind the scenes.”  His words were soft, almost solemn. It was clear he wasn’t jealous of Vanessa, but he also wasn’t satisfied with his position in the grand scheme of things. 

This time Jenny [i]did[/i] laugh. “You sound like you’ve practiced that line a lot, Vicky.” She drank, swilling the gin around in her mouth, letting the flavour mix with the rough smoke of the cheap cigarettes. “Believe yourself yet?”

Victor chuckled. “Maybe I have. At least twice a day in the mirror.” He finally took a swig out of the gin and almost spat it out. That was disgusting. As much as he tried to hide the fact that he thought so from his companion. “Remember when we were kids and I’d punch you for calling me ‘vicky’?” He said, after he had finally forced the alcohol down into his stomach, the burn hitting. 
“Yet, I feel like you’d kick my ass now. So I guess I’ll just have to live that nickname down.” He concluded. He opened his pack again and got out another cig. Lighting it up, flipping the lighter with the dexterity of a Wild West desperado, thoughtlessly. 

“You’re welcome to try.” She replied. More quiet. Jenny stubbed her cigarette on the railing. “Why are you out here, Vic? Go enjoy your party. Nessie’s hogging the guests. I came out here to be by myself anyway.”

Victor smiled. “It’s my balcony. Isn’t it? Party’s getting a little too much for me. I like smaller crowds. We ended up getting talked into inviting the entire school with their plus one. I haven’t talked to half of the people downstairs before in my life, and suddenly they’re buying me birthday gifts. It just doesn’t feel genuine.” He looked up at the sky, and then back down again. Eyeing the tree that had branches that almost reached all the way up onto the balcony. It was a big oak tree. Had been there for fifty years. Planted back when his mom was a kid. “Remember when we’d climb that tree and Vanessa couldn’t get down? She got so scared.” Victor chuckled, taking another swig of gin. It was truly awful.

Jennifer considered the tree and the memories its branches bore. The memories of childhood turned sour mixed with the experience of aging, and she felt bitter about Vic’s seeming ungratefulness for the outpouring of friendships laid before him. Jennifer remembered her last birthday; a sixer from Danny that she split into 3 pairs, and her father refusing to purchase the latest Ramones record, instead banning Jenny’s music from the house. She put her hand in her jacket pocket, and pulled out the gift. Scraps of torn newspaper drifted to the floor, but the sellotape and sheets held together. It was rough, and crude, and messy, but so was Jenny. She set it on the railing, balanced carefully between the two of them.

“That’s your present. Joint present. But Vanessa's too busy with her real friends, so you can have it. Hopefully it feels more ‘genuine’ for you than everything else you’re getting tonight.” She sparked up another nail, finishing the dregs of Vic’s cup for him before pouring the last of the gin into it and tossing the empty bottle over her shoulder onto the grass. She sipped as she took two short steps to the door, pulling it open and lingering on the threshold back into the house, head cocked to look over her shoulder, the shape of Vic blurry in her peripheral. “Happy Birthday, Victor. Enjoy your night.”

And with that she left him alone on the balcony.

The rest of the night passed quickly for Jennifer. The gin settled in her stomach as she emptied the cup before she made her way from the Bordeaux house, and by the time she walked through the garden, kicking the discarded bottle as she went past, moving past the tree line with a third cigarette lit and burning, she was decidedly drunk and well on her way to wasted. ‘Home’ barely registered in her alcohol-addled mind, and instead she just wandered as the roads took her, eventually ending up downtown again and causing trouble.