It’s December 31, 1999, and I’m 14. My family is either celebrating a new millennium or mourning the end of the world — I honestly don’t know which — with a house party. My parents signal the invitation by leaving the front door open and turning the stereo up to full volume. An hour goes by and no one seems to be getting the hint, so my mom sets up a chip and dip on the front lawn.
Despite having painted blue streaks in my hair earlier that day, and wearing the silver Dr. Martens I’d finally saved up enough money to buy, I’ve decided I don’t want to see anyone.
The thought of having to talk to our idiot neighbors, or to justify why I’m not out with friends, makes me clench my jaw. I decide to hide in my room — the room I will share with my sister for another two years. Much to my annoyance and relief, my brother and sister both had friends over. My brother had a select few, and my sister, a kindergartener, was already a social butterfly. They wouldn’t be bothering me.
I’d painted the walls of my bedroom bright yellow (the color of insanity, my dad reminded me) and the wall closest to our bunk bed is plastered with magazine ads for Escada perfume, Candies shoes, and Britney Spears’ latest album. If someone from my grade came to visit me, this array would look totally normal. It’s a source of pride, an early days vision board.
Even if I had been invited to a New Year’s party, I wouldn’t go. I’d convince myself it was a pity invite. They don’t really want me there. What would I even do? Oh my god, would there be beer? Or weed? Who would I talk to? What if someone had to meet my parents? Instead, I decide to log on to AOL and see if my boyfriend Vince is online.
I imagine what my nosy kid neighbor would think if she wandered into my room as she is wont to do. I would tell her, we are in modern times and all middle schoolers have online relationships. Plus, why go out with a gross suburban sk8tr boy you’ve known since you were five when you could be with someone cultured, sophisticated, and on an upward trajectory? The dial-up sounds whirr and whine and then quicken. After what seems like a lifetime, the turbulence stops. I hit mute on the keyboard before “You’ve got mail!” blasts through the speakers. There he is.
Before the pixels of my Buddy List are fully rendered, I read his screen name aloud, ARCHSTARZ, and my heart skips a beat. I’m immediately embarrassed that he can see I’m online too — no plans on a big night. I smile when I realize he must not have much going on either. A perfect match we are! We exchange our usual pleasantries. What’s up? How are you? Fine. Pretty good. I’ve been thinking about you. Me too. Lol. I complain about how loud and annoying my parents’ party is. Rude neighbors coming in and out. No regard for our new carpets. Adults getting drunk and drunker. Stupid and stupider.
I hear my mom singing along to Journey, a little off-key and I try hard to imagine what she must look like dancing, having a good time, in this house. I imagine my dad’s grimacing smile as he watches her, and the knowing look he would give to one of the other dads. She will be useless tomorrow. Vince tells me he has to go. His friends have arrived to pick him up for a party. I felt a lump forming in my throat. No one, not even my siblings, has come to check on me.
What if the world does end tonight?
Y2K… It’s not something my family has outright discussed, but they must have been planning on it. My dad has been bringing random cans of food home every day for weeks. He tucks them away on the bottom shelf of our pantry without saying anything. His wilderness packs — standing tall in a neat row at the foot of my parents’ bed and ready to go at a moment’s notice — are unseasonably full with camping and hunting supplies.
How would we know? Would the lights go out? Would there be an earthquake ahead of a massive volcanic explosion? Would alarms sound throughout the city?
My dad was afraid of things he didn’t understand and if there was one thing he didn’t understand then and never would, it was technology. To this day, he’s never owned a cellphone, laptop, or smart TV. A few years ago, after he had retired, he got a job delivering packages for FedEx to curb his boredom. He was fired at the end of the first day. “What happened?” I asked when he told me weeks later. “I came back a few hours late. Got lost,” he said. He refused to reference the truck’s GPS and instead had handwritten the delivery addresses and relied on a paper map and a compass to find each one. “Who needs technology?” He laughed. Cancer, he called it.
For my dad’s sake, and maybe my own, I am more worried about what would happen if the world doesn’t end at midnight.
3, 2, 1…
My body slumps against the bedroom door, listening to the party wind down moments after midnight. The countdown sounds cautious, tentative. I imagine a lot of raised eyebrows, full chests of air, bracing, hoping… but nothing at all happens. No lights flicker, no ground shakes beneath us. Nothing explodes other than the usual firecrackers that will keep the dogs barking until three in the morning. I am already irritated about being woken up. I press my cheek to the door and hear footsteps disappear into the cul-de-sac. Someone inside has turned the music off. My sister must have fallen asleep in our parents’ bed long ago.
Our house falls silent, the front door closes. Slippers shuffle to bed. That’s my cue.
I slowly creep out of my room and survey the damage. Couch cushions awry, a coat pulled across two hooks, chip crumbs spilling out of a bag and onto the Formica countertops. There’s a previously warm round of brie now sitting cold and congealing, its plate still littered with crackers. I pick up the round and begin eating it like an apple. I eat the rind, I eat the crumbly half-eaten bits others had forked off. I eat the crackers, the chips, the dips. I inhale the party, the fun, the hope, the relief, the disappointment. Then I throw away the wrappers, wipe down the counters, and go to bed contemplating the end of the world. It could still happen while we slept, right? What about timezones?
On January 1, 2000, my mom gets up for work despite her headache, makes coffee with one hand, and pours a bowl of Chex for my sister with the other. Before leaving, she pops into my blinding yellow room to thank me for cleaning up. She sits next to my exhausted body (the firecrackers had me up until three), runs her hands through my hair, and rests her warm hand on my cheek before asking in earnest, “Did you have fun out with your friends last night?”
