“We meet again.” Stephen gave a quick grin and turned back to the bar, ordering for the both of us. He handed me a gin and tonic. In the dark room illuminated by various neon sconces along the wall, Stephen’s eyelashes cast long, sideways shadows across the bridge of his nose and onto his cheek, giving him a boyish appearance. Instead of a battle-hardened cowboy, he looked like he could be a student at some preppy college.
“Thanks.” I liked Stephen—but did not like that kiss. I didn’t like the questions that it would bring up when I got home. I hated how flustered I felt around him—how he’d made me wonder if yes was no or no was yes—and how he’d made me feel like this ever since I first met him in 1999.
There was only one thing to do in this situation: evade. I drank the entire gin and tonic in a few unladylike gulps and raised the empty glass to him like a toast before moving off to the dance floor.
My feelings were complicated. He’d kissed me in front of that entire audience without even asking. But it was the heat of the moment, I thought. And another: Maybe he actually likes you.
Something bubbled up inside me. A curious finger of want. When he caught up with me, as I’d half expected him to do, and moved against me to dance, I acquiesced.
The music was loud, beating consistently. My shoes were sticky on the ground, dragging through dropped straws and the glaze of drinks already lost. We didn’t talk anymore, just danced. One song, two. We took a break to down some shots. I eyed him critically, wondering when he was going to give up and grind against someone else, but after we’d slugged whiskey together, he was on me again. After a few songs, Rose tipsily joined us, bouncing loosely to the beat.
The alcohol flowed into me, heady and light, loosening my limbs. I rubbed up against Stephen, and Rose rubbed up against me. I didn’t know where my feelings started and where they ended, as each stumbling bounce brought forward a myriad of feelings toward the two. Rose flung her arms around my shoulders and faced me, and I was surprised at how close she drew toward me as she danced, eyes closed, lost in the beat. After months of walking on eggshells to stay out of her direct line of sight, here was Rose, acting friendly as her lips brushed against my ear, saying something that I couldn’t understand. The vibration from her voice sent goose bumps down my arms. “What?” I shouted, and she tried again, but when I couldn’t hear her a second time, she shook her head and smiled. Stephen cut in and began to slide alongside my body, and I lost Rose in the crowd.
The alcohol was getting to me. I was confused, overwhelmed, and overheated. Without excusing myself, I lurched from the dance floor and groped my way to the restroom. Under the fluorescent lights, my skin was green. I splashed water on my face and tried to breathe deeply, swallowing the thickened saliva that comes before getting sick. The door banged behind me and a leggy brunette appeared in the mirror behind me. I had only a vague idea that she was sharing a sink with me, pulling paper towels out of the dispenser without having used a toilet.
She dabbed my forehead lightly with a dampened paper towel. “You okay?” she said.
I was able to squint to see her. “It’s you,” I said.
“You’re Cassidy, right? Do you remember me?”
I leaned forward over the sink, swallowing hard. “Mm, yeah.” The insect from the release party with the mandala tattoo.
She put a chilled hand on my arm. “I don’t know how much of this you’ll remember,” she said slowly, like she was talking to a toddler. “But I wanted to tell you not to get too close to Stephen.”
I twisted around on the sink, the ceramic jamming into my pelvis. “Possessive, much?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, almost kindly. She wadded up the damp paper towel and tossed it in the trash. “I’m just looking out for you. When we were together—”
“I can take care of myself, thanks,” I scoffed, pushing past her. “All I’m doing is dancing. I have a boyfriend!” As I walked out the bathroom door, I almost ran straight into Yumi. She grabbed my wrists.
“Shit is going down,” she whispered, worried. There seemed to be a very public argument happening in the middle of the dance floor between Grant and a tall, beautiful redhead. Yumi continued, “Marisa is giving him hell right now.”
“Oh shit,” I said, my tongue heavy in my mouth. “Is Merry okay?”
“We should probably round up the others and go.” She tugged on my hand.
“Go? It’s still early. I’m finally having fun for a change.”
She let go. “Well, I’m not. Everyone’s calling me Tasty. I’m going back to the hotel.” She began walking away.
“Remember, that nickname made us quarter of a million dollars,” I called after her, sounding a lot like Rose. Marisa pushed past me toward the bathroom I’d just vacated, but Grant didn’t follow.
Stephen had found a table of people to talk to, but when I emerged, he handed me another shot. Rose was nowhere to be seen. “Sassy! You’re back. Let’s show ’em how it’s done.” We got lost in the beat.
A REPETITIVE SHRIEKING assailed my ears.
Slowly, I realized it was a phone. I cracked one eye open a slit and reached out at the air, grasping nothing.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, she’s super hungover,” said a voice, and something was jammed into my hand. “Cass, it’s for you.”
My throat felt as though it had sandpaper lining. “Mmmph. ’Lo?”
“I was so worried,” said a male voice. It was familiar. Harried. Frustrated.
“Dad . . . ?”
“Not Dad. Alex. Remember me?”
I wiped a hand down the front of my face and remembered, suddenly, that I had promised to call him after the awards ceremony. Instead, I had slunk into the car with the girls and tossed drinks back at Slice, then danced with—
“Ohh. Shit. I’m sorry, Alex.” Cracking the other eye open as well, I saw that I was in a hotel suite, having apparently fallen asleep on the first flat surface that would absorb me. Yumi, who had handed me the phone, now wordlessly placed a glass of water and ibuprofen on a side table littered with our goody bag items, cellophane peeled away in a pile. I shuffled forward on my elbows, using the phone as leverage against the plush carpet, to reach Yumi’s act of kindness. Alex was still speaking, his voice loud enough that even with the receiver clapped to my shoulder instead of my ear, I could hear him clearly.
“When I hadn’t heard from you, I called my parents in Houston. They were watching it live, and they told me you were there, so I knew you’d actually made it to the show, but . . .”
“No, yes,” I croaked, gratefully sipping water.
“Are you okay?” he demanded. I took a languid inventory of my body. I was fully clothed, though missing shoes. The underwire of my bra was cutting deep into my rib cage and I rolled to my side, but the pressure of the ground against my belly had apparently held my nausea at bay; I moaned.
“Yes, no, maybe,” I whimpered.
His voice softened somewhat. “Did you overdo it? You know you don’t handle liquor well.”
I clutched at my stomach and slowly rolled myself into a ball, still on my side. “Ughhh.”
“Call me later,” he said, his voice rising at the end like he was asking—but not quite.
There was no way to hang up the phone, so I left it clasped under my hand until the dial tone began its intermittent growl. With a weak arm I hurled it away, skittering the receiver across the floor until it clattered to a stop, anchored by its coiled cord.
Yumi appeared once again as a pair of legs wearing white cotton socks. She stooped over to pick up the phone and set it back in its cradle. Then she perched on the edge of a chair nearby. I closed my eyes, wishing that the room would stop spinning, so I heard rather than saw her sitting there, studying me. “Are you all right?”
“Will you help me get this bra off? It’s cutting off circulation to my arm.”
She sighed and unhooked it, helping me to slither out of it.
“What’s this?” she said, dumping one of the cups out. A soggy piece of paper towel, damp with sweat, peeled away and floated to the floor.
“I’ono,” I mumbled. “Can we order some food? Need some Alka-Seltzer.”
Yumi ordered two plates of dry toast, poached eggs, and fruit bowls with a side of seltzer. I was able to pull myself to a sitting position but stayed cross-legged on the carpet and sipped at the water when it arrived. It was hard to look at the eggs, which glistened like gelatinous white fish on the coffee table, and when I averted my eyes I spotted empty McDonald’s bags on the side table. I was sure I hadn’t eaten any burgers last night. I cut my eyes over to her. “So . . . how much of an ass did I make of myself?”
Yumi was nibbling on a corner of her toast. “Not too terrible,” she said. “But I didn’t stay until the end. Peter had to drag you up here.”
“And the others?”
She glanced down and brushed crumbs away from her legs. “When I left, Rose was fine. Tipsy, but fine. Merry, however . . . She probably feels about as bad as you do right now. Maybe worse.”
I felt for Merry right about then, but my own self-pity won out. “Mmph,” I grunted.
“It’s probably going to be everywhere soon, if not already. Grant and Marisa Marcheesa had a huge blow-out fight last night.”