“Well, heck, we oughta call ourselves the Meta-Physical Kids,” Josh said. and sweatpantsRscov with
“And who the fuck is this ‘Maker’ you’re talking about?” Eliot snarled. He was getting vehement and not listening. “Are you talking about God? Because if you’re talking about God, just say God.”
“All right,” Richard said placidly. “Let’s say God.”
“Is this a moral God? Is He going to punish us for using His holy magic? For being bad little magicians? Is He [“She!” Janet shouted] going to come back and give us a good spanking because we got into the garage and played with Daddy’s power tools?
“Because that is just stupid. It’s just stupid, and it’s ignorant. No one gets punished for anything. We do whatever we want, and that’s all we do, and nobody stops us, and nobody cares.”
“If He left us His tools, He left them for a reason,” Richard said.
“And I suppose you know what that is.”
“What’s the next wine, Eliot?” Janet asked brightly. She always kept a cool head in difficult moments, maybe because she tended to be so out of control so much of the rest of the time. She looked unusually ravishing tonight, too, in a slinky red tunic that made it to her midthigh, barely, before it gave out. The kind of thing Alice would never wear. Couldn’t, not with her figure.
Both Richard and Eliot seemed to want to extend the fight by another round, but Eliot, with an effort of will, allowed himself to be diverted.
“An excellent question.” Eliot pressed his hands to his temples. “I am receiving a divine vision from the Almighty Maker of … an exquisitely expensive small-batch bourbon … which God—or I’m sorry, the Makeress—has commanded me to render unto you forthwith.”
He stood up unsteadily and lurched in the direction of the kitchen.
Quentin found him sitting red-faced and sweating on a stool by an open window. Icy air was pouring in, but Eliot didn’t seem to notice. He stared out unblinking at the city, which receded in perspectival lines of lights fanning out into the blackness. He said nothing. He didn’t move as Quentin helped Richard manage the individual baked Alaskas—the trick, Richard explained, in his well-practiced explaining tone, was to make sure the meringue, an excellent heat insulator, formed a complete seal over the ice-cream core—and Quentin wondered if they’d lost Eliot for the evening. It wouldn’t be the first time he drank himself out of contention. But a few minutes later he rallied and trailed them back into the dining room with a slender, oddly shaped bottle sloshing with amber-colored whiskey.
Things were winding down. Everyone was treading carefully so as not to trigger another outburst from Eliot or another sermon from Richard. Not long afterward Josh left to take Ana?s home, and Richard retired of his own accord, leaving Quentin, Janet, and Eliot to preside woozily over the empty bottles and crumpled napkins. One of the candles had charred a hole in the tablecloth. Where was Alice? Had she gone home? Or crashed in one of the spare rooms? He tried her cell. No answer.
Eliot had dragged a pair of ottomans over to the table. He reclined on them Roman-style, though they were too low, so he had to reach up to get his drink, and all Quentin could see of him was his groping hand. Janet lay down, too, spooned up contentedly behind him.
“Cof“Cheese,” Eliot said. “Do we have cheese? I need cheese.”
On cue Peggy Lee wandered through the opening verse of “Is That All There Is?” on the stereo. Which would be worse, Quentin wondered, if Richard was right, and there was an angry moral God, or if Eliot was right, and there was no point at all? If magic were created for a purpose, or if they could do whatever they wanted with it? Something like a panic attack came over him. They were really in trouble out here. There was nothing to hang on to. They couldn’t go on like this forever.
“There’s a Morbière in the kitchen,” he said. “It was supposed to go with the theme—you know, the two layers, the morning milking, the night milking …”
“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Janet said. “Fetch, Q. Go on.”
“I’ll go,” Eliot said, but instead of standing up he just rolled weakly off the couch and fell on the floor. His head made an ominously loud bonk as it hit the parquet floor.
But he was laughing as Quentin and Janet picked him up, Quentin getting his shoulders t when he impl