“There you are!” Megan cries, appearing before her wearing a pinkish glow. She pulls Jennifer a little farther from the other women. Her smile is larger than usual, her gestures more expansive, and from this Jennifer deduces that she is drunk. That she is a happy drunk. That before too long she’ll be saying things to Jennifer like, “You know what I like about you?” On her face that drunken-epiphany expression, stupid and profound.
It’s true that these thoughts have an edge. There’s no help for that, resistant as she is to drunkenness as charming innocence. But she thinks the thoughts with affection, nevertheless. She’s fond of Megan. Of course she is. She gives Megan a hug. Which, frankly, surprises her as much as it seems to surprise Megan.
Megan says, “Whoosh!” as though Jennifer squeezed her tight, and then squeezes Jennifer tight, and plants a loud kiss right by her ear. She pulls away to look Jennifer in the eye, trying for serious. “I’m a little drunk,” she says.
Terry must have given her the hugging idea. Jennifer thinks it’s been some time since another adult hugged her, and it must have been nice to be hugged. When an adult and a child embrace, one hugs and one holds on. She’d forgotten that those are different things.
“Are you drunk?” Megan asks.
Jennifer shakes her head.
“Oh! That’s right. You don’t drink,” Megan whispers. “You told me that.” She takes hold of Jennifer’s sleeve and swings her arm gently from side to side. “Are you going to have fun?”
“You mean without drinking?”
“That. And in general.”
“I am,” Jennifer says. “I swear.”
Megan gives her another serious look. “People will like you, you know.”
Jennifer wants to look away. There’s a tingle in her cheeks like she might blush. She tries to hold Megan’s gaze, but she just can’t do it.
“Sometimes people find it hard here,” Megan says. “It’s just so small, and everybody knows everybody, and I think sometimes when you arrive it’s like the party got started without you and everyone already has all their inside jokes.” There’s an edge to Megan’s voice, some remembered hurt. “But it’s really a welcoming place,” she says, earnestly, almost pleadingly. “At heart it is. If you want to you can belong here.”
Jennifer doesn’t know what to say. What she feels is seen. How does Megan know that she’s wondering if she can belong? If she should? How can Megan see that she wants to? Does she know how it terrifies her? The wanting to.
Megan, bless her, doesn’t require an answer. She releases Jennifer from eye contact, aiming a shy smile at the floor. “I really am drunk.” She laughs a little breathlessly.
“Hey, y’all,” a voice says beside them, and Amanda is back, with two other women in tow. So far she seems to be the sardonic one. There’s a brassy one, and an intellectual one, and an uptight one, and an empathetic one, who reacted with too much sadness when she asked about Jennifer’s husband and Jennifer had to say he died. Jennifer will avoid this last one. Amanda she likes. She thinks they could be friends. Amanda says something wry about a TV show, and Jennifer laughs, and Megan beams at them both like a proud matchmaker.
What will they call Jennifer, the women at this party? The watchful one? The sad one? The one you just can’t get to know?
But she rejects this kind of thinking. She will not curl into herself like a snail. It’s just she’s never talked much at parties. She’s never had to. She can see Tommy beside her, telling one of his slow-drawl stories, and everybody watching him with an avid collective longing, and how beautiful he is, how beautiful. She can’t begin to replace all that was lost in him. She wonders—did his voice allow her silence, or insist on it? Two more people have joined their circle now, and they’re laughing at a small-child story, and Jennifer could tell one, she has plenty of them. Now is a moment when she could be the one to speak.
“Milo,” she starts, and they all look at her with such goodwill. They are all so willing to listen. Behind her from the staircase comes a male voice, a voice calling, “Megan!” and Megan’s head snaps up. Looking at Megan as she calls out, “Yes, honey?” it’s impossible not to think of a dog’s quivering attentiveness. Or perhaps a rabbit’s. Is it obedience she sees in her friend or fear? Wait—is there any difference?
“Could you come here a sec?” the man—Sebastian—says, in a voice that is carefully neutral. A voice with a vibration in it—so familiar it seems to chime in with a chord that’s always ringing in Jennifer’s head. She turns to look at Sebastian but the wall blocks her view of him. Megan flashes a brightly sheepish smile and calls out, “Sure!” starting toward him even as she speaks.
Megan gone, everyone shifts uncomfortably, as if struck with the sudden realization that without her they have nothing to say to each other. Amanda nudges Jennifer. “I think you were about to tell a story,” she says.
“Was I?” Jennifer says, though she knows she was. The story doesn’t seem funny anymore. It needed to be told on a wave of good humor and goodwill.
“Let me consult the record,” Amanda says. She makes a show of looking at everyone. “Who was taking the minutes?”
“Oh no,” one of the others says. “I forgot my . . . wait, what are those things called?”