“You are such a sociologist,” Amanda says, making everyone laugh. Just like that, the party mood returns, but Jennifer can’t recover so easily. It would be easier if she drank. She used to like a cocktail as much as anyone, but at some point she stopped drinking, hoping to encourage Tommy to do likewise, and then once she lost hope for encouragement her refusal became a reproof. Without Tommy there’s no reason not to drink. There’s no one to measure herself against, no spouse to embarrass or be embarrassed by. No, listen—she can be a different person without Tommy. Tonight, at this party. Just to try it out. Like smiling until you’re happy. She can pretend until it comes true.
She goes into the kitchen, where there’s an array of bottles on the counter. She has no idea what to have, uncertain as a teenager trying to fake sophistication. She’s got a bottle of vodka tilted back so she can read the label when the door swings open and Sebastian comes in. Jennifer feels caught, a feeling that intensifies when he raises his eyebrows and says, “Good reading?”
“I can’t decide what to have,” she says. She doesn’t want to look at him, feeling both hostile and unaccountably nervous. She pretends to read the label on a bottle of gin.
“It’s best to have a particular drink,” he says. “Then you never have to decide. Then you just go in and say, ‘The usual.’ And if there’s no bartender, you say it to yourself.” He goes to the fridge and fills a glass of water. Jennifer waits for him to leave, but he doesn’t. He leans against the counter and sips. Then looks at her. “I take it you have no usual?”
“I don’t drink,” she says. “My usual is nothing.”
“You don’t drink, but you’re trying to decide what to drink?”
“You don’t have to call my sponsor. I just don’t drink.”
“Oh, that’s not where my mind went,” he says. “I was wondering if you were celebrating or upset, to want a drink when you don’t drink.”
“Why assume it’s one of those?”
“Because you didn’t say, ‘I don’t drink often,’ or ‘I only drink sometimes.’ You said, ‘I don’t drink.’ So what would make you drink?”
She looks at him now. He’s flirting with her in a way she suspects is automatic, habitual. It’s not in the words; it’s in the way he’s lingering, the slightly insinuating tone, the concentrated force of his attention. What a dangerous force, male attention. What terrible things women do to get it, or to make it go away. “I don’t really have a reason,” she says finally.
He nods at a big glass punch bowl on the kitchen table. “That’s a champagne punch,” he said. “I made it. It’s good, but I have to warn you it goes down easy.”
Jennifer shakes her head. “Too sweet,” she says. “I don’t like sweet.”
He studies her. “How about whiskey?” he asks. He steps over and reaches past her to open a high cabinet. Inside are a number of graceful bottles gleaming with golden-brown liquid—so Sebastian isn’t just a drinker, he’s a connoisseur. “Megan’s not a bourbon gal,” he says. “Not that I’d really want her to put these out.”
“Gal?” Jennifer repeats.
“I’m from Missoura,” he says. “I’m allowed to say gal.”
“Are you from ‘Missoura’ in 1952?”
“Hey now,” he says. He pulls out a bottle, handling with care. “How about this one? It’s wheated. Smooth but not boring.” He picks up a cocktail glass, pours, and hands it to her. He doesn’t care that she never said she wanted it. She takes a sip. It burns her nostrils, though it’s gentle on her tongue. It reminds her of Tommy. It tastes like everything she’s ever given up. “Like it?” he asks.
She nods. She does like it. She takes another sip.
“You’ve been hanging out with Megan a lot lately,” he says.
The hint of accusation makes her wary. She feels herself taking a step back. “Yeah,” she says.
“So let me ask you something,” he says. “Do you think she’s an alcoholic?”
“Do I think—” She stares at him. This was not what she was expecting, not the question, not a discussion of Megan at all. He’d had every appearance of being about to cross a line, to touch her, make some move that would ratify her dislike. “No,” she says. “We’re usually together with the kids, during the day. She drinks herbal tea. I’ve never seen her have a drink before tonight.”
He nods, his expression pensive. “It’s not easy, always being the bad guy,” he says.
“I don’t imagine that it is,” Jennifer says, and though she understands him, though she knows exactly what he means by that, her tone is sharp, and so is the look he gives her.
He pours himself a whiskey from the same bottle and holds it up to the light before taking a sip. “She’s very sweet,” he says. “And everybody loves her. I saw how you were looking at me earlier. Believe me, I know I’m the asshole. But that doesn’t mean I’m always wrong.”
Megan comes in then, laughing at something someone said in the other room. “You know it!” she shouts back, and then she sees them and smiles a shy, delighted smile. “You two!” she says. She comes up next to Jennifer and hugs her around the waist, resting her head on her shoulder. “What are you drinking? You’re drinking! Sebastian, did you give her the good stuff?”
“Of course,” he says.