Kaycee was the only one who dreamed of going to art school, who dreamed of doing anything besides getting married and staying right here to have babies and start the cycle all over again. Even as a kid, she would talk about all the places she would go someday, half of them made up. In a way, what’s surprising isn’t that she ran, but maybe that she waited so long.
“I don’t believe it.” A stranger shoves out of the crowd, teetering on wedges that would be dangerous even if she was sober. “Abby. Fucking. Williams. Holy shit. I seriously didn’t believe it when Misha told me you’d come back.”
She sways where she stands, shaking her head as if hoping it will help her focus. But her eyes keep sliding away from mine, landing somewhere over my shoulder. And I have absolutely no idea who she is.
“You don’t remember me.” Her words slur into laughter. She swings to Brent, sloshing some of her drink, so he has to quickstep backward to avoid it. “She doesn’t remember me? It’s because I got fat.” Then she’s back to me again, gnawing the rim of her cup, looking suddenly like a kid. “Isn’t it? It’s because I’m fat.”
“Of course I remember you,” I say quickly.
“What’s my name, then?” She staggers a bit, regains her balance, and smiles at me hazily.
Brent breaks in before I have to reply. “Come on, Annie. Let’s get you some water.”
Now, at last, I recognize Annie Baum. The former head cheerleader, once miniature and muscled, is soft from drinking, prematurely old.
She pulls away from Brent as soon as he takes her arm. “Don’t touch me,” she says sharply. But when Brent holds up both hands, a wordless apology, she turns cheerful again. “It’s a party, isn’t it? So let’s party.”
She wastes more alcohol than she lands in her cup. Before I can stop her, she has pressed a shot into my hand. The liquid is already sweating through the flimsy paper cup, like the kind you see in dentists’ offices.
“How about you, Brent? A drink, for old times’ sake?” Annie seems to find this idea hilarious, and says, “Old friends, old memories, old. We’re old, now.”
Before she can drink, Misha materializes, neatly snatching the cup from Annie’s hand.
“You need to slow down,” she says lightly. For a second, Annie looks like she might argue.
But in the end, she only shrugs and turns back to me. “She always could tell me what to do,” she says. “Both of them.” I assume she means Kaycee, too. Then she wheels off abruptly into the crowd.
“Three times in one week! How did I get so lucky?” Misha manages to level off directly between sincere and sarcastic. She touches her cup to mine. “Cheers. Go on. You deserve it.”
Deserve—maybe. I need it, for sure. I almost never take shots and am thankful, at least, that Annie poured out whiskey and not rum. Still, it’s cheap liquor, and it burns going down.
Brent must notice my grimace, because he laughs.
“Let me make you a real drink. No—don’t tell me.” He pretends to size me up. “Now let me see. Vodka cran? No. Too sweet. Definitely not gin. Too suburban.”
“You think you can guess?”
“I don’t think. I know.” He holds my gaze for just a beat longer than necessary before turning to Misha. “You want something? Gin and tonic?”
Her smile tightens. “Gin and soda,” she corrects him.
“Coming up. Don’t go head to head with this one,” he says, turning back to me and jerking his head in Misha’s direction. “She’ll drink you under the table. Or under the reservoir, as the case may be.”
He says it lightly, but for some reason, Misha flinches. Once, I told my mother I wanted to be a mermaid, and she told me that real mermaids were the drowned souls of broken-hearted women; I don’t know why I remember that now. I blink as if it will help clear out the memory.
Brent turns and shoves his way toward the makeshift bar: a litter of alcohol bottles and mixers spread out on a blanket. Already, I can feel the whiskey doing its work, spreading warmth to my chest, softening the glow of the fire. Misha tonight looks more like the Misha I remember, in jeans and a Barrens Tigers T-shirt.
“Brent was so worried you wouldn’t come,” she says brightly, without preamble. “I told him you wouldn’t miss the chance to relive the glory days. Isn’t that what going home is all about?”
I can feel her watching me for a reaction—but what kind of reaction, I’m not sure. It occurs to me that Misha never had a boyfriend in high school. She had plenty of boys—but no boyfriend. I wonder if she was jealous of what Kaycee had. Another question I’ll never ask her.
“Maybe for some. In my glory days, I would never have been invited. And they weren’t so glorious. But I’m sure you remember.”
It’s a cheap shot, but hey, at least now we’re even.
But when Misha says, “I deserve that,” it makes me wish I hadn’t said anything.
As I scan the crowd, it occurs to me that I don’t see Cora Allen. She used to stick to Misha like a shadow. “Do you ever see Cora anymore?” I ask, partly to change the topic.
Misha tries to arrange her face into a look of concern. But somehow it doesn’t quite land. “She doesn’t come around,” she says shortly. Then: “She got all messed up, honestly. Drugs.”
Before I can ask her anything else, Brent returns, balancing three cups. He passes one to Misha and presents mine with a flourish. “Cheers.”
I take an experimental sniff. “Vodka soda?”
“Did I guess right?”
“Trick question.” I can’t help but smile. He looks so damn pleased with himself. “I drink it all.”
“Even better. That way, I’m always right.” He touches his cup to mine and holds my eyes while we drink. By the time I think to include Misha, she has vanished.
Things are blurring, and my body feels warm and loose, as if the coil that keeps it responding to my brain has slowly begun to unwind.
“Whoa, there. Easy,” Brent says, and catches me when I stumble on a log half-buried in the grass.
“I’m not drunk,” I say.
“I’m not judging,” he replies, and pulls me closer. I feel his belt against my stomach. I pull away because the world is turning now.
“Do you remember Dave Condor?” I ask, before I can think better of it.
“Sure,” Brent says, but looks away. “He’s still around. Works at the liquor store. Once a burnout, always a burnout.” He tugs on the collar of his shirt. “Why?”
“Just curious,” I downplay. “I ran into him, that’s all.”
“Keep your distance.” Brent’s voice sounds as if it’s coming from far away. “He’s not the guy you want to keep running into.”
“What happened with him in high school?” I ask. “Why did you and your friends jump him?”
His blue eyes lock with mine again, hard to read in the darkness. “You remember Becky Sarinelli?” he asks. “That’s why.”
Of all the things he could have said, this might be the least expected of all. “Condor was the one who passed around her photos?”
Brent shakes his head. “He was the one who took them.”
—
Time shreds into ribbons. Hours fracture into quick-cut images:
I’m sitting on the ground with Brent’s arms around me in front of the fire, laughing without knowing why.