I ruffled her hair. “Hello. Having a good time?”
“Splendid, only Richard’s being a snot.”
“I’m shocked.”
Her nose crinkled as she frowned. She was still hugging me around the waist and I wondered vaguely if she could stand up on her own. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” she said, with an edge of bitterness in her voice I hadn’t heard before. “He’s always been a bit of a pig, but now he’s … I don’t know. Mean.”
It was such an innocent word that I felt a twinge of something protective, big-brotherish. I squeezed her against my side and said, “I don’t know if ‘mean’ does it justice.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, it’s not just mean—it’s sadistic. He’s been battering us onstage. Opening night he about busted my eardrum, Filippa’s got a bruise the size of Australia, and James—” I stopped, belatedly remembering my promise to keep it to myself. My verbal and visual filters weren’t working properly.
“What’s he done to James?” she demanded, with a kind of fearful uncertainty. She was trying to keep up, but the whiskey wouldn’t let her.
“I said I wouldn’t tell anyone. But he’ll tell you, if you ask him.” I thought of him twirling a strand of her hair, and it occurred to me that he’d do just about anything she asked him to. Something clenched uncomfortably in my chest.
She frowned again. Her arms had gone loose around me, as if she’d forgotten they were there. “You know, he scares me sometimes.”
“James?” I asked, bewildered.
She shook her head. “Richard. I’m afraid he’ll really hurt someone, or himself. He’s just … reckless, you know?”
It wasn’t the word I would have chosen, but I nodded anyway. “You should tell him that. You’re probably the only person he’d listen to.”
“Maybe. But it’ll have to wait ’til morning. Right now he’s completely plastered.”
“Well,” I said, “if he’s too drunk to stand up this party might turn out okay.”
I had a strange, sinking feeling just then. Richard, no matter how much he drank, had never been fully incapacitated by alcohol. It only made him more, if I used Wren’s word, reckless.
Meredith slid off the table and excused herself from her admirers (of which there were four, by that time). She crossed the yard with surprising steadiness, cocked her head, and said, “Aren’t you two precious.” Up close and in my less than lucid state, I couldn’t stop staring at her. She wore a snug black sheath, one shoulder bare, a strap of tiny jet beads glittering on the other. In those shoes, she was almost as tall as I was.
“The garden looks amazing, Mer,” Wren said.
“Yes.” She smiled up at the lights. “I hate to leave it. And I must lose / Two of the sweet’st companions in the world.” She winked. Her eye shadow—dark plum purple—somehow made her eyes even greener.
“Where are you going?” Wren asked.
“Inside for another drink.” She raised her empty cup. “Refill?”
Wren hiccupped. “I think I’m done.”
“I think you are, too,” Meredith said, barely scolding, almost sisterly. She turned to me. “Olive, Oliver?” She raised her toothpick, one last olive speared on the end.
“You have it,” I said, unable to suppress a smirk. “If I did it would be cannibalism.”
She gave me such a piercing look that my temperature shot up about ten degrees, then bit the olive off the toothpick and disappeared inside. I watched her go and stared dumbly at the empty doorway until Wren spoke.
“She doesn’t seem to be suffering much.”
“What?”
“She and Rick are ‘taking some time off,’” she said, making quotation marks in the air with only one hand. “I figured you knew.”
“Uh, no. I didn’t.”
“Her idea. He’s not exactly pleased about it but you know how he is, he won’t apologize for anything.” She made a face. “If he’d just swallowed his pride she might have changed her mind.”
“Oh.”
She yawned, pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “What time is it?”
“Dunno,” I said. “Late.” My own eyelids felt a little heavy.
“I’ll go find out.”
“I don’t want to know.”
She let go of me, pushing herself off my side to stand up straight. “Okay, I won’t tell you.” She petted my arm, like I was a dog, then meandered up the steps, a bit of her skirt pinched between two fingers.
The yard had mostly emptied during our conversation. People were either heading back inside or (I hoped) going home. I ventured out into the middle of our little clearing and closed my eyes. The night air was chilly, but it didn’t bother me. It soothed my warm skin like a salve, rinsed the smoke from my lungs, evicted Meredith’s velvet shadow from my head. When I opened my eyes I was surprised to see a patch of blue between the dark treetops, a white sliver of moon grinning down at me. A sudden desire to see the whole sky urged me to take the trail down to the lake. But when I made to move, James’s voice held me in place.
“Well shone, Moon. Truly the moon shines with a good grace.” I turned to find him standing behind me, hands in his pockets.
“Where’ve you been all night?”
“Honestly?”
“Yeah, honestly.”
“I was making the rounds for a while, but I got overwhelmed and snuck upstairs to do some reading.”
I laughed. “You utter dork. What brought you back down?”
“Well, it’s after midnight, and I can’t disappoint Alexander.”
“By now I doubt he even remembers telling us that.”