I was pissed. I just needed to vent.
You spoke your truth, Cat said. Don’t take it back now.
It doesn’t feel right, Amber had insisted.
Reluctantly, Cat proposed some alternate captions—DATE RAPIST? MISOGYNIST?—but Amber didn’t think those were accurate, either.
He was just a . . . huge disappointment, that’s all.
All right, Cat said. You’re being way too nice, but I’ll change it if that’s what you want.
That’s what I want, Amber had said, and she wasn’t about to retract her words a second time, or give Brendan a reason to think he’d been forgiven. She couldn’t even think about that night without feeling sick and degraded.
“Dude,” she told him. “You got off easy. It could have been a lot worse, believe me.”
“Amber,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
“I know. I’m just saying.”
“All right,” she sighed. “I should go. I’m wiped out.”
“Wait, Amber. I was just wondering—” His voice turned small and hopeless. “Could I come over and hang out with you for a while?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Not to hook up,” he assured her. “I just don’t want to be alone right now.”
She almost laughed, but she could hear the pain in his voice.
“I’m sorry, Brendan. Our hanging out days are over.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I kind of figured that.”
Amber ended the call and wiped away an embarrassing tear. It was so stupid and unfair that someone could treat you so badly, and still make you want to hug them. She thought she might call Cat and commission a portrait of herself for the Call-Out Wall:
JUST WANTS EVERYONE TO BE HAPPY, EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO DON’T DESERVE IT.
*
Dumell hated to be the bad guy, but it was a weekday and he had to work in the morning.
“Last dance,” he whispered in Margo’s ear. “Then I got to take you home before I turn into a pumpkin.”
“I believe it’s your car that turns into a pumpkin,” she told him.
They were glued together like prom dates, swaying under the spell of “Sexual Healing,” which felt just then like an uncanny coincidence, a not-so-subtle message from the universe, even though it was just another song on Amanda’s iPhone, part of a crowd-pleasing soul-and Motown-heavy playlist that had kept them going for the past hour and a half.
“That’s even worse,” he said, making unsolicited eye contact with Julian, who was very drunk, lurching around the room with his hands up, like the music had placed him under arrest. “I still owe money on that car.”
Margo laughed and kissed him again. The woman loved to kiss. It was dark and she smelled good and her warm body felt just right pressing up against him. Dumell reminded himself that nothing else mattered.
Don’t be scared, he thought. There’s nothing to be scared of.
Fear was tricky, though. It had a way of sneaking up on you, making you question yourself and worry about the future. What would people say? What would they think? Do I really want this?
They rotated a little, and now he was looking at Eve, who was dancing with Amanda, though they weren’t actually touching each other. Eve had one hand in her hair and the other on her hip. Amanda had her eyes closed and her mouth open, head tilted upward like a blind musician. Dumell wondered if maybe something was going on there, ’cause it sure felt like it.
Good for them, he thought.
He slid his hand down Margo’s back, tracing the ravine of her spine all the way to the gentle swell at the bottom, the beginning of a different landscape. He tucked his thumb inside the waistband of her skirt, tugging down a little bit, a promise for later.
“Mmmm,” she said, like something tasted good.
He’d had only one bad moment the entire night, right when the music started up. Margo was normally a graceful person, with the physical control of an athlete, but you wouldn’t have known it from watching her on the dance floor. In motion, she seemed bigger and more masculine than she’d been on the couch, uncomfortable in her own body, not the person Dumell wanted her to be. It must have shown on his face, because she stopped and asked him what was wrong. She had a slightly spooky ability to read his expressions, to register every flicker of doubt or hesitation.
“Nothing,” he told her. “?’Cept you dance like a white girl.”
Margo had laughed with relief, as if that were the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her. She loosened up after that and so did he. But he was still a little off-balance, unsettled by the knowledge that his feelings could—and sometimes did—turn on a dime, that he might not be able to follow through with what he’d started, that his courage would fail in the clutch the way it had so many times before, that he might hurt someone who’d trusted him. All he had to do was think himself outside of this room and this little group of people, to imagine the faces of his family, his ex-wife, his co-workers, the guys in his unit, some of them smirking, others shaking their heads, as if they had a right to judge. Who the fuck were they? They didn’t know Margo, or what she’d been through, or how she made him feel. Shit, most of them didn’t even know Dumell. Not really.
He felt her stiffen in his arms. She tried to smile, but her face was pale and defenseless.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
The song was still playing, but they weren’t moving anymore. They were just standing there, looking at each other from across a very narrow divide.
“It’s all good,” he said, right before he kissed her.
*
The only problem with hosting a successful party, Eve thought, was the letdown you felt at the end of it, when the music stopped and the lights came on and the guests started asking for their coats. Margo and Dumell were the first dominoes to fall. Eve hugged them goodbye with a smile that was the product of pure willpower.
Amanda was already busy in the kitchen, rinsing dirty glasses and loading them into the dishwasher, preparing for her own departure. Hoping to postpone the inevitable, Eve asked her to mix one last batch of margaritas, only to be reminded, by her own employee, that they had to work in the morning.
Eve winced. “Let’s not talk about work, okay? Work is sooo boring. All I ever do is work.”
Amanda opened her mouth, but no words came out. She looked so cute in her polka-dot dress, her face all flushed and glistening.
“You’re such a great dancer,” Eve told her. “Really sexy.”
“So are you. I had no idea.”
Eve waved off the compliment. “I’m out of practice. I have to get out more. I spend way too much time at home, staring at my computer screen. It’s not good. I need to live in my body, you know? Just get out of my head a little.”
“We all do.” Amanda placed the last glass in the rack and closed the dishwasher door. “It was a great party. I think Margo really enjoyed it.”
Eve agreed, but didn’t want to be diverted from her purpose.
“Just one more drink. What’s the big deal?”
Amanda exhaled a skeptical breath. “I’m gonna be pretty hungover as it is.”