BY THE TIME Madison walked in, Amanda had pounded—a term her brothers had taught her, a phrase she loved—three more drinks. She hadn’t realized until she got here that Madison might not know to expect her, but something about Zo?’s oily solicitousness had clued her in. And now she was drunk, and Madison was staring at her with undisguised contempt.
They both stood, waiting, before Madison smiled and walked over to meet Zo?’s intimation of a hug: her arms wavering in the air above her head and then wrapping around Madison, pulling her off her feet with a jerk.
“So,” Zo? began, “nobody brought the right mixers and Wyatt swears all the good stuff is locked up in his dad’s office. I think he’s just afraid to go in there without permission? He is the last person who should be in charge of this party, let me tell you. He will like flip if we leave this room and forget to re-fluff all the pillows, trust me.”
“Why is he having this party, then?” Amanda tried. Maybe if she and Madison both spoke to Zo?, it would be like they were engaged in a conversation.
“Because I own him,” Zo? said, shrugging her shoulders as though her opinions were founded on logic of such simplicity that it would be in poor taste to question them. “And this is the best party house of all time. That would be so wasteful.”
“Where are his parents?” Madison asked. Amanda could see from her face, from the small twitches in its composed facade, that she’d promised someone there would be adults here tonight.
“Oh, right. I mean I would assume they’re just in the city for some reason or other. You’ve just got to time these things right, but if we’re smart, in the spring, we’re there every Friday they spend here, and here for every Friday they spend there.”
She glanced over at Amanda before continuing.
“It’s near the museum,” she said. “You know the area, both of you?”
Amanda took another sip of her drink and swallowed hard, feeling the liquid touch every inch of her throat.
Zo?, seemingly satisfied with Amanda’s discomfort, listed toward Madison.
“Don’t tell him I said this, but the apartment in the city isn’t like this place. It’s more, you know. It’s not so over the top. The funny part is, I think Wyatt’s dad is the one with good taste.”
Amanda tried to catch Madison’s eye, thinking that eventually, after enough of this conversation, it would become abundantly clear just how much they needed each other this evening, needed the release of shared eye contact.
She smiled at Madison and let her head tilt to one side, almost invisibly, her eyes going with it. Not quite an eye roll. A more secretive eye roll.
Madison fixed her with an expression so cold, so unmistakably enraged, that it had a probably unintended effect. Because seeing that fury, kept at such a shallow surface beneath her friend’s outward face, made clear to Amanda how bad things must be at Madison’s house. Madison looked almost grotesque, maimed by her own anger.
Just as quickly, that face was gone, smoothed. Madison turned back to Zo?, smiling and sliding their bodies closer together on the couch. And Amanda saw it: the clarity, in that moment, of Madison’s choice between people who had the potential to hurt her. She must have realized, that month, that the one thing that couldn’t be taken from her was that choice.
“I’ve never seen their place in the city,” Madison said.
“Your parents have a place, too, right?” Zo? had made her first unforced error, Amanda thought. Bringing them up so quickly.
“Yes,” Madison said, “they do.”
A door opened that seemed to lead to a different hallway, and Allie clacked into the room, her legs wobbling on stiletto heels.
“Jackpot,” Allie said. “I found a box of Crystal Light packets!”
“Uh,” Zo? said, “not jackpot. With rum? At that point we might as well just do shots.”
“Vodka from the freezer!” Allie waved an enormous bottle of Grey Goose in the air above her head, the muscles in her arm standing at attention.
“Are you telling me there’s been vodka all this time and Wyatt’s been holding out?” Zo? said, her voice pitched louder, as if to draw the attention back from the boys, who were in their corner removing coffee table books from a credenza and debating whether it was long enough to use for a game of Beirut.
“Yeah, girl,” Allie said cheerfully. “And there’s more in there, too, there’s Ketel! Oh, Madison! Oh my God, Amanda! Hi. Didn’t even see you there. Too excited about this new discovery.”
No one seemed to notice that Amanda hadn’t spoken.
“The Ketel is weird, though,” Allie continued. “It’s this bottle I’ve never seen before.”
“It’s sort of thick and squat? A weird shape?” Madison offered. “That’s just what a magnum of Ketel looks like.”
Allie clapped with glee, and Zo? cocked her head to one side.
“My grandfather has a pantry for his vodka alone,” Madison explained.
“Oh, God,” Zo? said. “You people are just as WASPy as they come, aren’t you? Well, your mom’s people, I guess.”
Amanda watched Madison’s jaw turn to stone, saw her placing Bob somewhere further back in her mind, keeping him far from Zo?’s probing, childish fingers.
“Just teasing,” Zo? said, seizing the bottle from Allie. She squinted at the label, like an adult casting an expert eye at a bottle of wine. Was it possible she didn’t know that this kind of scrutiny made no sense for vodka? Amanda could see that Madison had recognized it, too, that she was feeling a generous superiority bloom in her chest, a slight calming of her trembling fingers.
“That’s funny, that he lied about the vodka,” Amanda offered.
Allie raised her eyebrows and said, in a stage whisper, “I’m not sure he actually knows to look for vodka in the freezer.”
It was like this conversation had been designed as torture. Everything Amanda knew about drinking, about which liquors came in which bottles, came from the D’Amico household. Her own father was a single bottle of beer on a Sunday afternoon guy.
“I’m sorry,” Madison said, “are you telling me Wyatt Welsh doesn’t drink?”
“No,” Zo? insisted, “it’s not that. He just likes dark stuff. Whiskey and the other one, the one that’s basically the same thing.”
“Bourbon,” Madison said. Amanda saw her momentarily fold in on herself and then straighten up, filing away whatever had bothered her, papers shuffled quickly past one another to keep themselves hidden.
“Nice costume,” Amanda said, loud and direct so Madison couldn’t pretend not to have heard. “I heard you guys bought it in the city.”
“Yeah, we went to Scoop.”
“Isabel’s going to kill you.”