“That’s not what I meant,” David replied, blushing.
“But it’s true,” Ellen said, starting to perk up. The logical end of the party had come and gone, and now they were stuck in a kind of riptide. It was pulling them . . . somewhere, and Izzy was too tired to fight it.
“There’s no doubt that there’s sexual tension at the complex,” Ellen continued. “But we can’t act on it, right? That would be awful. It would ruin everything. But it seems crazy not to acknowledge it.”
“Okay, so we acknowledge it,” Benjamin said. “And that’s that.”
“Everything here is so calculated,” Ellen said. “Emotions don’t matter. It’s what’s best for the kids, for the family. Everything is an experiment; whether Dr. Grind admits it or not, he’s kind of making it up as he goes along, right? So why can’t we experiment, too?”
“It’s late,” Callie said, but Ellen kept going, not leaving enough time for anyone to agree and then disband.
“We should interact with those desires, but in a controlled way.”
“How?” Benjamin asked, leaning forward.
“Spin the bottle?” Ellen offered, and the statement clattered so loudly to the ground that Izzy swore she could hear the sound.
David, who Izzy now realized was drunker than he had originally seemed, said, “But that’s not really fair, right? Depending on the unknown variables of the bottle spinning, someone might never get kissed while someone else might be constantly kissing other people.”
“And women might have to kiss another woman, and vice versa,” Alyssa said.
Izzy couldn’t decide if she was the least or most drunk person in the room. It was too difficult to parse.
“A lottery!” Ellen shouted. She took a pen and a piece of paper and wrote down some numbers. Then she tore them into separate pieces, placed them in two distinct piles, facedown, and pointed to her work. “Guys draw from here. Girls from here.”
No one moved, not even Ellen. Izzy looked around the room. If one person stood up, said they had to go, Izzy knew that the whole thing would fall apart. She waited, but no one moved. She looked at Asean, at Callie. They could not possibly want to participate. But, still, no one moved. Izzy realized, with shock, that she could be the one to break this up, to save everyone from their poor decisions, but she could not do it. And she could not determine, in her inebriated state, if it was because she was too shy to call attention to herself, or if she really wanted to see what it would be like to kiss someone else in the project.
Benjamin finally reached for a piece of paper. Ellen did the same. Then Alyssa and Jeremy and David and Callie. Asean, hesitating, finally took the last number from the men’s pile. Everyone looked at Izzy. Ellen was smiling. Izzy reached for the last piece of paper and held it to her chest.
“Okay, turn over your piece of paper,” Ellen said. Ellen had always had a little more power than most of the other adults. She was perhaps the most skeptical of the project, and therefore the one least inhibited to discuss it. And now they followed her cue.
Jeremy and Ellen. Callie and Benjamin. David and Alyssa. Asean and Izzy.
“Perfect,” Ellen said. “It was entirely possible that the two couples could have been matched up, which would have been boring.”
“Now what?” David asked.
“There are four couples. Four corners of the room. Maybe we just each go into a corner?” said Benjamin.
This was so absurd, so stupid, but Izzy watched everyone move to opposite corners of the room. Izzy and Asean still sat on the couch.
“We don’t have to do this,” Izzy said. Asean nodded, but then looked around at the other couples, who were waiting for them.
“I think it would be weirder not to do it at this point,” he said, not able to look at her. He took her hand and they walked to the last unoccupied corner of the room.
“Okay,” Ellen said. “Go.”