The night before, at the hockey party, Evan left me with his teammates and said he was going to get us another drink. That night they had played the last game of their season. Toward the end of the third period, Evan swooped down the wing and scored the winning goal. The team never got as far as the preseason polls had predicted, but the season ended on a happy note. They piled on Evan, thumping him on the back. He was only a sophomore; there was always next year.
In the living room of the hockey house, I glanced at my watch. He’d been gone for a while. It was late, hours after the Sebi incident, and the party had died down. I made my way into the kitchen, which led to the back porch, where they were keeping the keg. Someone had propped open the back door. A strong breeze swept through the kitchen, making music of the plastic cups scattered across the floor. Outside, the porch light illuminated the keg like a piece of scenery on a stage.
Evan was standing there, talking to a girl I didn’t recognize. She wore a low-cut tank top, her blond hair dark at the roots. Trashy. Maybe she went to one of the community colleges near New Haven. Sometimes those girls crashed our parties. She was shivering. Evan removed his sweatshirt and draped it around her shoulders. She pulled it tight and smiled at him. He smiled back. She reached out and touched him on the forearm, and then—
“Evan,” I shouted from inside the kitchen. They both jumped, like they’d been caught at something. “What are you doing?”
“Hey. Um, Julia,” he said, floundering. “This is—”
“Are you ready to go? Let’s go,” I said, turning on my heel.
Later, while we were lying in bed, he asked me why I was so mad. They had just been talking. She was dating another guy on the team. She had forgotten her jacket. Et cetera. He gave me an opening to explain myself. “Jules, are you jealous? Is that it? Because—” But I cut him off. “I’m not jealous,” I snapped. “Of her? Please.”
I opened my eyes. I was in the bathroom in Adam’s house, the sound of the party thumping below. Why was everything so difficult? One party, another party, and things kept going wrong between us. What gave Evan the right to be so judgmental, so disappointed in me? His teammate was the one who had acted like an idiot, who had broken at least one law. All I had done was repeat what I had witnessed. “Tell the truth,” Adam liked to say at the magazine. “The truth always makes for a more interesting story.” I looked in the mirror. Screw it. Maybe I didn’t need to care so much about what Evan thought. What did he really know about me?
When I opened the door, there was another girl waiting outside. One of Adam’s cooler, older friends. Probably an art or theater major. A messy bun atop her head, willowy limbs, a small tattoo inside her wrist. She winked at me like we were both in the know, using the upstairs bathroom.
“Julia?” Adam was down the hallway, pulling a door closed. His bedroom, I guessed. Probably where the other girl had just come from. “Is everything okay?”
I wanted to cry, but didn’t. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.”
He kept his hand on the doorknob, watching me carefully. I felt like he understood everything I was thinking, everything I yearned for. He had all the answers to all my questions. Adam pushed the door open and gestured at the room behind him. “You want to come in for a minute?”
*
At the party in Brooklyn, I went back inside, in search of my coat. But when I turned into the hallway to leave, I slammed directly into the one person who could fix this black mood. The person who always managed to find me at exactly the right moments.
“Hey!” Adam said. “Julia. Are you leaving already?”
“I was thinking about it.”
“Have a drink with me. Come on, I just got here.”
I let Adam lead me back into the kitchen. Abby shrieked when she saw him. They had been friends in college, too—she was friends with just about everyone—but she hadn’t seen him since he graduated. “Where have you been hiding?” she said, hitting him on the shoulder. Adam just winked and slung his arm around me. She raised an eyebrow at me. I shook my head: just flirting, nothing more. Abby knew that I had had a little crush on Adam in college, but I never told her what had happened between us that night. We chatted, and they caught up. Adam kept handing me drinks.
Little things. New intimacies. Slipping his hand down my back, pressing his hip against mine. Adam was debating with Jake about some recent development in the Lehman bankruptcy. They kept talking, talking. I couldn’t follow the conversation, but it didn’t matter. Adam was at my side, and I was certain I was the only thing he was thinking about. He never even bothered to say hello to the girls hosting the party.
After a while, Abby rested her head against Jake’s shoulder. “What do you think—should we get going?” she said. “We have to get up early tomorrow.”
She said to me and Adam, “We’re meeting his parents for brunch.”
I raised my eyebrows. We? Parents? Brunch?
She shook her head to dismiss my implication, but again—that blush. They were a couple. A real couple, no matter what she said.
“Oh, shit,” Jake said. “I forgot to tell you. My dad canceled. My mom thinks we should wait till he’s back. She said maybe in a few weeks.”
Abby’s smile wilted. “Why?”