“Do you think Mom will let you?” I wanted to plant a seed of doubt in her mind so she would let the idea go.
Cassie let out a sigh, more a moan. “God, she’s been acting like such a cunt.”
“What?” I’d never heard Cassie say that word before—not in any of her complaining to me, not in all the screaming fights. I had never heard anyone say it. It made her face turn at the edges, ugly.
“I’ll just tell them I’m staying at Meg’s. If Mom had her way, I’d spend my life stuck inside this house with the rest of you.”
I said nothing. The long ash of my cigarette drooped and fell under its weight. I pulled the last of it to my lips and inhaled, holding the smoke in the cave of my mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself not to cough. Bursts of neon light flashed in the dark behind my eyelids. The noise of the party rolled over me in waves, ebbing then rising again. The high pitch of a woman exclaiming cut through the din. “You did not! I don’t believe it!” she yelled, her voice a squeal. I opened my eyes and exhaled. Thesmoke billowed out. My cigarette was done. I tucked the soft end into my pocket and stood.
“I’m gonna go inside.”
I went to the kitchen where I hoped to find some orange juice to wash the dirty taste from my mouth. Caterers crowded the space but, to my relief, Dave was not among them. My mother stood with one, discussing which trays should go out next. As I slipped toward the refrigerator, she saw me.
“Where have you been?”
“Just outside.” I opened the fridge, pushing my face into the cold blast.
My mother made a sound with her throat. “Crap.” I turned to look. Her necklace had gotten caught in the collar of her dress, the gold chain twisted upon itself like a worm. “Marky, help me with this? My hands are sticky, I don’t want to get anything on me.”
She bent toward me and I reached for the chain. My mother’s nose wrinkled and she grabbed my fingers, pulling them to her face.
“Were you smoking?”
Around us, the noise of the kitchen tamped down. I had never been the target of our mother’s anger—it was reserved for Cassie—but something in the vibrating pitch of her voice scared me. I yanked my hand away. “No.” My mind scrambled for something else to say, but I came up with nothing. “No.”
And then, from the other side of the kitchen—“Jesus, Mom. Calm down.”
We both turned to the sound of Cassie’s voice, unaware until then she was there.
“You gave your brother a cigarette?”
She sprang toward Cassie so quickly, I heard the crack of her hand before I realized what was happening. Cassie’s cheek glowedwith a hot, pink streak. Her hair had fallen into her face but I could see the shine of water welling in her eyes as she fought to hold back tears. I braced myself for the insult she would hurl at our mother. I was frightened she would anger her further with some cruelty I didn’t think she deserved, even if she had just hit Cassie. But Cassie was silent. The caterers kept their heads low, sweeping from the room so just the three of us remained.
Finally, it was our mother who spoke.
“You disgust me,” she said, her voice drained of heat, and walked from the room.
Cassie said nothing and made no move. I couldn’t look at her. The shame of my betrayal consumed me. I trained my eyes at the floor and traced a thin, spidery crack running through a tile until it disappeared under the edge of a cabinet. I stayed there, frozen in place, listening to the sound of Cassie’s breathing—short, quick swallows of air, one after the other.
Robert’s speech was long, as Safie warned. The room simmered with restless energy. I whispered to Stephen, “I’ll be right back.”
“Everything okay?”
“Just a bathroom break.”
I stepped from the crowd, looping through the house. I stopped at the kitchen—empty—and went in. I pulled out my phone. The muted rumble of Robert pontificating echoed from the other room. I opened up Facebook. (After a few weeks cycling through deleting, downloading, deleting, I had given in.) I glanced side to side then clicked on Tyler’s page. There was a new post, something from Kennedy. Addison had commented and then Tyler replied with a photo of a cat in giant sunglasses; for some reason I couldn’t glean, most of their posts seemed to be about cats. As usual, I couldmake no sense of any of it. Tyler and I had kept our distance since Columbus. Despite our talk on the library steps, he remained mute in class. If we passed each other in a hallway or quad, he nodded hello, nothing more. It felt we were becoming strangers to each other—which should have filled me with relief, but somehow was making me desperate to know more about him. I wasn’t totally sure why. Boredom? Maybe, but not only that. His life in college seemed so different from mine—he was connected to the community, comfortable in his skin. Nothing like my own solitary, awkward years. And this despite the fact that Sawyer must be a totally different world from North Carolina. But he seemed completely at home, and some part of me wanted to understand how. I’d check on his page throughout the day, when I first woke in the morning, during a lull in office hours, at night before bed. I was gathering moments of his life, like bits of sea glass on a beach; the act of accumulation made them precious.
I pushed the small square of Addison’s profile photo. His page showed restraint compared with Tyler’s, more composed. Lots of family photos, each scene dripping with wealth: heavy, rich drapes framed towering windows in the backdrop of group portraits; ski trips to Vail, scrubbed and glowing faces squinting in white light bouncing off virgin snow. Addison was someone whose entire life would go exactly as planned; whatever he wanted, he could have. A golden existence.
Tyler had left two posts on Addison’s page since that morning; a still from a movie I couldn’t place, and a single line of text—two exclamation points, nothing else. Despite living together, Tyler and Addison were in constant communication via their pages. The friendship had a boyish quality, or it was puppy-like; in photostogether, they were always proximate, touching. I wondered if there was something more than friendship between them. I’d found photos of Addison’s high school girlfriend; she disappeared after his first semester at Sawyer. I’d seen many students cling to hometown romances but they rarely survived the transition to college. It was a normal progression, but maybe there was some other reason here, something to do with Tyler. Kennedy appeared regularly as well. The three had taken a road trip the year before, during spring break. From what I could gather, Addison’s car had broken down in the middle of Texas. They stayed in whatever town for two days and then paid to have the car towed all the way back to Sawyer before flying home. What was that like for Tyler, having friends who could drop money like that? Had Addison paid for Tyler’s ticket as well?
A round of applause and polite cheers sounded from the other room.
“Hiding out?”
I jerked my phone to my chest and looked up. “Sorry.” Elaine stood before me.
“Not at all.” She smiled. “Robert can go on a bit.”
