Probably better not to ask. “Anyway,” I said. Moving on.“What’s the big news, now that we’ve gotten through all the petty drama?”
They regarded me with four big blank eyes. Coriander took a sip of her drink, a parsley soda with gin and tonic. “What do you mean?”
“Thatwasall the big news,” Millicent clarified, in case I hadn’t gotten it from Coriander’s question.
Right. It hit me at once all over again how small and insignificant everything in my old world had been. A big accomplishment for me back then had been when I’d plotted with a whole group to wear bright red to Catherine Sounder’s Hamptons pink party. Which—I smiled at the memory—had been a lot of fun, actually.
Maybe it would be nice to kind of turn my brain off for a night and not think about the weight of the world or anything too big or important. Though, of course, anyone who saw me out tonight would assume I wanted to turn it off permanently again.
To avoid thinking about it too much, I took a big gulp of my extremely fennel-y drink, then another. It seared its way down my throat, lit a fire in my stomach. Made me relax enough to take the little orange pill Coriander fetched for me from her pearl compact without asking what it was.
Once the effects started to hit, we cleared out for somewhere louder and sloppier, a new club that had opened in the past year that looked and sounded exactly like every other club I’d been to: flashing multicolored lights; a cloaked DJ spinning beats; a thumping bass; round tables cordoned off in the back that we were ushered to immediately.
Champagne rained down my throat. I felt every inch of its glittering journey, the pooling of it, now warm, in my gullet. The effects of Coriander’s pill: I’d kind of hoped it was one that would chill me out, but it was doing the opposite; it heightened every sensation, made every light sharper, stretched each second out into a gooey strand of taffy.
This was the place to be tonight. Everybody who was everybody, at least in my old sphere, was here. Random people I hadn’t seen in ages stopped by to say hi, telling me how good I looked, asking me how I was, commenting on the music or the lighting or the champagne before I had a chance to answer.
Everywhere I looked I saw Gabe.
No, that wasn’t fair. Because sometimes also in my peripheral vision there was a swoosh of black hair and I thought it was Vienna, or a lithe, willowy gesture that made me think of Persimmon. The shine of light on pearl that made me thinkLibby, or the angle of a waist that shoutedKitty. People who would never be caught stepping foot in here, who would look down on me for my presence on this dance floor.
But mostly it was Gabe. Gabe’s hand brushing along my shoulder, Gabe’s lips quirking up in a quick glimpse of a smile as he indulged a speech from me about how Squeaky totally preferred chicken with thyme to chicken with rosemary that I knew was ridiculous but that I felt comfortable making anyway because I knew he wouldn’t thinkIwas ridiculous for it. Gabe’s eyebrows rising, impressed, as I told him about the newest initiative I was doing to help people and use everything I’d been given to make the world better.
I took another gulp of champagne. A group of girls my age materialized before us, big smiles on their faces, phones in their hands, all gesturing toward me. I didn’t need to be able to hear them to know what they were asking for: a picture.
Millicent flicked her hand at them like they were flies. They raised their phones and took pictures anyway, giggling as they ran off. Great. Now everybody would see those pictures and think all of the rumors were true.Pomona Afton, seen partying without her poverty-stricken boyfriend. Pomona Afton, out frittering away her money instead of helping some other poverty-stricken kid go to school. Pomona Afton, her head empty, as always.
I tossed back the rest of the champagne and threw myself from the booth, nearly falling over as I turned to extend a hand toward Millicent and Coriander. Great. Hopefully somebody got a photo of that too. Ideally with my underwear showing. “Let’s dance!”
We stumbled onto the dance floor. The music swept me up, thumping so loud I felt it through my whole body like a heartbeat, vibrating through my muscles and relaxing them better than the best massage (okay, not thebestmassage, but that one had been deep underground in a Turkish cave and helped along by earthquakes, an experience I was not looking to repeat anytime soon). I shouted along the lyrics to some pop song from a few years ago remixed into something edgy and new, throwing my arms up in the air and shaking my body until sweat dampened the back of my neck. Scream-singing made me feel free, cleared my mind, forced me to be in the moment. Let me forget everything about the article, the photos, Gabe.
God, I’dmissedthis. This was the first moment without that nagging thought ofwhat willtheythink?hovering in the back of my mind. That was why I’d always loved clubbing, and why I loved it now.
I’d changed so much. Why was that same thought still there?
A very damp man was dancing up to me, his smell sharp enough to cut through the general funk of sweaty bodies packed into a small space. I grimaced and danced away. Where was I? It was hard to remember over the thump-thump-thump of the bass, the chorus of people yelling lyrics around me so that we all felt like one glorious organism.
Oh yeah. That was exactly where I’d been.
Millicent and Coriander danced up to me. Each grabbed one of my hands and swung it, and even with all I’d been feeling toward them lately—the annoyance, the frustration, the itch to get away—it was so nice to be here with them in this place, in this time, in this era. “I love you guys!” I yelled. They didn’t yell itback, which, rude. Though maybe it was that they hadn’t heard me. “I missed this!”
I had no idea how long we danced for, because the songs never really ended, only morphed into new songs. There was a metaphor in there somewhere, but I couldn’t think too hard about it. I just danced and danced and danced until my lips were dry and my throat was sore. Once I could no longer ignore the demands of my body, I shook my way off to the side and flopped, exhausted, back onto the cushioned bench surrounding our table.
I’d had enough alcohol for one night, so I poured myself a glass of water. Then poured myself another glass when I realized I’d accidentally poured myself the spicy water. No, that wasn’t right. Carbonated.Thatwas right. The effects of the drug were finally wearing off, leaving my mind a little jumbled.
But not too jumbled to remember what I’d said and thought on the dance floor. How much I’d missed this. I hadn’t let myself go clubbing at all over the past year, worried about what people might think. If they’d assume my new leaf was equally as tawdry as the old leaf. But now, here I was, still worried about what people would think. Why? What was thepoint? I’d been so worried about what my sphere would think, then what my new sphere would think, then what Gabe would think…
… that I’d forgotten to askmyselfwhat I thought. Why couldn’t I be a person who was determined to do good in the world whoalsoliked to go dance and party sometimes? Because I enjoyed all of those things. I should be able todoall of those things. Why couldn’t I be a person who liked doing important, serious things and also sometimes going clubbing without being judged?
Maybe because I couldn’t doanythingwithout being judged. Even when I’d done everything right, Kitty and Libby and them had still snubbed me. And if that was the case, what if I just… stopped caring about what they thought?
I sank back into the cushion, gobsmacked. I could just stopcaring. I could do the best I could and, if that got me smack talk from my new sphere or my old sphere or the public, so what? What did it matter? I’d know I was doing my best. I’d know I was doing what mattered.
I almost felt like I was going to cry.
“It’s soooo hot in here,” Millicent said, sliding into the seat beside me. Coriander slumped into the bench on my other side, sandwiching me between them.
Maybe they didn’t quite fit into my new world. Maybe they weren’t the kind of friends who would help me change the world for the better, or enrich my mind. But they were really good and fun at clubbing, and we had a long history together. Maybe that could be enough.
