She considers not going. She won’t be missed—she doesn’t even know the host. But early evening falls toward late evening and cars begin to pull into the driveway next door. FOMO gets her by its ugly teeth. She showers off the algae; she dons the one nice dress she brought for the summer. She takes a deep breath and tells herself that she can do this, she can go to a party alone. She hasn’t been to any parties since Zachary, not real parties anyway. There are a lot of things she hasn’t done since Zachary. Sex is another thing. She hasn’t done sex since Zachary. It was her decision, to end things, to move here, to start over—but that doesn’t make it all a breeze.
The party has the feel of a scene where you might turn around and see, say, an indie movie director or a singer just off a tour, maybe not an outdoor giant stadium tour but one that includes lots of hip, smaller venues. Olivia Rodrigo before the Grammys; Noah Kahan beforeStick Season. In one corner of the lawn, in a cabana, a DJ in a plain black T-shirt, sunglasses, and giant headphones is frowning at the sky, which is growing dark, with tinges of pink around the edges, and dancing by himself. Which Nicola supposes is what DJs do.
There’s a small line at an outdoor bar, and behind the bar the doors to the house are flung wide open. In and out of these doors move a steady stream of partygoers, flitting like moths. Nicola misses Zachary so suddenly and fiercely the missing feels like pain.The feel of entering a new situation with a hand in hers: she misses that.
Deep breath, girl. Deep breath. She joins the line at the bar.
“...get you?” says the bartender, the first half of his question lost because just then the DJ turns up the music and a little cry goes up from the dancing crowd and a song Nicola almost knows, rendered nearly unrecognizable by a beat laid underneath it, begins to play.
“I don’t know,” she says, unsure of what sort of drinks people order at a party like this. Gin and tonic is her go-to summer drink. Can she do better? “What’s good?” He holds up one finger and says, “I got you,” and before Nicola can think twice she’s in possession of an apricot-colored drink.
“A twist on an Aperol Spritz,” the bartender says. Nicola takes a sip. She likes it. Another sip, and then, because she drinks too fast when she’s anxious, a third one.
“Have you seen Juliana?” demands a woman with streaky hair and long tanned legs. Nicola shakes her head and says that she hasn’t even met her; she doesn’t know what she looks like. The woman scrutinizes Nicola and says, “Juliana and I went to college together. BC. Go Eagles!” With that pronouncement she’s gone, melting into the crowd.
Nicola moves toward the edge of the bar area and almost bumps into a woman with a half-shaved head. The hair on the other half is pink. She’s drinking a twist on an Aperol Spritz as well, and smiling at Nicola.
“Melanie,” she says, offering the hand not holding a drink.
“Nicola.”
“Dog trainer to the rich and famous,” she says. Her handshake is firm and she has about her a no-nonsense attitude that Nicola figures goes a long way with a doodle or a corgi. When she releases Nicola her hand hangs for a second in the air, as if at any second it’s going to reach for a treat pouch or a clicker.
“What rich and famous?” Nicola is genuinely interested.
The woman makes a motion as if closing a zipper running horizontally across her lips. “Client confidentiality.”
Nicola tries not to roll her eyes. “Got it.”
Nicola sees someone moving toward her. She glances, then her eyes come back for a double take. It’s none other than Jack Baker. Jack Baker! A familiar face. A familiar, sexy face.
“Take my arm, I’ll rescue you,” he says. She takes his arm and he leads her to the edge of the crowd and says, “That lady is a nutcase. She had me cornered at another party the other night.”
“A party here?”
“No. It was—” He waves a hand in the general direction of town. “It was somewhere else. I couldn’t get away. I don’t even have a dog, Nicola.” (He remembers my name! thinks Nicola.) “Do you need another drink?”
She looks down at her glass: empty. “Yeah,” she says. Then, remembering her manners, “Yes, please.”
“Wait here.”
He returns with fresh drinks and offers Nicola his arm again. He doesn’t have to ask her twice to grasp back onto that smooth, tanned limb. She walks with Jack Baker inside, through what she imagines would have been called the ballroom, if this were a Disney movie and she the misfit in rags. Her dress is hardly rags but everybody else is wearing something more interesting, more Instagram- or VSCO-worthy, or at least their eyebrows and jewelry and shoes are more interesting. The hair on almost all the women, save the Dog Trainer to the Stars, is preternaturally straight, center-parted, swinging. By comparison, Nicola feels like a frizz monster, and like the only person who smells like the bottom of the ocean despite the shower.
Anchored together in this way Nicola and Jack move past a long table with an impressive raw bar and, next to that, an array of tiny desserts: mini carrot cakes and cheesecakes and exquisite cupcakes and fruit kebabs, all lined up, soldiers ready for battle.
“Hungry?” asks Jack, and Nicola says that she isn’t, even thoughshe sort of is. She berates herself silently for that: this is not the 1950s; women are allowed to have appetites! She casts a regretful look at the kebabs and follows Jack to a corner high-top table. Several clumps of two or three or four party guests are scattered throughout the room; it’s a lot of people, but there is space to spare. Long windows, nearly floor to ceiling, line one wall. Through them Nicola can see the dark edges of the sky moving closer toward the center; the sun has set, and, just like that, the longest day of the year has come and gone.
(Later someone will point out to Nicola that this year the solstice had actually occurred on June 20, so the party was off by one day. You can, Nicola will reflect, wait and wait for the longest day of the year, and still you may miss it.)
They rest their drinks on the table and look around. There is a strong feeling—almost an odor, or anyway at least a scent—of money in the air. Perhaps in some cases it’s a lack of money, and a corresponding desire for it. Everybody seems to be making a Secret Deal, or taking a photo that might turn out to be Important, if Not Life-Changing, and the promise of Something seems so close, so tantalizing, as if you can reach out and pluck the possibilities like peaches from a tree. “How’s she know so manypeople?” Nicola asks Jack.
“Oh, I don’t think she knows them all,” says Jack, smiling. “They’re not all invited. They just come.”
“Iwas invited,” Nicola says, “not to brag or anything,” and he smiles again, that wide, white smile. He taps the tip of Nicola’s nose with his finger and says, “Aren’t you adorable.”
Two girls dressed in yellow (in homage to the solstice? Nicola wonders) come up to them then; they chat with Jack and mostly ignore Nicola. When they’re gone Nicola puts her face close to Jack’s ear—there are speakers in here to bring the DJ’s music closer, and it’s loud—and whisper-shouts that she has not yet met Juliana George.
Jack furrows his brow and taps his ear the way you do when you need somebody to repeat something.
