I reach down and play with the dogs until Sam comes out of the bathroom. By then Sarah has made her way to the corner of the living room and is talking to Emily. Sam tenses beside me when he realizes that there is nothing else for us to do but walk up to them and say hello. He takes a deep breath. In the kitchen two of the guys have lit a corner of the newspaper on fire for no other reason than to watch it burn.
“Make sure you compliment Emily,” I say to Sam as we approach. He nods.
“There you guys are,” Sarah says. “I thought you had left me all by my lonesome.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say. “Hi, Emily. How are you?”
“I’m good,” she says, then to Sam, “I like your hair.”
Sam just looks at her. I nudge him. He smiles.
“Thank you,” he says. “You look very nice.”
Sarah gives me a knowing look. I shrug and kiss her on the cheek. The music has grown even louder. Sam talks to Emily, somewhat nervously, but she laughs and after a while he eases a little.
“So are you okay?” Sarah asks me.
“Of course. I’m with the prettiest girl at the party. How could things be better?”
“Oh shush,” she says, and pokes me in the stomach.
The four of us dance for an hour or so. The football players keep drinking. Somebody shows up with a bottle of vodka and not long after that one of them—I don’t know which—throws up in the bathroom so that the smell of vomit wafts throughout the whole downstairs. Another one passes out on the living-room sofa and some of the others draw with marker on his face. People keep filtering in and out of the doorway leading to the basement. I have no idea what is going on down there. I haven’t seen Sarah for the past ten minutes. I leave Sam and walk through the living room and the kitchen, then walk up the stairs. White, thick carpet, walls lined with art and family portraits. Some of the bedroom doors are open. Some are closed. I don’t see Sarah. I walk back downstairs. Sam is standing sullenly by himself in the corner. I walk over to him.
“Why the long face?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Don’t make me lift you in the air and turn you upside down like the guy in Athens.”
I smile, Sam doesn’t.
“I just got cornered by Alex Davis,” he says.
Alex Davis is another of Mark James’s brood, a wide receiver for the team. He’s a junior, tall and thin. I’ve never talked to him before, and likewise know little else about him.
“What do you mean by ‘cornered’?”
“We just talked. He saw that I’ve been talking to Emily. I guess they dated over the summer.”
“So what. Why does that bother you?”
He shrugs. “It just sucks, and it bothers me, okay?”
“Sam, do you know how long Sarah and Mark dated?”
“For a long time.”
“Two years,” I say.
“Does it bother you?” he asks.
“Not in the least. Who cares about her past? Besides, look at Alex,” I say, and nod to him standing in the kitchen. He is slumped against the kitchen counter, his eyes aflutter, a thin layer of sweat glistening on his forehead. “Do you really think she misses being with that?”
Sam looks at him, shrugs.
“You’re a good dude, Sam Goode. Don’t get down on yourself.”
“I’m not down on myself.”
“Well then, don’t worry about Emily’s past. We don’t have to be defined by the things we did or didn’t do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it’s a regret, maybe it’s not. It’s merely something that happened. Get over it.”
Sam sighs. He’s still wrestling with it.
“Go on. She likes you. There’s nothing to be scared of,” I say.
“I am, though.”
“Best way to deal with fear is to confront it. Just walk up to her and kiss her. I bet you she kisses you back.”
Sam looks at me and nods, then goes to the basement, where Emily is hanging out. The two dogs come wrestling into the living room. Tongues dangling. Tails wagging. Dozer drops his chest to the ground and waits for Abby to come near enough and then he jumps at her and she jumps away. I watch them until they disappear up the stairs, playing tug-of-war with a rubber toy. It’s a quarter till midnight. A couple is making out on the couch across the room. The football players are still drinking in the kitchen. I’m starting to get sleepy. I still can’t find Sarah.
Just then one of the football players comes rushing up the basement stairs, a crazed, frantic look in his eyes. He rushes to the kitchen sink, turns on the water as high as it will go, and begins throwing open the kitchen- cupboard doors.
“There’s a fire downstairs!” he says to the guys nearby.
They begin filling pots and pans with water, and one by one they rush down the stairs.
Emily and Sam come up the stairs. Sam looks shaken.
“What’s wrong?” I say.
“The house is on fire!”
“How bad?”
“Is any fire good? And I think we started it. We, uh, knocked a candle into a curtain.”
Sam and Emily both look disheveled and have clearly been making out. I make a mental note to congratulate Sam later.
“Have you seen Sarah?” I ask Emily.
She shakes her head.
More guys rush up the stairs, Mark James with them. There is fear in his eyes. For the first time I smell smoke. I look at Sam.
“Go outside,” I say.
He nods and takes Emily’s hand and they leave together. Some of the others follow, but some stay where they are, watching with drunken curiosity. A few people stand around stupidly patting the football players on the back as they rush up and down the basement stairs, cheering them on as though it’s all a joke.
I go to the kitchen and grab the largest thing left, a medium-sized metal pot. I fill it with water and then go downstairs. Everybody has evacuated aside from us battling the blaze, which is far bigger than I expected. Half the basement is consumed in flames. Dousing it with the little water I have left is completely futile. I don’t try, and instead drop the pot and dash back up. Mark comes flying down. I stop him in the middle of the stairway. His eyes are swimming in booze but through it I can see that he is terrified, that he is desperate.
“Forget about it,” I say. “It’s too big. We have to get everyone out.”
He looks down the stairs at the fire. He knows that what I’ve said is true. The tough-guy front is gone. There is no more pretending.
“Mark!” I yell.
He nods and drops the pot and we go back up together.
“Everybody out! Now!” I yell when I get to the top of the stairs.
Some of the drunker ones don’t move. Some of them laugh. One person says, “Where’s the marshmallows?” Mark slaps him across the face.
“Get out!” he screams.
I rip the cordless phone from the wall and shove it into Mark’s hand.
“Dial 911,” I yell over the loud voices and the music that still blares from somewhere like a sound track to the erupting pandemonium. The floor is getting warm. Smoke begins to billow up from beneath us. Only then do people take it seriously. I start pushing them towards the door.
I dart past Mark as he begins dialing and rush through the house. I take the stairs three at a time and kick through the open doors. One couple is making out on a bed. I yell at them both to get out. Sarah’s nowhere to be found. I sprint back down the stairs and through the door into the dark, cold night. People are standing around, watching. Some of them I can tell are excited by the prospect of the house burning down. Some laugh. I can feel
