“Maybe we’ll get the chance,” I said, knowing I should discourage any suggestion that something remained between us, but nonetheless dying to know what Sophia might want to say to me.
Cortez put his duffel on the coffee table, then disappeared into the kitchen. He came out clutching eight stemmed glasses and set them around the table.
“Hey guys?” he called. “Everyone?” People filed into the room, and Cortez encouraged everyone to take a seat. He pulled a nearly full bottle of gin from his pack.
“You are a god,” I said as he started pouring. “Where’s Deirdre?”
I called, but got no answer. Two or three others shouted her name, including Sebastian, who sang her name more than called it.
“What you want?” she said. She was standing at the top of the stairs wearing a silk nightgown, munching on a chocolate bar, a bottle of pills in her other hand.
“That’s my nightgown!” Jeannie said.
“Hey, that’s our chocolate!” Jean Paul said.
Deirdre took a big bite of the chocolate. “No, we’re a tribe, so it’s all our stuff. Look at all this great stuff I found stashed in the bottom of people’s packs! Ange even had some Valium to share.”
“You went through our stuff?” Ange said. “You piece of shit.”
“Oh, I’m the piece of shit? I can’t use my own energy because it’s for the tribe to share, but you can have your own little personal stashes of chocolate and drugs hidden in your packs? Fuck you all.” She disappeared down the hall.
“We were going to share that chocolate,” Jean Paul said. “We were waiting for the right time, like Cortez with his gin.”
“You don’t need to explain yourself, we trust you,” Cortez said. “Let’s not let Deirdre poison us. Let’s drink, and have a good time.”
I lifted my glass. “To Cortez, who brought us booze, and dog.”
“To Cortez!” everyone said.
“Dog?” Ange said. “Fuck, were we eating dog?” She took a long swallow from her glass.
We had a good evening. We played a game of Truth or Dare by candlelight, and found out that Cortez had had the most lovers in his life (about forty, he estimated) and Colin had had the least (four—that’s what happens when you married at twenty-six and were a dweeb in high school). We learned that Jeannie thought her best feature was her boobs, and Sebastian thought he had perfect toes.
It felt bad to be laughing and having fun while Deirdre sat alone, listening to us, but three different people (Sebastian, then Cortez, then I) made pilgrimages to her door and implored her to join us. Her answer was the same each time: Fuck you.
Jean Paul didn’t play either. He hadn’t said a word to me since they joined us. He hadn’t even looked at me. I think he’d enjoyed confronting me at that nightclub years ago because he’d been in his element, among his friends. Here, he was the outsider.
When the Truth or Dare game petered out, Jeannie got everyone singing. I felt like a little moonlight and solitude, so I slipped out the back door.
The swimming pool was empty, and filled with bamboo, but there was a concrete patio that must have been poured extra-thick, because the bamboo hadn’t penetrated. I stared up at the sky. I loved the night sky, because the moon didn’t have chipping paint or rust and wasn’t sprouting weeds, and the stars weren’t flickering out due to a lack of power. On the contrary—the stars had been growing progressively brighter as the lights on terra firma went out, and now the night sky was breathtaking. I could see the Milky Way, a spectacular swirl of silver tinged with blue and red.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Sophia said behind me.
I took a sip of gin. “It’s the one thing that gets better as everything else gets worse.”
“For sure,” she said. She moved up to stand beside me. The crickets chirped in the bamboo, their cadence cold, almost mechanical.
“It’s been a long time since I last saw you,” I said. “You haven’t aged at all, it’s remarkable.”
“Thanks. You haven’t either.” I knew that was a kind lie. I’d lost one of my bottom teeth since I last saw Sophia, just for starters. “And actually, I’ve seen you a couple of times since then.”
I looked at her, questioning.
“When you first moved back to Savannah, I found out where you lived from Ruplu’s father,” Sophia said. “Once in a while I would drive past your apartment and watch for you. I saw you a few times, walking to work or going out with your friends.”
“Why didn’t you stop and say hello?” I asked.
“Because you asked me to stay out of your life, and I owed you that much.” There were four white plastic lawn chairs around a plastic table on the patio. Sophia pulled one out and sat. “I never got a chance to say how sorry I was for what happened the night I bumped into you at that bar. I wanted to go after you when they threw you out. I felt terrible.”
I chuckled.
“Why are you laughing?” Sophia asked.
“That same night I was dragged into an alley by Jumpy-Jumps and watched them murder a half-dozen people. They held a gas gun to my face, and as far as I can figure the only reason they didn’t kill me was because I was poor.” And then of course there was the part about them making me eat a cat fetus, but I figured I’d skip that.
Sophia looked stricken. “I’m so sorry.”
I shrugged. “It was a long time ago .I laughed because being kicked out of the bar doesn’t really register on the stress meter from that particular evening.” I took another big swallow from my glass.
Sophia stood. “I’d better get back inside.” She left out the obvious: before Jean Paul sees me out here with you. “I just wanted you to know that I never stopped loving you.” She hurried inside, giving me no chance to respond.
I swallowed the rest of my gin, those long-dormant feelings twirling in my stomach. With an effort that felt almost physical, I squashed them. I headed back inside. I got into bed feeling a perfect buzz—not enough to set the room spinning, but enough to kill the existential hum, enough to tuck me in and tell me everything would turn out just fine. Drinking always made me feel better, and made me think nice thoughts.
My door opened with a soft whine, then squeaked shut.
“Hi.” Ange said.
“Hi.”
“Is this okay?” She ran her fingers down my arm.
“Yes. Perfect.”
“I don’t want to be alone right now.”
“Me neither.” I ran my hand over her hip, down her thigh, pushing away pangs of guilt that Sophia might hear us. The guilt was spectacularly stupid—I realized. I owed Sophia nothing. What had been between us was long over, and had been nothing but mist and daydreams to begin with.
“You sure you don’t want to crawl into Sophia’s bed instead? Or maybe Deirdre’s?” She laughed.
“I’m sure,” I said, wondering if she’d seen us on the patio. I kissed Ange’s neck, her jaw. She had an incredible flaring jawline. It was too dark to see the blaze of tattoos that covered her ribs, but I could feel them, making the skin there slicker.
Later, we lay tangled together, dozing. A dream-image of a leering Jumpy-Jump floated into my mind and I jolted, waking Ange. She rubbed my arm, reassuring. It was nice having someone there in the dark when nightmares came.
“It’s kind of amazing how long we’ve been fucking around without screwing up our friendship,” Ange whispered drowsily.
“It’s hard to believe,” I said. “People say it can’t be done, but we proved them wrong.” What would my life have been like without Ange? I didn’t even want to contemplate it. It’s much more bearable to be single and alone when you’re not really alone.
“I’ve always wanted to ask you about something,” I said. “You once said that if a guy didn’t have the nerve to ask you out point-blank, you knew there was no way it could work with him.”
