Part 10 (2/2)

Then I got it and laughed-probably too hard. I was stoned, and what Raeburn had said was true: Searles really did have dreamboat eyes. When I could speak, I said, ”I didn't know you were funny. I've been hearing about you all night. n.o.body said you were funny.”

Ben took a sip from his drink, which looked like Scotch on the rocks. ”I've been hearing about you since I started teaching.”

”Not from my father.”

He gave me a curious look. ”No. From everybody else on the faculty. Whenever his name comes up, somebody says wait until you meet his kids.”

”Wait until you meet us to do what?”

He shrugged. ”Everyone says you're-really something. Smart. Good-looking. All those things we like in people these days.”

Something about the way he said it made me think that smart and good-looking weren't what he'd heard about us at all. ”I imagine,” I said, ”that the things that you've heard about us are the same things we've heard about you.”

Ben smiled crookedly. ”Quite possibly.”

We sat in silence for a while. Across the room I could see my father talking to someone I didn't recognize.

”Your father's a brilliant scientist,” he said again.

”He's a raging son of a b.i.t.c.h,” I answered.

A few gla.s.ses of wine later, I went looking for Jack and found him standing on the front porch, talking to a girl. She was young, wore her dark hair in a severe bob, and had thick gla.s.ses. I didn't notice anything else about her before I pulled him back into the house.

”Please can we go home now?” I said.

Distracted, Jack ran a hand through his hair. ”Wait a few minutes. I was talking to-”

”I saw. I want to go home. I want to go home now.”

”Just wait.”

”No.” It was hard to talk. Everything seemed to be happening at a great distance. ”I'm stoned and I'm drunk and I'm starting to get paranoid. Please?”

”Five minutes,” he said and went back outside to the girl on the porch.

I waited by the door, growing more and more agitated. He didn't come and he didn't come and he didn't come. Meanwhile, my stomach was increasingly unreliable and my feet increasingly unsteady. The room was full of people in elegant clothes, light chamber music was playing somewhere, and I was standing next to a burning candle that was filling the air with a nasty sweet smell.

I couldn't avoid the people or the music, but I could get away from the candle. Fresh air, that was what I needed. Not the front porch, though. Not with Jack and that girl. I started to make my way through the crowd. It was harder than I thought it would be. Things were whirling. The air grew thick. The other door seemed to have disappeared, or the layout of the room had changed, because I no longer knew which way to go. I put out an arm to steady myself.

Unexpectedly, somebody took it. From somewhere on the other side of the fog I heard somebody say my name. I grabbed at the voice with both hands and fell over onto Ben Searles.

”Hi,” he said. ”You need some help?”

”Outside,” was all I could say.

”This way.” Gratefully I let myself be led through thecrowd. I tried to lean on him so it wouldn't be obvious that I was drunk. Finally we came to a door and he opened it, letting in a wonderful blast of cold air. Then the thick, sweet smell of burning vanilla filled my nose and mouth. I opened my mouth to say that this was the wrong door. Instead I threw up.

Then I was on my knees, staring at an enormous puddle of red wine and stomach acid soaking into a beautiful, intricately patterned rug. The people near us looked alarmed and embarra.s.sed, and moved away quickly. I heard Ben say, ”She's okay, but don't eat the oysters,” as he handed me a c.o.c.ktail napkin. There was a little nervous laughter. I was wiping vaguely at my mouth and staring at the spreading pool on the floor, which looked exactly like I felt: soiled, used, vile.

”Okay?” Ben was crouched next to me. His polished shoes were perilously close to the vomit puddle. For some reason that made me feel worse and tears welled up in my eyes.

”It's okay,” he said. ”Can you get up?” He put his arm around me and lifted me to my feet. Somewhere between the floor and his shoulder I started to feel dizzy again and my eyes closed. My head fell against his chest and I thought, dimly, this is all very inappropriate.

I heard Raeburn's voice. ”What is this? What's wrong with her?”

I didn't open my eyes. Ben's s.h.i.+rt smelled nice, like an extremely clean forest.

”It's okay, Joseph,” he said. ”She's not feeling well, that's all.”

And then Jack's voice cut through the fog like a bell. ”I'll take her.”

Ben said, ”She's okay,” but I made my eyes open, found the tuxedoed, golden-haired blur that was Jack, and put my arms out toward him like a child. I saw the face of the girl from the porch drifting over his shoulder and then I was in a cloud of Jack-smell, with his good, strong arms around me, and my eyes closed again.

Raeburn sounded formal and aloof. ”I can't even begin to tell you how embarra.s.sed I am, Searles. I'm sure we can handle her from here.”

”Just get her home, she'll be okay.” Ben sounded easy and light.

”I'll take care of it.” Raeburn was still smooth, still polite. He took my arm and pulled me away from Jack and I was on my own again, trying to stand, with the only certain thing in the world the bright burst of pain where his fingers dug into my flesh.

Searles turned away.

Raeburn started to pull me outside, half carrying, half dragging me.

”In front of all my colleagues, Josephine?” His voice was an angry hiss. ”In front of everyone I know? Do you think I don't have enough to worry about from these people?” His grip tightened. ”Where did you get it? Who gave it to you? Was it Searles?”

”They aren't exactly carding,” an unfamiliar female voice said. ”She could have gotten it anywhere.”

”What she didn't get herself I got for her,” Jack said. ”For Christ's sake, let go of her. She's sick enough.”

I was conscious of wintry air on my bare legs. We were outside now. ”Excellent,” Raeburn said. ”You've gotten your sixteen-year-old sister drunk in public.”

”As opposed to in private, where it's okay.”

Raeburn swore and pushed me toward Jack, who was warm and stable in the cold white world. ”Take her if you want her. You've already ruined her.”

I started to cry. My legs lifted off the floor, and then I was being carried away and placed in the truck, carefully; Jack's coat was tucked around me, something soft was put under my head, and all the while I heard Raeburn's voice from very far away saying cruel things until finally the door closed.

Later, at home, Jack held a gla.s.s of water up for me to drink.

”Jack.”

”Hm?”

”They were talking about us. All of them.”

”Well, they are now,” he said calmly.

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