Then James saw Rally. She was standing beside the hearth, chatting up the chef. She wore a dress the color of a deep red wine, and it came just barely to her knees. Her earrings were fine, simple drops of silver, but her closely cropped hair, against the firelight, looked even more to James like that of a cadet or an army private. He fantasized for a moment that she was in fact a militaristic woman, that she spent her days enduring some top-secret, vital, very physical training, and that tonight she was away on a lucky, rare leave. The cello played a bass note, and as James stared at Rally, he remembered the arcs of her body, the privileged view that he’d had. He thought, not for the first time, of the opals in his suit-coat pocket, of the light they might catch against Rally’s skin. Then James finished his highball and, already blushing, moved to the hearth.
“Um,” said James. “Hello.”
Rally turned from the chef. She touched her hand to James’s arm.
“If it isn’t James Branch,” she said.
James nodded dumbly. Rally watched him, smiling, while he prayed for something to say. Finally he jutted his thumb at the hearth.
“What is that animal?” he blurted.
The chef scowled darkly. “It’s a boar.”
“Well,” said James. “Yes. I thought so.”
“It’s a boar,” emphasized the chef, “and so are you, if you have to ask.”
“Oh. Very good.” James rocked on his heels, suffering. “Ha, ha,” he said.
Rally giggled, wrinkled her nose.
Kill me now, thought James. But Rally took him by the elbow, led him away from the hearth.
“No tuxedo, James Branch?”
James’s blush hadn’t faded. “I guess not,” he said.
“Aren’t you the brave one.”
Rally led James to a wine cart where no one else was standing.
“You look like you need a drink.”
James accepted a glass of Frascati. He peered at Rally’s wrists, looked for marks of binding.
“So,” said Rally. “You haven’t been to a lot of Patrick’s shindigs.”
James straightened his back. “I stick out that much?”
“Sticking out among Patrick’s boys is a good thing.” Rally yawned, turned it into a smile. “You’re different,” she said.
James said nothing. At the door Freida and Crispin were entering, arm in arm. Walter and Henry Shaker left the bar and bore down on these women.
“Ha—have you actually been to the Himalayas?” James asked.
Rally snapped her fingers. “The Cloisters. That’s where I’ve seen you before. I saw you once at the Cloisters.”
James shook his head. “I would remember you.”
“I had long hair. We were looking at a tapestry. Of a unicorn.”
James couldn’t think about the Cloisters. He was wondering what would happen if he took Rally’s arm and sank his teeth into it, or kissed it from her wrist to her shoulder.
Rally sipped her wine. It made her lips glisten.
“You’re thinking about the other night, aren’t you, James Branch? You’re thinking about how I looked.”
“I’m thinking about how you look right now,” said James.
Rally raised her eyebrows. She’d been about to speak, about to say something smart and coquettish. Instead, she checked out James’s shoulders, which were wider than she’d guessed in the dark of Patrick’s bedroom. Her glance settled on James’s eyes, on the kind blue wash of them, on the deliberation behind them. Rally drew in a breath.
“How’s the wine?”
Rally and James both jumped. Their host was beside them, smiling, a hand on each of their shoulders.
“Patrick,” breathed Rally. “Hey.”
Patrick stood tall and lordly in his tuxedo. He kissed Rally on the cheek. Then he kissed James on the cheek, and stood grinning back and forth between his roommate and the woman.
“You look radiant,” he told Rally. “Scintillating. Scrumptious.”
Rally pulled away. “Patrick.”
“Doesn’t she, though, Branch? Doesn’t she look good enough to eat?”
“Patrick,” scolded Rally.
“Well, doesn’t she?” demanded Patrick.
James had backed up against the wine cart.
“I—” he said. “I . . . suppose.”
Patrick thumped James on the shoulder. “Branch here is a little shy around the womenfolk.”
Rally finished her wine. “Some womenfolk find that very attractive.”
“I’ll bet they do. I’ll bet they do.” Patrick was finished laughing now. He was still grinning his hyena grin. “Rally’s a travel writer, Branchman.”
James cleared his throat. “I—”
“He knows what I do,” cut in Rally. “James was just asking me about the Himalayas. I was saying that I’ve never been there, but that I’d love to go.”
“Well.” Patrick bobbed his head. “It sounds as if James and Rally were having a bona fide conversation. Is that what you were having, Branch?”
“I suppose,” said James.
“You hear that, Rallygirl? He supposes.”
“I hear him fine,” whispered Rally.
“Well.” Patrick extended his hand, took Rally’s elbow between his thumb and forefinger. James thought he saw Rally flinch.
“Ms. McWilliams,” said Patrick, “you’ve finished your wine. Can I escort you to the bar?”
Rally sighed. “Patrick—”
“I’d like to have a private word with you, Ms. McWilliams.”
“Ow—all right, Patrick. All right.”
Patrick turned his head to James. “I’m very glad that you’ve come,” he said evenly. Then he steered Rally off toward the bar, leaving James alone.
“I don’t know, Otis,” whispered James. “It’s weird. Patrick gets all these men and women together. The men are handsome and the women are beautiful, but if one guy talks to one girl for too long, Patrick steps in, like a chaperone. Except that he’s not a chaperone, he’s a—”
James held his tongue. He didn’t know what his housemate was, didn’t have a word for it. He only knew that whatever power or quality Patrick exuded made him nervous. So he switched topics.
“She looked wonderful, Otis. She had on this burgundy dress, and silver earrings, and her hair looked all golden and bristly. I wanted to run my hand through it.” James rocked, kept his eyes closed. “We weren’t seated at the same table. She sat next to Patrick, and I got stuck between Liza McMannus and some guy from Harrow East.”
James furrowed his brow. “I don’t think Patrick’s in love with her, Otis. That’s the thing. I don’t think he’s in love with any of them.”
It was one in the morning. There was a ticking in the walls that came on and off intermittently, and James liked to hear it. He imagined it was the Preemption digesting all that he said.
“For dinner we had roasted boar and some weird kind of port wine. It was like a medieval feast, except that Sarah Wolf wouldn’t eat any boar, because she’s kosher, and Liza kept asking for vegetables, because she’s a vegan. I don’t think they had vegans in the Middle Ages, Otis.”
James kept rocking. He breathed in and out, smelling the trace of mahogany that he liked. It was warmer in the elevator than normal, and cozy after the bracing wind outside.
“I don’t think Rally is short for anything,” said James. “I think she’s just Rally, and that’s her real name.”
James thought of the way Patrick had gripped Rally’s elbow, the way Rally had winced and gone off with him. James didn’t get to be alone with her or even speak to her again for the rest of the night. He’d planned on trying to corner her after dinner, but when he came out of the lavatory around midnight, she was gone.
“I hope she’s just Rally,” whispered James.
To get to the Spree story night at Cherrywood’s, Patrick insisted that he and James share a cab downtown. It was the evening after Christmas, and James stared out the cab’s window at the snow-
covered sidewalks, which were quieter than they’d been in weeks. The eye of the storm, thought James. New Year’s will be a madhouse.
James wore a tuxedo, not wanting to repeat his underdressed, eyesore status from Duranigan’s. Patrick wore a black overcoat, a black blazer, a black T-shirt, and chinos.
“Here’s the thing, Branchman.” Facing James, Patrick sat with his back to the cab door, as if he were in a limo. “We need to discuss something. A young woman.”
James caught his breath. He knows, thought James.
“We need to discuss this chick, Freida.”
“Freida? Candy-cane Freida? With the weird hair?” James swooped his fingers over his eye, demonstrating.
Patrick whinnied and nodded.
“What about her?”
“She’s totally into you.” Patrick had his arms folded. His eyes were green cuts of attention.
James frowned. “She’s—she’s never said two words to me.”
“Listen, Branchman. Freida’s the lead singer in an all-female band. How much do you know about lead singers in all-female bands?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, I would describe them as highly fuckable individuals.”
James licked his lips. He was confused.
“What?” he said.
“You know, lead singer chicks are all sensitive and empathetic deep down, because they’re the songwriters for the band, usually. But they’re also the front women, so they have to be brassy and sexy too. Add it all up, and you get a highly fuckable individual named Freida Wheeler who wants you to drop the hammer on her.”
James blinked at Patrick. “The hammer?”
“The hammer. The mojo. She wants you in bed.”
The cab stopped at a traffic light near Lincoln Center. Out the window, just ten feet away, stood Morality John, playing his guitar. The window was open a crack and James could hear through it.
“It’s getting harder,” sang Morality John, “making lovers out of strangers.”
The light changed, and the cab drove on.
“Patrick,” said James, “what are you talking about?”
Patrick smiled. “Don’t ask questions, Branch. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Let’s just say I had a little conversation with Freida recently, and she spilled the info. The goods.” Patrick snickered.
James gazed at his housemate, at his slick, wolfish grin. Something seemed contrived in Patrick’s voice tonight, as if he were a TV showman, speaking with warm, sincere insolence to a contestant.
“Just wait and see, Branchman,” said Patrick. “She’ll come right up and talk to you. Just wait and see.”
When James and Patrick arrived, Cherrywood’s was already filled with the Spree elite. By now acquaintances had been struck, running jokes established, and secrets revealed. Everyone knew that Hannah Glorybrook walked to work barefoot in the summer, that Crispin had once taken a bath in a tub filled with vodka, that Liza McMannus, when she was seventeen, had slept with Orlando Fisk, the Hollywood muscleman. Laughter reigned, and Walter Glorybrook and Henry Shaker were inseparable chums, and everybody except James wore casual clothes.
Cherrywood’s had a tradition of live storytelling, and on a small wooden stage between two bookcases stood an upholstered chair with a small microphone attached to it. What Patrick wanted was for his guests to take the microphone one at a time and tell the room a story. It had to be either very sweet or very terrible, Patrick said, and those who couldn’t dream something up were required to say what they considered the worst or most wonderful thing that happened in the twentieth century. All in all, it was the kind of game that fails in most crowds, leaving the host embarrassed. But Patrick Rigg was not a man to be disappointed. He moved among his guests, and when he patted a man’s shoulder or whispered in a woman’s ear, that person fixed his hair or smoothed her dress, then took the stage and spoke.
Checkers went first.
“The most wonderful thing,” he said, “that happened in the twentieth century is my woman, Donna Reichard. Period.”
The crowd applauded, the women sighed, and Donna blushed. Next onstage were Kettle and Fife. They squished into the chair together, held hands, and sang a long, eerie song in their native tongue. After that Douglas Kerchek said the name of his favorite book, and Jeremy Jax told a joke that, to Jeremy’s surprise and almost tearful delight, got laughs.
Throughout all these performances James sat at the bar, nursing a Coca-Cola to settle his stomach. He was embarrassed to be in a tuxedo, and afraid to be called to the stage, to be forced to speak. He also couldn’t see Rally anywhere. Making him most nervous of all, though, was Freida Wheeler, who, as Patrick promised, had sought James out as soon as he’d entered the room. She stood next to James now, very close to him, leaning back against the bar, flaring her chest out. Half of her face was hidden behind her sickle of hair, but her one visible eye, which disdained most men, was staring exclusively at James.
“So,” she chatted, “you know how people say the sun gives you vitamin E?”
“Um,” said James, “no.”
“Seriously. Apparently, according to scientists and whomever, just standing outside in sunlight fills your skin with vitamin E. It fortifies the human epidermis.”
James surveyed the room. He was trying not to look at Freida, because her eye was intense and because her shirt revealed a creamy slice of her belly.
“Oh,” he said.
“Listen, buddy. I’m very intelligent. I read a great deal.”
“Okay.” James tried focusing on the stage, where the two Iranians were arguing into the microphone.
Freida took James’s chin in her hand, steered it toward herself. “What I’m saying is, how much sense does that make? The sun being able to fill us up with vitamins? I mean, vitamins coming from food, no problem. You eat a steak, you get vitamins. You take a pill, you get vitamins.”
“I understand,” said James desperately.
“Vitamins come out of objects in your stomach and pass to your bloodstream. No problem. But sunlight? I’m sorry.” Freida tossed back her sickle. “Unless there’s some, like, photosynthesis that goes on in our skin. Which would be freaky. Do you need a drink?”
“Yes, please,” said James. He still couldn’t see Rally anywhere.
Freida ordered two whiskeys. Patrick Rigg took the stage, the microphone.
“My parents met on a blind date,” said Patrick. “They were set up by my father’s fraternity brother, Emilio Snodgrass.”
Patrick’s voice boomed. The guests turned toward it, and the room fell silent.
“According to my mom, my dad was a nervous jerk the first time they went out.” Patrick grinned. “He hardly said two words to her, and he took her to see Night of the Living Dead, which completely creeped her out. Also, my dad was in love with a different woman, a beautiful blond girl, who was involved with another man.” Patrick glanced at James. “My dad even discussed this blond girl with my mom, right there on their first date. But my mom, who has dark hair, by the way, she stuck it out. She watched the zombies, and listened to my dad’s whining, and at the end of the night, when my dad brought her home, my mom gave him a kiss that made him forget all about that blonde.”
The dark-haired women in Cherrywood’s whooped.
“My parents got married three months later.” Patrick raised his glass. “And so. A toast to Emilio Snodgrass.”
Everyone laughed and clinked glasses, except James, who stared at his drink. He felt sure that he’d just heard a fable. He felt sure that any couple named Snodgrass would not name their son Emilio.
Freida bumped James with her hip. “Cute story.”
James watched the women in the lounge. He watched how, no matter where they stood or with whichever men they were flirting, their eyes checked on Patrick every little while. They were sly little checks, but they were there.
“Hey,” said Freida, “let’s get out of here.”
James came to attention. “What?”
<
br /> Freida leaned close. “You look scared,” she whispered, “like maybe you don’t want to talk in front of all these people.”
James breathed in and out. It was true, he was scared. He had nothing to say to the crowd, and Freida was wearing a sexy perfume that James seemed to remember smelling when he stood beside Rally at Duranigan’s. But Rally wasn’t beside him tonight, and James had little experience turning women away, and Freida was pushing her hip insistently into James’s thigh.
“If we bolt now,” she whispered, “we can skip our turns onstage.”
James scanned the crowd one last time.
Be here, he begged. But Rally wasn’t there, and Freida tugged James out the door. She hustled him into a cab, escorted him to the Village, fed him beers at Chumley’s. Two hours later she had James in her apartment, a den with pink shag carpets, black walls, and strobe lights. She gave him more beer, then sat him on her bed, grabbed her guitar, and sang him a song called “Fuck the Buffalo.” When she finished, Freida kissed James wildly on the mouth.
“Wait a minute,” protested James. He was dizzy with beer, but he moved away from Freida on the bed.
“What’s the matter?” whispered Freida. She trailed her fingers down James’s arm.
“I—” James breathed carefully, fought down his stutter, which came back sometimes when he drank.
“I want to know what’s going on,” he said.
Freida nibbled James’s ear. “Me and you, that’s what.”
James pulled free again. The air pulsed with strobe light.
“I—I mean it. Why do you like me, all of a sudden?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“Why?” James stood up.
Freida curled her legs beneath her on the bed. She shrugged.
“It’s the millennium,” she said. “You’re cute.”
James’s legs were trembling. He felt trapped.
“Do you know Rally McWilliams?” he blurted.
Freida patted the bed. “Come on,” she said. “Get in. I’ll fortify your epidermis.”
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