The problem was, she thought, as she put wine in the fridge to chill for the party, that Tuck’s unhappiness over these months had cast a pall over their home, which had affected her. But soon he would be productive again—sitting in the study and writing, happily, at his old scarred desk, catty-corner from hers. She would get back to her own work. She would churn out her two papers by the end of June and then start reading for her orals. She still burned with shame about the incompletes and she’d told no one, not even Tuck.
The party was a success. A horde of Slikowskers—many of them still employed, unhappily, by Boom Time—raced manically around the loft, making blue drinks in the blender, beaming one another software from their Palm Pilots, and crowding, puppylike, around Ed Slikowski himself, who had stationed himself by one of the big front windows. He’d cut his hair and shaved his beard, so that his eyes loomed even larger and paler, sunk deep within the hollows above his cheekbones. “Hello,” she’d cried when he arrived, giving him an awkward hug.
“Lillian, what’s going on?” he asked, handing her a bottle of champagne.
“Well, the book, I guess,” she said, as the Slikowskers encroached on them. “I’d better put this in the fridge.”
“Yeah, it’s great for Tuck,” said Ed. “I feel like hell about what happened. Like I should have protected him more.”
“No, no,” said Lil, though she did wonder if Ed had done all he could to save Tuck. “It was inevitable, I think.”
“Yeah,” agreed Ed, shaking his head. “It was. That place is cancer now. It’s really depressing.” He’d left the magazine, just as Beth had predicted, back in April, and done the predictable: traveled through Nepal, then Vietnam, then home to California to visit his mother. “But it was good while it lasted, right?”
Lil nodded. “It must be hard,” she said, with a sudden flash of insight. “After you created it. To see things change so much. To lose control.”
Ed shrugged. “Yeah,” he said. “But, you know, I was sick of it anyway, really. It’s hard to be the boss. Signing off on every single thing. And all those deadlines.”
“I know,” murmured Lil, her mind returning uncomfortably to her incompletes. “Let me introduce you to some people…”
Everyone had come out: Her few friends from Columbia—a trio of tiny dark-haired women—smoked fiendishly in a corner, and made husky conversation with Tuck’s friends from Columbia, glowering, bearded men of South Asian and Irish and Soviet-Jewish extraction, in rumpled shirts and khakis, from whose mouths frequently issued terms like “Marxist” and “hegemony” and “fascist” and “post-structural fallacy.” Caitlin and Rob stood by the bar with Tuck’s college friends and a little troupe of publishing people from Tuck’s agency.
And for the first time since the wedding the entire group came, all of them bearing news. Emily’s play—the dark, satirical thing she’d done in the fall—had been picked up for a respected off-Broadway theater. Dave’s band was opening for a big band in a few weeks, at Irving Plaza. “Who?” asked Tal. Dave gave them a wry smile.
“Don’t laugh,” he said, “Reynold Marks.”
“Reynold Marks,” marveled Tal. “Wow.”
“Isn’t Reynold Marks, like, a complete tool?” asked Emily.
“He’s actually really nice,” said Dave, his jaw tensing. “It’s his fans who are tools.”
“But you’ve only played, like, once,” said Lil, wrinkling her brow, “haven’t you? Have you done other shows and not invited us?”
Dave shook his head. “He saw us when we played at Mercury Lounge. It’s crazy.”
“That’s amazing,” said Sadie, with a wide, closemouthed grin. They could see she wanted to say something more.
“What?” asked Dave, irritably.
“Nothing,” she said, wrapping her arms around Tal. “Tell them,” she said to him. Tal shook his head. “He’s got the lead in a big movie.”
“It’s not a big movie,” said Tal, grimacing. “It’s just a movie.”
“It’s a John Cusack movie,” Sadie explained. “Directed by that guy who did Se7en.”
“That sounds big,” said Dave.
“That’s great,” Emily said, but the rest could see she was rattled.
“It’s stupid,” said Tal, running his hands over his face. He looked, they all thought, tired and distracted.
“It’s not,” said Sadie, twining her fingers in his. “It’s a thriller. It’s good.”
“So, you’re, like, going to L.A.?” asked Dave.
“For this, yeah,” Tal nodded. “In three weeks.” Silently, they were all asking, Will you stay? Will you bring Sadie with you? Or, more accurately, Will Sadie come with you?
And then Beth, her cheeks flushed, said, “I have news, too.” They all turned to look at her and she awkwardly held out her hand. “I’m getting married.”
“To Will?” asked Dave.
Beth’s face paled. “Of course to Will.”
“But you just met,” said Lil.
“We met in October,” said Beth, her voice halting and choked. “That was eight months ago.” She took a deep breath. “You and Tuck had only known each other nine months when you got engaged.”
“You did the calculations,” said Dave, smirking.
Beth’s face began to crumple, her liquid features drawing closer together, at its center, as if for protection. They had all seen this before. “I knew you wouldn’t be happy,” she sobbed. “I know you don’t like him.” For a moment they watched, in silence, as the tears began to flow, then Tal stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Beth.
“Beth, don’t be crazy,” he said, in his soft, firm voice.
“Seriously, we’re thrilled,” Sadie chimed in, rubbing her friend’s back. “Will is great. And he loves you. This is great. Dave was just teasing you.”
“I was just teasing,” said Dave, with a barely audible sigh.
And then they were upon her, with a thousand questions: Had they picked a date for the wedding? Had she told her parents? Would Sam come and live with them? Would they stay in Tuck’s old apartment? And, wait, where was Will?
“He’s in San Jose, reporting on that big merger,” she explained, still hiccuping. “He had to fly out yesterday. He was really sad to miss the party. He’s so happy for Tuck.”
“You have a kind of bridal glow,” Lil told her, and it was true. Her cheeks were rosy (with blush, but no matter), her lips dewily glossed, her thin, sandy hair piled dramatically atop her head, a smallish diamond glittering on her left hand. Once she recovered from her tears—apologizing, as she always did—she swayed lightly to the music, wound her way back and forth from the kitchen, saying hello to everyone she passed, the skirt of her blue dress swishing around her knees. She sipped scotch from a tumbler, cigarette dangling from her hand, chatting gamely with the various members of Dave’s band, who showed up near ten with a six-pack of Schlitz and prowled the place shyly in a pack, and Kapklein, who peered owlishly at her over the tops of his wire-rim glasses.