“And where do you live?” she asked, harboring a vague hope that he was her neighbor in Astoria. He seemed the type to scorn the trendy, the voguish.
“In sorry seconds,” he replied, with a smirk, then removed his hands from his pockets and buttoned his drab jacket, as though preparing for departure. “Tuck’s old apartment on Havemeyer,” he told her, with a sigh, running his eyes around the room.
“Havemeyer?” she asked.
“Williamsburg,” he said, with a smile that, she thought, might be construed as condescending. “West of here. Closer to Bedford.”
“Oh,” she said, reluctant to ask what or where Bedford was.
With his chin, he gestured toward Sadie and her circle. “I think one of your friends is going to make a toast.” Indeed, Tal had stepped forward and raised his hand, which held not a glass of champagne but a bottle of beer. Sadie, her eye on him, patted her hands together in a halfhearted clap and whispered in Dave’s ear.
“Our sophomore year, Lil and I worked at WOBC,” began Tal, causing the chatter to cease. He was not handsome, not to Beth at least, with his broad brows and sharp nose, and yet he had grown, in the years since college, very attractive. The tone of his voice, Beth thought, had become somehow more patrician, more precise, over the years. He was an actor and suddenly everything had started happening for him: skits on Conan, a play at Circle in the Square, a screenplay sold (for some dumb teen comedy, but still). “We had a two to five slot.” He grinned. “That’s two to five a.m.”
“I remember that,” Beth told Will. “Lil and I were roommates that year. She always woke me up coming in.”
“Needless to say, this was the least coveted slot on the schedule,” Tal continued. From across the room, Beth heard Lil’s laugh. “But we loved it, because we got to run around the student union in the middle of the night.”
“Which was actually kind of creepy,” Lil called, sparking a wave of laughter.
“It was,” Tal agreed, with a smile. “But it was also really fun. And we got to do whatever we wanted.” He paused. “Because no one was listening.” More laughter. “We played these obscure public service announcements about checking your kids’ heads for lice and helping old ladies cross the street. And we sang along with Marlene Dietrich. I think our only listeners were Obies pulling all-nighters, total nutcases, and teenagers in Shaker Heights, who thought that listening to WOBC at three in the morning constituted a major act of rebellion.” Titters and claps. “All of them were completely in love with Lil—or Lil’s voice. They’d call in with really bad requests and try to keep her on the phone. If I answered, they’d hang up.” He took a long sip of his beer. “And this is my point, I guess. That now, Tuck is the only person in the world who gets to hear Lil’s voice at three in the morning. And he’s a lucky, lucky man.”
“The luckiest,” Tuck shouted, pulling Lil close to him with one arm.
“Wow,” said Will, with a bit of a grimace.
“He’s right,” said Beth, with a shrug.
“I’m sure,” said Will, but his smile suggested otherwise. “Shall we attempt to get another drink? It seems like the speechifying is over for the time being.”
Slowly, they made their way through the crowd.
“What are you doing in Cincinnati?” he asked as they shuffled, his arm on her elbow.
“Milwaukee,” said Beth. “Popular culture. Like, you know, cultural studies. American studies.”
“Well,” he said, in a manner that was, yes, she was sure now, slightly condescending. “That’s pretty general. You’re doing—or did—a master’s?”
She shook her head and stopped. They had managed to move about six feet. She was too tired to go any farther. “Doctorate. I’m ABD. Writing my dissertation right now. But here. In New York.”
He raised his pale, bushy eyebrows. “On what? Popular culture?” He snorted. “I can’t even imagine.”
“Dark Shadows,” said Beth quickly. She was used to this sort of response. “You probably haven’t heard of it. Though it aired, I guess, in Europe, too.”
“A television show?”
“From the sixties. A soap opera,” she explained. “Which makes it sound bad, but it’s amazing.” She drew in a breath and launched into her prepared speech for those who had not yet been initiated into the cult. “I mean, it’s crazy. It started off as kind of a normal soap, you know, about this rich family in a small town, but then”—she shook her head and flung her freckled hands around, to indicate chaos—“a ghost appears, and then this character turns out to be a phoenix—”
“A phoenix? The mythological bird that rises from the ashes?”
“Yes! This, like, perky blonde woman—it turns out that she’s actually a phoenix! And then—and this is when things get really amazing—this ancient vampire arrives. Barnabas. I know it sounds weird, but the sixties were a really strange time for TV. There were all these shows with supernatural elements. The Addams Family. The Mun—”
“Barnabas the vampire,” Will suddenly cried with delight. “I have an uncle Barnabas up in Skipton who could pass for a vampire. He’s about a thousand years old. Long, yellow nails. Do you think he was the prototype?”
“Could be,” said Beth.
“Brilliant. That sounds absolutely brilliant. I must see it.”
Around them, guests filed into the back room, returning with plates of fried chicken and glowing magenta beets. “Beth,” called Emily, waving from a few feet away. “You want to get something to eat?”
“Sure,” murmured Beth. “Will, nice to meet you. I’m sure I’ll see you later.” She held out her hand to him, again, but he was already walking forward, across the room, toward Sadie.
Holding the bones between their fingertips, the girls ate chicken, chatting with the aunts and an elegant friend of Lil’s mom, her hair in a high chignon, who asked them questions like “Do you girls go to nightclubs?” Lil wandered around the room, stopping briefly at their table. “Lil, it’s perfect!” they told her, before her mother pulled her away to talk to this relative or that one. Soon, the old aunts made their departure, swarming Tuck with thin white check-holders, and the band contingent deposited themselves at Beth and Emily’s table. They were nice, really: three guys with modified shags and two girls, a severe blonde and a stocky brunette, her eyebrows plucked and drawn in with pencil. Both girls wore the kinds of dresses the group favored in college—Atomic Age frocks, with fitted bodices, full skirts, and bold patterns, in drab green or mustard yellow. They all agreed that Lil—her makeup now faded—had never looked more beautiful. “And more herself,” cried Beth.