“That is delightful to hear,” said Paige. “I’ve had a great conversation with your lovely man as well.”
Jennifer felt a pang of relief that there wouldn’t be one of those rides home where they picked at each other because one had enjoyed themselves and the other had not. It was a recurring theme, and a prime reason they didn’t often go to parties. “Aw, good.”
Paige let her eyes drift from Jennifer up to Bruce, giving him a little head tilt.
“Well, Jennifer, my dear,” he said, “Paige has to be up early.”
“Sorry.” Paige scrunched her face and squeezed Jennifer’s toes lightly.
“Okay, well, we’ll have to get together sometime, maybe, just the four of us,” suggested Jennifer.
A lingering look passed between Bruce and Paige. They both smiled at her. “Just say the word,” said Paige.
Bruce stood and helped both of the ladies off the couch. He and Paige both hugged Jennifer, saying how glad they were to have met. “And to think,” said Bruce, “we almost didn’t come!”
If you only knew, thought Jennifer. “That would’ve been tragic. Or something sad that doesn’t trivialize tragedy.” She laughed at her own joke. They smiled politely, something that might have seemed incredibly patronizing, coming from anyone else at that party, but somehow the Shepards pulled it off.
She found Ryan in the kitchen. He stood in front of the massive stainless steel fridge, vainly pressing buttons on the panel in front, holding an empty glass at its spout. Jennifer watched from the doorway.
Beep! Nothing. Beep! Nothing. Beep! Nothing.
She felt a wistful sadness when he stopped pressing the button and set the glass down next to the fridge. I love you very much, she thought, willing the words in his direction. How do we stop feeling lost all the time? How do we stop feeling so ill equipped for life itself?
He looked up at her. “Hey, there you are.”
“Were you looking for me?”
“I assumed you were in good hands.” He lifted his empty glass. “Do you know how to get ice out of here?”
“No,” she said, “But there’s ice in the drawer in the bottom.”
Ryan slid the large bottom freezer drawer out. “So there is.”
“It’s late.”
“It is.”
“Are you good to drive?”
Ryan downed a glass of water, finally feeling equilibrium returning. It had taken its damn sweet time. “Yeah, I’m good.” He smiled at Jennifer, she smiled back, eyes drifting shut momentarily. “You look blissed out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. It’s awesome.” He gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll get the coats and meet you in front.”
In the hall, Ryan noticed very few coats left on the rack. A quick count showed that perhaps only ten people were still at the party. He checked his watch, just after ten. Early night. He grabbed Jennifer’s red wool overcoat and his nondescript black wool coat.
“Leaving.” It was more of a statement than a question coming from Noah behind him, who now held a small steaming cup of coffee. Even from across the room, Ryan could smell that it was Irish.
“Yeah, though I’m surprised everyone took off so early.” He threw the coats over his arm and offered a hand to Noah to shake.
“The hell are you talking about? You’re here later than you’ve ever been.”
Ryan stared at him, then glanced at his watch again. Shit! It’s ten ’til two! “Whoa. That’s… surprising.”
“I guess when you have the right company, time flies.” Noah’s words came out flat.
Ryan frowned. “Is there a—”
“There’s something I think I ought to tell you.”
Ryan waited, and when it was apparent that Noah wasn’t going to continue, he elongated the word “Okay…”
“You’re going to want to brace yourself.”
Ryan waited.
10
Jennifer rested her head against the passenger side window, watching the dancing colored lights as they zipped by between lengthening blinks. She wondered if they’d actually get any snow this year. Third week in December already, still not a flake. She also wondered what it might be like to get closer to Bruce.
The thought wasn’t fully formed, which could be attributed to the general haze and warmth of the wine from the evening, but also to a general resistance to allowing it to coalesce. Jennifer rarely fantasized about people, except that actor who’d played Benedick in last year’s Chicago Shakespeare Theater run of Much Ado About Nothing, but she felt he was acceptable. He’d come up a few times in her head, always with the best lines. I don’t know him, I’ll never meet him, it’s just fantasy. There was also the question of whether those fantasies were that actor or actually Benedick, leaping from page and stage to court her.
Once, in an attempt to have some spicy talk, to see if that would jump-start their libidos for the evening, she and Ryan had discussed which of their friends they’d be interested in fucking. Fucking had been the operative word there. It conjured slapdash, unplanned, heat of the moment, raw energy passion. “Making love” would’ve been an absurd concept to attach, and even “having sex” felt too intimate for the game. So it’d very much been fucking. To both of the Lamberts’ dismay, neither had been able to conjure a friend they’d like to fuck.
“I suppose, Patti?” Ryan offered hesitantly after a long while, shaking his head to himself as he said it.
“I think,” Jennifer said, ducking the question, “We may need to, even beyond the realm of this game, expand our social circle.”
Ryan agreed. “I don’t really want to fuck Patti,” he told her, to put a coda on things. Their little fantasy game, a failed attempt to turn on the sexual lights, had instead left them pondering a need to be friends with more than two couples. Perhaps even some people who weren’t coupled. Perish the thought!
But after tonight, thought Jennifer, I might have a different answer for the fantasy game.
She smiled at the twinkle lights zipping by and sighed a contented sigh, all the while trying to stuff that “getting closer to Bruce” thought down the memory hole, way deep down. The game had ended so, well, not badly, more depressingly, last time that it was unlikely they’d play it again.
She tilted her head so she could see Ryan’s face as he drove, while still leaning against the window for support. This was important, of course, because every time Jennifer sat up, her head would loll and begin to put together ingredients for an epic headache. Ryan was driving focused, purposeful. Perhaps he’d had more than she thought and was trying to focus through the creeping drunk until they got home. It wouldn’t be long, just had to successfully navigate out of the ritzy section of town, back down to where the regular folk lived.
He caught her looking and smiled, but the smile was holding back, missing something. He returned his focus to the road so quickly afterward, too. Something was off. Before she could ask what it was, he asked her “Did you have fun?” his voice flat.
She blinked a few times. Perhaps she shouldn’t be analyzing moods this late and this drunk. She smiled. “Yes. Fun. Everybody was so nice.”
“Yeah. Nice.” Flat, again.
“It was so nice to talk to people,” Jennifer said, drifting back to the conversation in her head, the feel of Bruce’s hands on her shoulders. “And have real conversations.”
“Yeah. Conversations.”