Craig pondered Liz with groggy curiosity. “How late are you staying?”
“Till the bitter end,” she told him. “Six A.M.”
“Wow.” He yawned. “Good for you.”
And then they were gone, leaving Liz alone among the mismatched furniture, with nothing to do except kick herself for not having brought something to read. It was a ridiculous oversight, considering that it was her policy never to leave home without a book, a soccer mom’s best friend when practice ran late. But she happened to be reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, and the library hardcover was massive, not the sort of volume you could easily slip into your purse on the way to a graduation party. So she’d left it on her bedside table, where it was doing no one any good.
She could hear music and voices from the other end of the building, the sound of young people having fun, and it struck her almost like a taunt, a reminder of everything she was missing, not just tonight but every night, the void that had become her life. She felt a minor panic attack coming on — or maybe just an urgent need for fresh air and human contact — and wondered what would happen if she marched back to the sign-in table and demanded a better assignment, something that would at least allow her to join the party, to interact with the kids and the other volunteers. The worst they could do was tell her no.
Oh, come on, she scolded herself. Don’t be such a baby. It’s not even twelve-thirty.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? She still had five and a half hours to go. Five and a half hours. A whole endless night. Just the thought of it was exhausting. She found herself sneaking glances at the beige velour recliner that had been Craig’s undoing, imagining how sweet it would feel to crank back the handle and put her feet up. But there was no way she was going to allow herself to fall asleep in public, to be that vulnerable in front of people she didn’t know, especially teenagers.
Hoping to clear her head, she slipped into the narrow space between the hammock and the fire doors and did a few yoga stretches. She’d been trying to find a regular class for a while now, but somehow the timing was never convenient, or she didn’t like the teacher, or the other students were show-offs. It was too bad, because yoga never failed to cheer her up. She could feel the magic working right away — her muscles warming and loosening, the tension dissolving in waves, her mind emptying itself of negative thoughts — despite the cramped space, the lack of a mat, and jeans that hadn’t been designed for sun salutations.
It’s just one night, she reminded herself. It’s going to be fine.
Arching into upward dog, she was startled by the sound of soft voices and muffled laughter. It was coming from right in front of her.
“Hello?” she called out as the fire door creaked open. “Excuse me?”
The intruders froze in the doorway as Liz scrambled to her feet. They were a couple, a tall boy in a WESLEYAN LACROSSE shirt and a short, plump girl with multiple piercings and too much makeup.
“Where did you come from?” Liz demanded. She’d been told that the fire doors were off-limits, except in case of emergency. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
The boy let go of his girlfriend’s hand. He was clean-cut and preppy, with the bland good looks that were his Gifford birthright. She was more of a townie, in skimpy denim shorts that did her thighs no favors, and an orange V-neck tee that was two sizes too small.
“Mr. Waters told us it was okay,” the boy explained after a moment. He looked Liz straight in the eye, his voice calm and confident. “Jenna needed her medication.”
The girl giggled a little too loudly. She had dirt on her knees and a big pink blotch spreading across her chest.
“I have asthma,” she said. Something about the way she pronounced her ailment made Liz realize she’d been drinking. “Hadda go home for my inhaler.”
Liz knew they were lying. She figured that they’d slipped out while Craig was sleeping and had hoped to slip back in undetected, but what was she supposed to do? Report them to the authorities? It was their graduation night, and they weren’t hurting anyone. And besides, how could she object to a teenaged tryst when her own daughter was home in bed with her boyfriend? She was a lot of things, but she tried not to be a hypocrite.
“Just get outta here,” she said, waving them in the direction of the cafeteria. “Go enjoy your party.”
A FLOCK of artsy girls descended upon the Chilling Station around one o’clock, packing themselves into the couches and chairs, talking in low, animated voices, as if hatching a conspiracy. They were a strikingly multicultural bunch, at least by Gifford standards — there were two Asians in the mix, a tall black girl who looked like a ballerina, and a round-faced, red-lipped Muslim girl in a headscarf. One member of the group was in a wheelchair; another wore a bandanna to conceal what Liz assumed was chemo-induced hair loss. The smaller of the Asian girls — she had an adorable teardrop face, and a streak of purple in her hair — sat on the lap of a butch white girl in a baseball cap.
Liz didn’t recognize any of them from the soccer field; she figured they were denizens of the art room and the dance studio, editors of the literary magazine, officers of the Gay/Straight Alliance, members of the Performing Arts Club. Some of them were cute, but mostly not in a way that a high school boy would appreciate — not that all of them would be equally interested in eliciting the approval of high school boys — and they seemed collectively resigned to their wallflower status at the All-Night Party. Liz’s heart went out to them; she wanted to hug each and every one, to let them know they’d be happier in college, that the world was about to become much larger and more forgiving, at least for a little while.
After they moved on, a handful of other visitors trickled in and out. A pair of identical-twin boys played a cutthroat game of Yahtzee, insulting each other with language so vile Liz had to ask them to tone it down. A scruffy-bearded troubadour — he looked a little too old for high school — strummed an acoustic guitar, serenading his hippie friends with evergreen songs by Cat Stevens and Neil Young. Four football players held a round-robin arm-wrestling tournament, grunting and grimacing like constipated old men while their girlfriends cheered them on from the sidelines.
By two-thirty it was dead again, but at least Liz had a yearbook to keep her occupied, a copy left behind by someone named Corinne. She leafed through the glossy pages, reading the inscriptions, searching for familiar faces. There was a photo of Dana in the section devoted to Girls’ Soccer, an action shot in which she leapt for a header, her ponytail a golden blur: Striker Dana Mercatto rises to the occasion against Rosedale. Liz flipped ahead to the junior-class pictures, locating her daughter’s face among the rows of black-and-white thumbnails. It was a photo she knew well — a color version of it was framed on her dresser — Dana gazing coolly into the camera, so lovely and self-possessed, utterly at peace with herself. Liz couldn’t help remembering her own senior picture, the too-big smile, the desperation in her eyes, as if she were begging the world not to hate her.
Ugh! she used to say. I can’t stand that picture. It doesn’t even look like me. But that wasn’t really the problem.
She heard footsteps and closed the book. Setting it down on the coffee table, she turned and saw Officer Yanuzzi heading in her direction, his uniformed figure squat and ominous in the murky light, as if he were coming to arrest her. But when his face finally came into view, he just looked amused.