"Everything all right?" she said. She could see for herself that it probably was, but she was starting to feel a little useless here.
"Everything's going fine," the girl said, not quite so much of a girl when Diane looked at her close-to. She was blonde and doll faced, but her blue eyes gave the impression that she's just about seen everything, and rather more than was healthy for so short a life. "I never worked a crowd as happy as this one with their clothes still on."
"Anybody been spiking the drinks?"
"Not from out end. Yours?"
Diane shook her head. "Not that I know of. Maybe it's just anticipation."
"Well, they're all high on something. Tonight's not a night they'll forget in a hurry."
Out in the big hall, the DJ made a smooth change between tracks. He was running what was mostly a 'sixties disco with a sprinkling of classic rock and only a few recent standards. He had big banks of lights and speakers on either side of his console with some lower level relays here in the ballroom; he'd been running some smoke and dry ice earlier, and some of it still hung in the air and gave the lighted area beyond the doorways the effect of some offworld film set.
She could also see that Pete McCarthy and his waitress had just arrived.
They'd stopped on their way across the marble floor, both of them blue white in the lights and the fog. She was saying something to him, and he was glancing around and nodding. Alina was wearing a plain white dress that left her back and shoulders bare. She wore no jewellery, and her hair had been simply gathered and tied. Even though she'd told herself that she wasn't going to have any thoughts or feelings on the subject at all, the sight of Alina looking so good made Diane feel just a little bit sick. Maybe there was some envy in it, she could be honest about that. But mostly it was directed toward herself, and whatever it was in her that seemed to respond to some call given out by the least suitable of men; despite what she'd been through in the past couple of years she appeared to have learned precisely nothing. Either she'd imagined McCarthy's interest when there was really nothing there, which on its own would be humiliating enough, or else McCarthy was a no good dissembling two faced piece of garbage, which was slightly better for her self respect but still got her nowhere.
But she could at least go over and say hello.
She'd almost started out, but she was stopped by a touch on her arm. Turning around, she found herself facing the dark, handsome-looking woman who'd arrived with Ross Aldridge and whom Diane assumed to be his wife.
"I just wanted to say something," Loren Aldridge told her, leaning close and raising her voice to be heard over the music.
Diane tried not to wince. The music wasn't that loud. Loren seemed to have desperation in her eyes, and the good time that she was having was a fierce one. Diane said, "Feel free."
"I'm having a wonderful evening. This is the best time I've had since I came here. I just wanted you to know."
"That's good," Diane told her. "Did you dance with Tony yet?"
"Yes. He's a wonderful dancer, isn't he?"
"So they say." Diane was starting to wonder if Bob wasn't being a little too liberal with the strong stuff in his Hawaiian knockout juice. She'd have to mention it to him — and pretty soon, if Loren's slightly wild eyed look was any kind of an omen.
Loren said, "I want you to tell Mister Liston how much I appreciate this. The invitation, and…" She gestured around, lost for a description. "Everything."
"You can tell him yourself. He'll be down in a couple of minutes."
"Really?" Loren said. "But I won't know what to say."
"You could always ask him to dance," Diane suggested. "Someone has to."
Dizzy's late and short-lived appearance hadn't been planned entirely for effect; the truth was that he was still fairly weak after his illness. He couldn't be expected to manage much more than an hour on his feet, after which he'd be living up to his name, although not — Diane hoped — to his reputation.
She looked again for Pete, but Pete was no longer there; and now she could hear a scattering of spontaneous applause — applause! and a few cheers and whistles which told her that the host had finally arrived on the scene. People were squeezing by her in the general drift to get a look at him, and she let herself go with the crowd a little in order to see how he was doing.
He was doing fine.
He was, she supposed, a minor celebrity in his own right after all, extensively written up in the News of the World and a regular in the Grovel columns of Private Eye. Now he was looking rumpled and approachable, thin and still a little yellow tinged after the hepatitis. Diane couldn't deny his charm, even though she knew more about him than most; he came over as something like a wind-up toy that was apt to go bashing itself into the nearest wall without guidance and protection.
The agency girls were taking expert care of him. Veterans mostly of conferences and corporate operations where the good time masked a definite hidden agenda, they were steering him through the introductions deftly and with an impressive display of memory. They were supporting him, they were making him look good, and the overall strategy seemed to be working.
Diane felt a sense of relief. If Dizzy the prodigal was to be received back onto his family's old stamping ground without too much in the way of resentment, her own job would be a lot easier to carry off. The pity of it was that she hadn't made a bigger part for herself in the night's scenario; she was getting polite nods and hellos from people that she already knew slightly, and curious glances from most of the others. It was as if the estate and the valley people were opposing armies under truce, mixing freely but still in uniform.
She spotted Wayne, over on the fringe of the crowd with his girl. He'd introduced her to Diane about half an hour before. Her name was Sandra, Sandy for short. She wasn't tall and she was slightly heavy, but she had a pleasing face with soft eyes; perhaps she'd never be a beauty, but age would never make her ugly either. She was craning to see over the shoulders of the people in front, and pushing Wayne's hands away as he playfully offered to lift her.
The music changed to slow numbers. Diane was just thinking that she'd go around to the back and see how the Venetz sisters were getting along with the buffet, when somebody moved in and stood beside her; Pete McCarthy, wearing a more-or-less new jacket and a pleasant smile, his tie already undone. He was alone.
He said, "Happy with the way it's going?"
"I reckon so," she replied.
"Alina got curious. She's gone over for a closer look."
"And what about you?"
"I can live without it. Dance with me?"
"Sure."
The marble-floored hall as almost deserted now, just two couples moving slowly under the glitterball light. There were chairs around the sidelines with one or two pairs of beady eyes watching from the gloom. It was the kind of music where you had to dance close. Perhaps that was why he'd waited.
They took hold of each other with an awkward kind of formality, and he said, "I was looking for you earlier."
"I've been around," she said as they moved out onto the floor. It was hopeless. Maybe one day, she was thinking, her head and her hormones might agree over something; and on that day the sun would rise and shine all morning, and fish would leap in the river, and all of her bills would turn out to be rebates.
"Listen," Pete said, and she sensed a deliberate change of track. "I'm not sure how to say this, but I want to ask you something. I've been working on it for most of the week, so don't make me mess it up. Okay?"