“Kristina?”
Her eyes swam up slowly toward him. “Mmm?”
Her hands were gathered under her chin. He took one out and held it in both of his. It was warm and sticky. “Do you think you might have a problem, a problem with drinking too much alcohol like this, at parties?” Oh God, why had he said it? She had a vicious temper. She would bolt.
But she didn’t move. She just squeezed his hand hard. “Sometimes I think I might,” she whispered. “Oh God, Peter, I don’t want to be drunk right now. I wish I could just take a pill and feel normal. I don’t know what happens. The idea of going to a party and not being buzzed — and now my father’s going to come and—”
“Damn.” Peter looked at the clock. “It’s eleven-thirty-seven.”
“Shit!” She sat up as he knew she would. “Holy fuck. He’s here. He’s never late.” She slapped her face. “And he’s going to know. He’s going to know.”
Out in the hallway her name was being called.
“See? He’s incapable of being late.”
“There’s a back staircase. There has to be. C’mon.” He yanked her up, unlocked the door, and led her down the hall, away from the way he came. People were yelling her name outside and in. He released his grip on her arm and took her hand. It felt familiar already. Why hadn’t he kissed her?
They came to a stairwell. He’d kiss her there at the bottom, before he delivered her to her father. With her free hand she wiped away tears and patted her face. “Sorry, I was in the bathroom,” she said to herself, practicing.
The steps bent around to the kitchen. Sarah was at the bottom looking up. “Jesus Christ. There you are. Your father is having a shit fit out there.”
Kristina let go of Peter, pushed past him, as if he’d been in her way this whole time. “Daddy, I’m right here,” he heard her call out, irritated, as if the only trouble had been her father’s eyesight.
From the front hall window, Peter watched them walk out into the driveway. Her father was examining her and she was pretending not to notice. When he had decided she was sober, he put his arm around her shoulder and guided her to the green Mercedes whose license plate, 210514, Peter knew by heart. She rolled down the window and waved to people on the grass as her father turned the car around. She didn’t look toward the house. Perhaps she had already forgotten him.
Carla came at midnight, and when they got on the highway, Jason leaned into the front seat. “Can you turn it up a bit?” This meant he wanted to talk. He sat back and waited for Peter to ask.
“You and the sister?”
“An hour and a half in the poolhouse.” Jason shut his eyes.
“Sounds cold.”
“I was amazing.”
“You were amazing?”
“I think she must have had fourteen orgasms.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
If Peter asked anything more specific, Jason would get prickly, so he kept quiet. Up front they were giggling. The roommate kept wiping the fogged-up windshield with what looked like a brown bra.
“So where were you?” Jason asked, expecting little.
“With Kristina.”
“Kristina Luhzin?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Yes,” Peter said. A small elated laugh slipped out.
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
“In a bedroom?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“We talked.”
“Talked? I saw her. She was bombed.”
“I was trying to sober her up. Before her father came.”
“You were alone in a bedroom with her all that time and nothing happened? You got nothing off her?”
“A lot happened. I mean, I could have kissed her. She wanted me to, I think.”
“But you didn’t.”
“She was drunk.”
“Of course she was drunk. That’s the point of parties. Girls get drunk because they want us and can’t ask for it unless they’re drunk.”
“Kristina doesn’t want me.”
Even Jason couldn’t argue with that. “Well, she asked for it tonight and you didn’t have the cojones to do it.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck me? Try fucking her.”
Peter had never hit anyone before, not like that. It didn’t even feel like a decision — he just watched his right fist cross his chest and smash into Jason’s face. Jason pummeled him four or five blows so fast he couldn’t get another swipe at him. Carla was swearing at them in the rearview mirror and just when Peter was about to land another solid punch, he was shoved hard against the door handle. The roommate was sprawled above them like a hawk, one flat palm pressed against Peter’s chest, the other against Jason’s.
“Fucking cut it out.” They were the only words he ever heard her say.
She flexed her arms, shoving him and Jason simultaneously slightly farther apart, then withdrew and settled in even closer to Carla.
Why hadn’t he kissed Kristina? Why had just lying there talking to her been enough? Why hadn’t he jumped her with the same unconscious passion and urgency with which he had just punched Jason? That’s what it was like for other guys in love. In movies they leapt out of chairs, dashed across rooms, clutched and grabbed and pressed themselves against the women they loved. Why hadn’t he had any of those impulses? Why was he so self-conscious, so controlled? What was wrong with him? Was he gay?
It was a long ride home. Peter told himself he wasn’t going to say anything to any of them when he got out of the car, but a small “thanks” slipped out anyway.
The house had not been waiting for him, not the way his old house waited, the way it seemed glad when his feet touched the porch steps in the afternoon. When he lived there, he’d never really thought of it as home. Home was something in books and always had more than two people living in it. Home wasn’t a borrowed gardener’s cottage on a school campus, even if it had once belonged to his grandparents. But now he missed the smell of it, a blend of cheese popcorn and wet dog. They still bought the cheese popcorn, and Walt still smelled, but the Belou house had its own smell that he and his mother would never alter, no matter what they brought into it.
He could see that someone, probably Stuart, was still up watching TV. Normally the prospect of hanging out on the couch with Stuart would have cheered him, but tonight he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. He shut the door quietly and headed to his room. But he felt bad, felt rude, not even saying hi, and he glanced over to give at least a wave. It was Fran on the couch, her head turned away from him, one knee drawn up to her cheek. And she was shaking.
“Fran?”
She shook her head. “Just go to bed, Peter.”
He moved to obey, then heard a huge gasping sob, as if she’d been carefully holding it in since he’d come through the door.
“Are you okay?” He moved closer and sat at the far edge of the couch.
“She hates me. She hates me so much.” She raised her head, and her mouth, readying for another sentence, opened then kept opening, far wider than necessary, and the lips quivered as she struggled and failed to get control of it. A long moan careened out instead, ending in sharp, short cries. After a deep breath she said, “I was just talking about this stupid book I got out of the library and suddenly she’s screaming at me, wanting to know my ‘position,’ telling me to clarify and then going on about ‘girls like me’ and how our brains are jellyfish or something. God, Peter, no wonder you’re so—”
“What book?” He couldn’t bear to hear her adjective for him.
“The Thorn Birds.”