• • •
The party simmered a little longer but never quite boiled. Four or five people made an attempt at dancing ironically to the Czech folk music being played off somebody’s iPod, and then there was a lot of laughing, and there was no more dancing after that. Someone almost knocked into the Chevrolet bumper, and someone else passed out in the attached bedroom, and someone was saying the caterers were nearly out of food, and someone else was saying the bartenders would only be on until two and why not grab a cab down to this new club on Allen Street, and then the suite was half empty.
Irene barely noticed. People seemed far more willing to put their own coats on, now that they’d had a few drinks, and Abeba walked out with an arm around a buyer for the Goldman Sachs building. A minute later Juliette shoved an envelope into Irene’s hands and ran after her. Neither of them came back. Then, more or less without warning, it was all over. Irene got a text message from Abeba that said, Going tpo Jersey thxz v much for all hlp. Irene gave the caterers their checks and tips from Juliette’s envelope, and the bartenders kindly left behind a few half-empty bottles, and then there was no one left but them.
This had never happened before, in the years they’d been coming to the party, and they were as thrilled as young children allowed to stay up long after the adults had gone to bed.
“I’m going to defile some of this so-called art,” Jacob roared.
“You can’t defile it,” Sara shouted. “It’s already disgusting.”
“I shall hump the moldy yam!” Jacob announced. But its green plastic case proved impenetrable, so he settled for miming fellatio on the wrought-iron baboon.
“What kind of art do you make?” William asked Irene nervously.
Irene, through her laughter, managed to say, “Nothing like this.”
“To the balcony!” Jacob cried, grabbing a fresh bottle of champagne in one fist and shoving the door open with the other. Freezing air rushed in, and flakes of snow danced around their heads before being obliterated by the room temperature.
“The hotel wants us to stay off there!” Irene shouted.
“Then they should have locked it!”
“You realize it’s snowing. Like, a lot,” George said, even as he followed Jacob out. The dark tops of the neighboring skyscrapers waved like great trees in the wind, and it took him a moment to realize it was he who was leaning, not them.
William took his jacket off and offered it to Irene as they stepped outside. She took it gratefully and held his arm to keep from toppling over on her heels.
“A gentleman!” Sara cried, sticking her tongue out at George. He had gotten his jacket halfway off before remembering what was in the pocket. Then he got stuck getting it back on.
“I’m a mess!” he laughed.
“Uh-oh.” Sara was always a bit delighted when he’d had too much to drink, as if he were a child who had eaten too much cotton candy at the county fair.
“There. Is. A. Hot. Tub.” Jacob said, staring over onto the far corner of the balcony, like he’d just spotted the shroud of Turin. “There is a hot. Tub.”
“It’ll be freezing!” Sara shouted.
Jacob skidded and slid as he raced over to the enormous plastic tub, which was covered by a thick pad. He pressed his hands against the covering, and his eyes rolled back into his head.
“It’s warm!” he cried. “It’s warm!”
“Not like anyone packed a swimsuit!” George shouted.
“As if you all haven’t seen me naked a dozen times before,” Jacob shouted as he tore off his sweater and began in on his buttons.
“William hasn’t! Jacob Blaumann, you put your clothes back on this instant!” Irene cried.
But it was too late — George was already helping him push the cover off. The two of them were no better than fraternity pledges when things like this came up.
Irene was worried that Juliette and Abeba might decide to return after all, or that some guest might come back looking for a forgotten purse or phone — but she was so tired of worrying. Worrying about her job and her doctor’s appointment. She began to undo the tie on her dress. The cold air felt wonderful against her sore muscles, and her feet ached to be free from her shoes.
“Irene!” Sara was screeching.
“Come on, Mom,” Irene said, handing William his coat back again.
“William! Sorry about this — we’re not usually quite this reckless.”
His face was red hot despite the subzero air. “I think I’ll go.”
“Seeya!” Jacob shouted, as everyone caught a glimpse of his ass lowering into the water.
“William, don’t!” Sara screeched. “I’ll be so embarrassed if you leave.”
Would she really? If they met twenty years from now, would she remember? That time in the hot tub at the Waldorf when we all got drunk and you left? William bet that she would, and that he would, and he was so tired of remembering all the times he had left before things became insensible. Plus, Irene had gotten her dress off at last. He wanted to look but didn’t dare. Instead he looked up at the red blinking lights on top of the building. Years ago his father had told him they were there to keep planes from hitting them.
Half dressed, George rushed back inside to stow the jacket safely on the couch.
“Now this is living,” he heard Jacob shouting.
“Get bathrobes!” Sara yelled. “Or towels or something.”
George dug two terrycloth robes out of a closet and grabbed a pair of towels from the bathroom. When he came back out onto the balcony, he found that his three friends — and William — had all gotten into the bubbling tub. The girls’ underwear had gone see-through, but they kept their shoulders level with the water. William kept his eyes fixed on the stratosphere.
“Come on in, you big baby! We’re not going to look,” Jacob bellowed.
George undid his shirt while the girls hooted and hollered, and by the time his pants were off, Jacob was doing old-timey stripper music. “Da da da DA… Da da da DA…”
“No small bills!” George joked. “Fives and tens only, or I’m going right back inside.” He thumbed the elastic of his Superman-blue boxer briefs, just enough to make Sara and Irene shriek, and then he climbed into the hot tub and dunked his head under at the sound of the popping champagne cork.
After coming back up and taking a long sip from the bottle, George turned to William. “After tonight we’re either going to be best friends or you’ll never talk to us again.”
“My night with The Murphys,” William joked.
“Oh my god! Do you remember? People used to call us that!” Sara cried.
Eventually George began to talk to him about people they’d known in common at school and then people who’d been at Yale. It was like they’d always been friends.
Yale. Despite appearances, Jacob was, slowly, beginning to stew. He expected that William imagined they did this sort of thing every weekend, but this was actually a first for the four of them. And he’d expected to feel triumphant — this, after all, was exactly the type of thing he was always trying to get them all to do. He was their ever-present diversion. Player of panpipes; God of wine; their much-needed anarchic spirit. He was the one who, back in the early years, had always insisted they should do shrooms and consummate the obvious tensions between them in some sort of orgy. They’d laughed, but he’d been perfectly serious. He’d wanted George, and George had wanted Irene, and Irene had been in love with Sara and George too, probably, so why not? Everybody had been in love with everybody — except him.