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Esther felt her face redden. “Oh, we’re not—we’re just friends. Actually, we’re neighbors.”
Tessa smiled. “Right.”
“How about you two?” Esther asked, shifting the subject off her and Jonathan.
Lacey laughed. “That’s a complicated question.”
“Sorry.” Great. Here five minutes and she’d already put her foot in it.
“It’s fine,” Tessa said, laying her hand on Esther’s arm. “We started seeing each other before Lacey came out, is all. So officially, it’s only been a few months, but really more like a year.”
“Wow,” Esther said. “A year, that’s a long time.”
Jonathan had gotten sucked into a conversation with someone in the kitchen. Esther could see him in there, holding two drinks and chatting happily away.
“Hey, Devika!” Lacey called out. “Come meet Johnny’s friend Esther. She’s a rocket scientist.”
“No shit?” said a tall black woman with copper braids.
“Devika? This is your place, right?” Esther said, proud of herself for remembering.
“Yeah, me and Kelsey. Did you meet Kelsey yet?”
Esther nodded. “She let us in.”
“Devika’s a pediatric nurse,” Tessa said.
“That’s really cool,” Esther said, and Devika shrugged.
She could already feel the conversation petering out. Lacey’s attention was on something across the room, and the other two wore the sort of bland smiles you offered to someone you’d rather not be talking to. Any second now, they’d wander off and she’d be left by herself.
Jonathan had made it halfway back from the kitchen, but he was talking to someone else now. He seemed to know everyone here. Unlike Esther, who knew no one.
Lacey excused herself to go greet some other party guests, but Devika and Tessa stayed with Esther. Devika mentioned that Kelsey was an actor. She’d played a dead body on a network procedural, which was pretty cool. Chris O’Donnell had knelt over her and talked about blood spatter. Then she and Tessa started talking about someone else at the party. Someone Esther didn’t know. But at least they hadn’t abandoned her. After a minute, Tessa smiled at her as if she’d noticed she was feeling left out, and complimented her scarf.
Esther had made it herself. They seemed excited to discover she could knit. Tessa said she’d always wanted to learn. Devika said her mother had tried to teach her, but she didn’t have the patience for it—or maybe it was her mother she hadn’t had the patience for. They all laughed.
The conversation stayed on knitting until Jonathan finally made his way back and slipped a beer bottle into Esther’s hand. After that, things were a little easier.
They talked about movies for a while, and it turned out Tessa and Devika shared a lot of Esther’s opinions. Jonathan tried to make a case for some turgid Australian art film being the best thing he’d seen this year, but the three women united against him in favor of the latest Marvel movie.
“Oh, hey, there’s Melody,” Tessa said after a while, tugging Devika away. “Let’s go say hi.”
“Shit.” Jonathan muttered, sidling around so his back was to the door. “I didn’t know she’d be here.” He took a swig of beer.
“Who?” Esther craned her neck for a better look at the person who’d just come in.
“Melody. Lacey set me up on a blind date with her a few months ago.”
Oooh, interesting. She was cute. With the glasses and the long hair, she looked a little like Supergirl’s alter ego Kara Danvers.
“I’m guessing it didn’t work out,” Esther said, based on the way he seemed to be trying to fade into the ficus.
“Not so much, no.”
“Who’s she with? Is that her boyfriend?” Melody’s date looked vaguely familiar, but Esther couldn’t place him. Maybe he was an actor? He was good-looking enough to be on TV.
“I don’t know.” Jonathan didn’t turn around to look.
