Page 69

God, where is she?

I move past the dean and into another tent, this one smaller. The corners burn with incense, blue smoke curling over animal faces. Satin pillows are piled at the center of the floor. Couples spiral into one another, fingertips diving over shoulders as they kiss through their masks. The stinging smell of sweat twines with clove and myrrh, and I look away, blushing, trying to convince myself I wasn’t looking for Marcella among them.

She’s not there, though.

“There you are, Lacie. I was wondering when I’d see you.” A chimpanzee, its face drawn into a caricature of a smile baring all its sharpened teeth, strides toward me.

I swallow the urge to run, to leave this party. I need to find Marcella first. “Evan?” I hazard.

The chimpanzee opens their arms. “The one and only.” He tips up his mask, revealing a face rosy with drink, his lips purpled by wine.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Please, you’re the only person I can think of who’s kittenish.”

“Excuse me?”

He tilts his too-wide smile to the side. “Oh, I mean, you know. Like, innocent.”

Is that what they think of me here? That I’m soft and innocent and kittenish? Before I can hazard to ask, he says, “Hey, are you seeing Marcie?”

“You mean Marcella?” I blink at him. I mean— “Oh, I. Well, we just, we live next to each other, you know how it is.”

“Oh, okay, cool. Because frankly, I’d like to give her a shot.”

“Give her … a shot,” I repeat. God, so fucking gross.

“Yeah, you know, since Arjun isn’t in the picture anymore?”

I grit my teeth. “I mean, he’s dead, so. I guess you could ask her out?”

“Hell yeah, she has to be the hottest chick at Preston.”

Why does the idea make me want to scream? I fist my hands tight and force myself to even my breathing. She’s not mine, not in any way. But all I can think of is how close together we were, how brutally the impulse to press my lips to hers overtook me—and how cowardly I was to not even try. Perhaps I am what they think of me. “Did you see her recently?”

“It would be impossible to mistake that body,” he replies, tipping his mask up to look at me again. “God, this thing is fucking annoying.”

“I guess you could take it off, couldn’t you?”

“Nah, I’m here until the after-party.” He flashes a silver bracelet. “You’re not?”

Lip curling, I turn away from him. “Where’d you see her?”

He makes a wordless sound of affront. “Just missed her. Went back behind the house, I think. She looked like she was on a mission, which is just fine, honestly—she’s just as good going as coming.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” But I feel the weight of this misogyny like a tidal pull; here, he can do whatever he wants.

Evan barks a hard laugh. “I’m just trying to have fun, Lacie, fuck. I’ve been killing myself every goddamn day.” His eyes grow glassy and fevered behind his mask, even as he moves closer to me. Bass thrums through my insides, the whole scene growing claustrophobic and too much. “You ever lose the one thing you wanted? All for some little bitch add from the fucking Midwest?”

“If you’re talking about Lyle, go to hell. He’s a better scholar than you or I or any of us ever will be. And he just lost his girlfriend in the most horrific way I can imagine!”

It’s like he didn’t even hear me. “I was fucking summa cum laude at Duke. How much more did I have to do? What else could I have given them that I haven’t already?” His words pull like taffy, spit-filled and slopping. “Why did he get the tap and not me? Huh?”

“What ‘tap’? What are you even talking about?”

He doesn’t answer but moves in close, the frozen lips of his mask pressing up against mine. The smell of coconut rum leaks from his mouth. “Lyle gets whatever the hell he wants and what do I get? The dregs.”

“Get the hell away from me.” I wheel backward.