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“Mr. Arias and I recently crossed paths. Before tonight, I mean.” She smiles. Perfect lips. Perfect teeth. Her tongue flickering at the edges of her mouth. I want to take her face into my hands, crush her lips, and remind myself what she tastes like.
“He said that I was the last woman alive he’d want to date. Last woman alive, can you believe that?”
“I didn’t. What I said was that I wasn’t free to choose. These are not the same thing.”
“You’re always free to choose!” Lolly’s voice snaps like a live wire.
“No!” Esther shakes her head vigorously, linking my hand to Lolly’s. “You have him mixed up with some other admirer. I was there! I saw him, tongue hanging out of his mouth, eyes roaming all your rather wonderful assets as you performed in his lap.”
I wait. Lolly waits. Esther shrugs and turns to survey the crowd. “Ah! Bellatrix!” She rolls her eyes and nudges me with her elbow. “This new gal’s perhaps a little too flighty for me, but we’ve had a damned good time fluttering around each other.” She pulls away, aiming herself at her date. “Have fun.”
The crowd swallows her, leaving me and Lolly hand in hand, me grateful, her furious.
“I made a mistake and I want to apologize.”
Her laugh is little more than a whisper. “You keep apologizing and then fucking right back up again.”
The lights dim and the band strikes up a slow number, singletons falling to the wayside as couples populate the dance floor.
“May I?” I release her hand and wait. If we’re to have this conversation, it can’t be against her will.
“May I what?”
“May I have this dance?”
“I thought you didn’t want to dance with me.” She slides her arm along mine, her eyes never leaving my face. “Or do you only want to dance with me until your special lady friend cuts in?”
“That was before—”
I take her other hand, letting her decide the distance between us. I deserve whatever she has to say to me. I said terrible things to her when I thought I had to push her away. Before I was free to be honest. Before I understood my feelings.
She stays at an arm’s length, swaying to the beat, but not moving her feet. “You gnaw at me, pretty boy.” She leans back laughing and I wrap my arm around her to stop her from falling. “And it shouldn’t be allowed.”
She steps closer and I take a step to my left, steering us away from an incoming couple who are more interested in their kiss than the dance.
“I want you not to be in my head, but I’m broken, see? Like your other broken friend.” She flings an arm toward the entrance to the tent, to where I led the panicking soldier. Did she see that?
“You’re perfect, Lolly. I can’t believe I—”
“You’re funny.” Her ire has mellowed to something far softer, but possibly worse. Outside the bathrooms she raged. When Esther joined us together, she fumed. But since she slid her arm up mine, she’s dissolved into a melancholy that sometimes comes with drink. “There’s nothing perfect about this.” Her head falls forward, landing on my shoulder. “This is the same toxic shit I’ve been doing for years. Push and pull, back and forth, gobble you up, spit you out.”
I keep her upright, though now’s not the time to say my piece.
“If she’d only said it wasn’t my fault, it might all have been different.” She’s whispering, the strain in her voice evidenced by the new register. It’s not a whole octave she’s skipped, but close. “It was her job to protect me.” She skips a couple of words, then wipes her face over the back of her hand. “But he was powerful. A teacher. And we were just girls.”
I don’t know exactly what she’s talking about, but I know enough. These tales—all too ubiquitous, but no less repugnant for that—would break anyone’s heart in two, but to hear Lolly weep quietly as she talks of the ‘she’ who didn’t protect her makes me want to shred the world and remake it in a different image.
“Which is how I know.” She lifts her face, now orange with the dye from the back of her hand, and blinks, slow as a cat and bereft as the dormouse that lost its cheese. “I’m supposed to shut up and sit down and stick to the shadows like a good little girl.”
I have no idea what to say. The thought of her being a wallflower is impossible.
Her breasts flash and she releases her hold on me. “Gotta take this.” She fishes down her top and produces a phone. “Lish! Hey, you’ll never guess what. The assmunch asked me to dance.”
I believe I am the assmunch in question.
“Yep, loads.” She holds her phone away from her ear for a second. “Alicia wants to know if I’ve drunk any water.”
I don’t know who Alicia is, but I’m glad someone is looking out for Lolly.
