New Year's Eve (12 page)

If he asked her to dance, would she say yes?

After all, George and Gwynnie were together. It was logical that now Beth Rose and Gary should be together. If only she could believe he wasn't asking because he was afraid of falling apart, too! But he was waiting for Gwynnie to return. Asking Beth to dance had not entered his mind. He discussed dinosaurs. Anne was not the only one who cherished an early dinosaur passion.

I quiver for a lost love of Gary, Beth Rose thought, and he quivers for a lost shoebox with a dinosaur diorama.

Gwynnie quit mid-dance anyhow and returned, George in hand. George had hung his sunglasses down over his bowtie so Beth could see his eyes again. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. At least she hadn't lost George to Gwynnie, too!

“Forget dancing,” Gwynnie said, “I can't dance until I've visited a mirror.”

Beth Rose had heard a lot of dumb ways to refer to bathrooms, but never this one.

“Because,” Gwynnie explained, “my hair is hot. I'm going to take it off.”

“What a great sentence,” George said. “Does she talk like this all the time, Gary?” he wanted to know.

“This is pretty mild,” Gary said.

“What are you going to do with your hair after you take it off?” George asked.

“Beth is going to wear it,” Gwynnie said, grinning wickedly. She stood up on the couch, plunged off ~as if deep sea diving, caught herself and her wig, and very delicately tucked her bare toes into her scarlet high heels. Then she gave Beth the end of her black boa to hold. “Don't let go of the rope,” she warned, “you might get lost in the crowds. I am going to take a difficult route.”

“Wait,” Beth said, jerking back on her end of the boa. She untied her dinosaurs. “Your turn, George.”

“Oh, good,” George said happily, and he tied them through one of his buttonholes, except for the three that Gary passed on to dancers whose outstretched hands were grabbing the free strings.

Hey, nice, Beth Rose thought. Pretty soon I'll be down to one quiet manageable pterodactyl.

Gwynnie's progress toward a mirror was slow.

She was twirling the end of the boa that Beth was not holding, and because the kids were packed in so tight, there was very little twirling room. Beth Rose didn't mind. It gave her a chance to stare around the room. I love staring, Beth thought Everybody else is so interesting.

Anne and Lee were dancing together.

Beth remembered when Anne was going with Con, how Beth admired them from afar. Anne and Con danced like one person: melting into each other. It made you feel all soft and yearning to see them. Well, they had melted a little more than they should have, and paid quite a price for it.

Anne and Lee, however, danced like people who didn't know each other and didn't care to. There was considerable space between their bodies, whether they danced slow or fast, and Lee's eyes stared out past Anne's hair into space.

No.

Not into space.

He was staring at Kip.

What we should do is get us all together, sit down, place our bids, and then see who's with who, Beth thought. I wonder who I would bid for. Would it still be Gary?

“What are you thinking about?” Gwynnie said. “You look so frowny.”

“New Year's Eve. New beginnings. Fresh starts. Do you suppose there are ever any moldy old starts? Or are all starts fresh?”

“Let's hear it for moldy old starts!” Gwynnie said. She shoved on a bathroom door.

“Gwynnie! That's the men's room!”

“They have mirrors in there.”

“Mmm,” Beth Rose said. “Fortunately I am holding the rope, and your rope and I are going into the girls' room.” She wound the black boa around her wrist a few times, flicked it like a cowboy's lasso, and took the lead.

“You still in love with Gary?” Gwynnie asked.

You could strangle a person with the black boa, too.

“Or is it dull dry history?” Gwynnie said.

Beth had to laugh. “It's history,” she said, “but it isn't dry. My bed has mildew from my tears.” They passed the elevators. “Ooooh, look,” she whispered.

Gwynnie looked quickly. “What?” she whispered back.

“It's Con.”

Gwynnie was disappointed. “Con is so goopy,” she complained. “Who cares if he's here or not?”

“Goopy?” Beth Rose whispered. How handsome Con looked tonight! Very tan, his formal dark suit somehow as casual as California.

“Personality free,” Gwynnie defined. She sniffed and ignored Con.

“No,” Beth Rose said, defending him quickly. “It's just that both he and Anne are so good-looking you have a hard time finding their personalities. Con's got plenty, though. He just doesn't use it very often.”

“
Doesn't use his personality very often?
” Gwynnie repeated. “Beth, I have been scouring the countryside for a good friend. I believe she's going to be you.”

Beth stared at her. “Me?”

“You. Now point out Jade to me. Famous Jade. I don't even see a girl with Con. She must
really
not use
her
personality. She's invisible.”

Beth Rose and Gwynnie examined every female in the elevator lobby. “You're right,” Beth said. “The case of the invisible girlfriend. Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.”

“There's no mystery,” Gwynnie said, opening the girls' room door after all. “Jade didn't want to hang out with a goop like that. Especially not on New Year's Eve.”

Molly left in the midst of a fast dance. Christopher didn't see her go and she didn't tell him. She pressed the first floor button in the elevator and could not believe how long it took that poky dumb elevator to find the bottom. She barged through a bunch of people trying to get on and screamed at them for being in the way. She was gone before they could retort.

Out the front door, past the doorman, into the cold wind. She darted over the slush and jumped over a wall of snow that the road crews had dumped on the sidewalks. It was already turning black with city filth. She ran inside the garage.

In the black awful cold of the immense garage she realized she didn't know where Christopher had parked. There were hundreds of cars here. What was she going to do? Walk up and down in her sleeveless gown until she located a dented Subaru?

She was trembling more with rage than with cold. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them! she thought. Ignoring me!

Christopher had said he was parking on the lower level where the temperature was more even. She found the stairs and went down. The stairs were evil. Spray painted obscenities and discarded styrofoam coffee cups, cigarette butts and the sole of a shoe. One light had gone out and another light made a high vicious buzz, like a wasp.

She didn't notice.

She flew into the lower level. Ceiling lights dimly penetrated the parking garage. Silent abandoned cars sat on stained concrete. Molly ran down yellow aisle four, and up blue aisle five. BMWs, Volvos, Saabs, Cadillacs, Mercedes, and Corvettes. She hated Christopher for bringing her in a dented Subaru.

The Subaru was on the end of blue aisle nine.

She wrenched the passenger door—and it was locked.

Molly kicked it.

What a jerk Christopher was! He'd locked her out of the car! She hated him too. She hated them all. She kicked the car again, and now her foot hurt, and somehow that made it possible to breathe again, and took away the razor-sharp edge of her rage.

There was a slight sound behind her.

A rasping gravelly sound, like heavy feet sneaking up.

She didn't even turn to look. She just ran.

But not fast enough.

A large hand closed over her wrist.

Kip and Mike were with Anne and Lee when Gwynnie charged off to find her mirror. “Gwynnie is the one who should be named Jade,” Kip said. “‘Gwynnie' just isn't exciting enough for her. She'd be a perfect Jade.”

“Perfect?” Mike said, raising his eyebrows. “Gwynnie? That girl is a lot of things, Kip, but perfect isn't one.”

“Gwynnie is absolutely perfect, Mike,” Kip said. “Perfectly weird and unself-conscious.”

It was clear that Mike and Kip planned to argue the night away. Anne was stuck not only at the entrance, through which Con and Jade would come, but also next to a fighting couple. But Lee had led her there, and it did not cross her mind to move of her own accord. Besides, it was clear to the biggest fool in the world that Lee liked standing there watching and listening to Kip.

He's still in love with her, Anne thought.

She would have volunteered a trade, but that would leave her with Mike. Anne would trade only if she got to trade up.

“Gwynnie's perfectly exotic,” Lee said.

“Perfectly creepy,” Mike snorted.

“Oh, I don't think she's creepy,” Kip exclaimed. “In fact, I like her. She definitely adds to the occasion.”

“Some occasion,” Mike said, glancing around irritably. His eyes didn't actually land on anything; he just itched with annoyance.

We're fleas, Anne thought. He'd like to scratch and be rid of us.

A person could stare only so long. After that, you got used to anything. Even Gwynnie. Hundreds of kids had danced until the first surge of energy was gone. They had tried out all the available food and drink … said hello to anybody they recognized … admired or scorned everyone else's dress.

Now they were ready for the next installment of the evening.

Jade.

Con had told them so much about Jade. How much he adored her. How much she adored him. How lovely and brilliant and clever and amusing she was.

But nobody had met Jade.

Lee danced from boredom. Anne, whose hand hardly even touched his jacket, suddenly gripped his shoulder. Her fingers tightened. Her fist scrunched the material. Her slender form grew taut, as if preparing to dive, and she stood taller, as if she needed another inch to exist.

Con's here, Lee thought. He kept dancing exactly as he was, to give her plenty of time to check him out.

I love Kip, he thought, enough to drown in—and she picked a jackass like Mike Robinson.

Now I'm going out with Anne, and she's in love with a lightweight who has already given her major proof what a jerk he is.

They don't love me, he thought. So maybe I'm the jerk.

Con's best friends—Gary, Mike, Jared—went up to him. They hadn't met Jade either. They drifted, waiting for Jade to show, eyes constantly flicking to the entrance.

Jade didn't show.

“She's sick,” Con said, shrugging slightly. “In the hospital.”

Molly wasn't the only one who thought that was fishy.

If she was so sick she was hospitalized, how come Con wasn't with her when they were supposed to be so close and so caring?

And if he was making it up, why bother? Why not just say, “Jade and I split the other day,” or something?

“Oh,” Gary said, nodding.

“Oh,” Mike said, eyebrows up.

“Oh?” Jared said, asking for details. “Car accident? Mono?”

Con shrugged again. “They don't know yet,” he said. “So how's the dance?”

The boys let him get away with it. They didn't care if he told them what happened to Jade. Wasn't their business anyway. “Dance is good,” said Gary. “Band's nice. Revolving floor would be better if we had something to see out there, but the snow hasn't let up.”

“It would be better by day,” George said. “Then you'd have a sense of scenery out there, some
reason
for the room to be moving. This way, all it is is something to get dizzy by.”

Kip put her hands on her hips.

Mike was next to her, cringing.

Lee grinned. He loved Kip in her attack mode. “You don't know if it's mono or a car accident?” Kip said. “Most people can at least spot the difference between mono or a car accident.”

Lee steered Anne over closer. Double whammy. Anne got to see her beloved Con making a jerk out of himself, and Lee got to watch Kip doing it.

“Well, are they giving her tests or something?” Kip demanded. “Is it a fever? What's happening? How come you're not there?” Kip always liked to know who was responsible for stuff.

Con lifted his tanned chin and gazed off into space, pretending Kip wasn't interrogating him. He adjusted his cummerbund a little.

Kip walked just around him until she was in front of his face again.

By now Lee was laughing and Mike was purple with anger. Con put on his smoothest smile. “Kip, you look great. Red's a good color on you.”

Her dress was peach, not red. Everybody waited for Kip to define the color red for Con, but instead Kip said, “Thanks, Con. Appreciate the vote of confidence. I was counting on meeting Jade tonight.”

She's like a tank sergeant, thought Lee. She just keeps on rolling.

I can't stand this! thought Mike. It's none of Kip's business. Why can't she leave him alone!

Anne was close enough now that any moment she and Con would have to admit they knew each other and say hello. What shall I say? she thought. Plain old hello? How are you? So you don't care if Jade lives or dies? Funny, I don't either.

Anne bit down on her lip to keep from laughing hysterically.

“Say, Kip, want to dance?” Con said.

Now that was a maneuver nobody had expected. Con had never exactly appreciated the fine points of Kip's personality. She was momentarily thrown. In fact, everybody watching was momentarily thrown. Kip, of course, recovered first. “Thank you, Con. Of course I would. What a way to begin the New Year, huh?”

“The right way,” Con agreed. They twinkled their fingers good-bye to Mike, who just stood there. Con danced Kip backward as fast and as far as he could. It rather reminded Anne of crabs scuttling on sand. Her pent-up anxiety went to her head. Her knees turned to jelly and her heart was pounding way too fast. “Lee,” she breathed.

“Don't faint on me,” Lee said. “Don't even think about fainting on me, Anne. I'm not into weak females. Be strong or die.”