Free Die a Little by Megan Abbott Page B

That's right. Twice."
    "Did you meet Lois Slattery?"
    "Who's that?"
    "A friend of Alice's."
    "What's she look like?"
    "Dark hair, short."
    "That doesn't really narrow it down. Alice seemed to know a lot of girls."
    "Very young-looking. And with slanty eyes, kind of crooked."
    Die a Little -- 52 --
    Mike grins suddenly, his hand curling around his face in sudden recollection.
    "Oh, yeah. One eye higher than the other. That B-girl." He squints one eye and looks up. "Lois? Are you sure? I thought her name was Lisa--or Linda. She came out with us one night. Slumming in ...
    Jesus, some bar in Rosecourt. Oh, yes. Lois, huh?"
    He looks at me suddenly. "You've met her?"
    "Yes."
    "I can't picture that, angel." He hands me his cigarette. "Well, what do you know?"
    I take a quick drag and hand it back. "What do you mean, 'B-girl'?"
    "Oh, what the hell do I know?" he says, shrugging hand somely. "I even had her name wrong."
    "Didn't you think it was strange that Alice would know a someone you'd call a B-girl?"
    He looks at me, eyes dancing, revealing nothing. Then, he opens his mouth, pauses, and says, plain as that, "No."
    Die a Little -- 53 --
    [?]*[?]
    Suddenly, it is commencement, and then begins a long, rich summer with no classes to teach and lately so much to occupy evenings. I see Mike Standish once or twice a week, but there are also the parties those in Bill and Alice's neighborhood circle hold, and especially Alice herself. These parties always include me, the married couples eager to invite a young single to play with, to engineer setups for, to pepper with questions, reminisce about being young and unattached, an entire life path still unwritten.
    As for me, suddenly the world is so much larger than it had been before.
    There are gin-drizzled evenings with a few neighbor couples, some of the other teachers and their spouses, a few of Bill's friends from work, along with their wives, everyone laughing and touching arms and elbows, and the bar cart creaking around the room and no kids yet, or the few there are, safely tucked away in gum-snapping babysitters' arms.
    Almost every week there is one, usually on Saturday evening. They are cocktail parties, rarely dinner parties, yet they can stretch long into the dinner hour, sometimes beyond. Once in a while, arguments flare up, typically between couples, at times between Bill's friends from the D.A.'s office.
    Sometimes there is intrigue spiraling out, whispered conversations by guests slipping into dens or rec rooms, the far corners of the darkened lawns, out by the hibiscus bushes beside the carport, on beds soft with piles of coats.
    At first, I go to these parties with Archie Temple, the geology teacher, or Fred Cantor, the salesman, or some setup, usually an awkward one, given the high energy and heavy drinking of these parties.
    But when I start seeing Mike Standish more frequently, he comes along, and then we go out afterward, to Rorrtanoff's or even Ciro's.
    At all of these parties, Mike thinks everyone there is a hopeless square, except for Alice. But he likes to watch, seated amused on the sofa, sipping his Scotch and making sly comments to me.
    Sometimes, a woman flirts with him and he strings her along, winking to me, flashing his gold cuff links, his sleek watch, his slick and slippery eyes. Later, he makes fun of her Mamie Eisenhower bangs or her twitchy eye or her flat accent or her off-the-rack decolletage. And I laugh and laugh no matter who it is or what kindnesses she's shown me. It doesn't matter. I laugh and laugh anyway and don't care.
    Die a Little -- 54 --
    Alice sometimes dances with the dashing school drama teacher.
    They do Latin numbers, Cuban routines. She pulls the edge of her satin skirt to her side, tosses her head back, grins darkly, hotly, and everyone watches in admiration as he twirls her, as they twist and lean and then swing back upright and taut.
    Bill claps most loudly of all. He watches her, transfixed, and shakes his head with a smile,