Free A Place I've Never Been by David Leavitt

pieces. Their arms intertwined, she and Charlie fed each other.
    Then they danced. A high-hipped young woman in sequins got up on the bandstand and sang, “Graduation’s almost here, my love, teach me tonight.”
    After the bride and groom had been given their five minutes of single glory on the dance floor, and the parents and grandparents had joined them, I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Care to tango
avec moi
, my dear?” Walter said.
    â€œWalter,” I said, “I’d be delighted.”
    We got up from the table and moved out onto the floor. I was extremely nervous, sweating through my dress. I hadn’t actually spoken to Diana yet, doubted she’d even seen me. Now, not three feet away, she stood, dancing and laughing, Mrs. Mark Charles Cadwallader.
    I kept my eyes on Walter’s lapel. The song ended. The couples broke up. And then, there she was, approaching me, all smiles, all bright eyes. “Ellen,” she said, embracing me, and her mother shot us a wrathful glance. “Ellen. Let me look at you.”
    She looked at me. I looked at her. Close up, she looked slightly unraveled, her make-up smeared, her eyes red and a little tense. “Come with me to the ladies’ room,” she said. “My contacts are killing me.”
    She took my hand and swept me out of the ballroom into the main hotel lobby. Everyone in the lobby stared at us frankly, presuming, I suppose, that she was a runawaybride, and I her maid. But we were only running away to the ladies’ room.
    â€œThese contacts!” she said once we got there, and opening one eye wide peeled off a small sheath of plastic. “I’m glad you came,” she said, placing the lens on the end of her tongue and licking it. “I was worried that you wouldn’t. I’ve felt so bad about you, Ellen, worried about you so much, since—well, since things ended between us. I was hoping this wedding could be a reconciliation for us. That now we could start again. As friends.”
    She turned away from the lamplit mirror and flashed me a big smile. I just looked up at her.
    â€œYes,” I said. “I’d like that.”
    Diana removed the other lens and licked it. It seemed to me a highly unorthodox method of cleaning. Then, nervously, she replaced the lens and looked at herself in the mirror. She had let down her guard. Her face looked haggard, and red blush was streaming off her cheeks.
    â€œI didn’t invite Leonore for a reason,” she said. “I knew she’d do something to embarrass me, come all dyked out or something. I’m not trying to deny my past, you know. Charlie knows everything. Have you met him?”
    â€œYes,” I said.
    â€œAnd isn’t he a wonderful guy?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI have nothing against Leonore. I just believe in subtlety these days. You, I knew I could count on you for some subtlety, some class. Leonore definitely lacks class.”
    It astonished me, all that wasn’t being said. I wanted to mention it all—her promise on the doorstep, the gun, the schizophrenic girl. But there was so much. Too much. Nowhereto begin.
    When she’d finished with her ablutions, we sat down in parallel toilets. “It is nearly impossible to pee in this damned dress,” she said to me through the divider. “I can’t wait to get out of it.”
    â€œI can imagine,” I said.
    Then there was a loud spilling noise, and Diana gave out a little sigh of relief. “I’ve got a terrible bladder infection,” she said. “Remember in college how it was such a big status symbol to have a bladder infection because it meant you were having sex? Girls used to come into the dining hall clutching big jars of cranberry juice and moaning, and the rest of us would look at them a little jealously.” She faltered. “Or some of us did,” she added. “I guess not you, huh, Ellen?”
    â€œNo, I was a