Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [78]
He picked up his abandoned cup of beer and chugged the rest of it. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t smoked any pot today. “Okay,” he agreed and then sneezed. “Let’s do it.”
“I told you people would come.” Tragedy handed Adam a cup of beer.
“Yeah.” Adam took a sip. “There are definitely a lot of people here.”
“Obviously not the right people though,” Tragedy observed. She swiped her Rubik’s cube off the porch steps and scrambled it up, shivering in her thin white sundress. “Brr.” She went into the house and came back wearing Ellen’s hairy raccoon fur coat. It looked great with her black rubber boots.
“If you want to, like, go forth and seek your fortune, I’ve got it covered,” she offered. “You could just drive by the dorms or whatever. See if she’s around.”
“Maybe,” Adam said. He looked up at his sister, his eyes bright and hopeful. “Are you sure?”
Tragedy worked her Rubik’s cube. “Please. Just stop moping and get the fuck out of here. And don’t come back until you find her.”
The rocking chair teetered as Adam stood up. “You’ll have to bring in the sheep.” He zipped up his jacket and fumbled in his pocket for his car keys. “And don’t forget the kittens. If it gets much colder, they need to go in the house.”
“I’m not a moron,” Tragedy said.
“Okay. I’m going.” Adam smiled goofily at his sister. “Have fun.”
She rolled her eyes and gave him the finger. “Yeah, you too.”
The air was heavy and cold, the sky a low dark gray mixed with orange. The red taillights of Adam’s VW disappeared down the road. Tragedy tossed her Rubik’s cube onto the rocking chair and headed back to the barn.
It was a good party. The music was loud and everyone was already too drunk to notice how cold it had gotten. The clank of horseshoes resounded in the cool, hay-dusted air.
“Hey, beautiful.” A guy with ridiculously large mutton-chops greeted her. He shoved a frothy cup of beer into her hand. “I’m Sea Bass,” he said with a cocky smile. “And this is Damascus.”
A stocky guy with a shock of dark, curly hair leered in her direction. “Wanna try a funnel?”
Nick followed Eliza up a rickety ladder to the hayloft. The boards were loose and bouncy, and they could see their fellow party-goers through the cracks. Four bare bulbs dangled from the barn’s post and beam ceiling. Silvery dust motes rose up into the air, sparkling in the harsh yellow light. The impending snow was palpable now. People huddled around the water trough full of kegs as if it were a campfire, their shoulders draped in dusty woolen horse blankets someone had unearthed from the feed room.
“Wish we had a blanket,” Eliza said wistfully. The hay was soft underfoot, but scratchy against her skin. The few times she’d had sex, she’d done it on her pink and blue Cinderella sheets back home, the ultimate defilement. She unzipped her down coat and laid it out on top of a pile of hay.
Nick watched her with his hands in his pockets. “You’re not planning on getting completely naked, are you?”
“Pretty naked,” Eliza said, laughing. She unbuttoned her cardigan. The blunt ends of her dark hair brushed the pale skin of her collarbone.
“You’re actually really beautiful,” he said.
“Actually?” She folded the sweater and placed it on top of a hay bale. Then she yanked off her top. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?” She stepped out of her cutoffs. In her red bra and holey black tights she looked like a circus performer.
Nick sneezed. Then he sneezed again and again. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Sorry. I guess my allergies aren’t very sexy.”
“Actually, they are.”
His eyes were bloodshot and tearing and his nostrils were inflamed. There was a small pink scar between his eyebrows where he’d hurt himself at orientation, the day they’d first met. Eliza reached out and