The Beautiful Between - Alyssa B. Sheinmel [31]
“Cole! Sternin!” Mike Cohen calls to us from across the room. “You made it.”
Jeremy nods, smiling.
“You want a beer?” he shouts. Jeremy and I hold up our drinks to show that we already have beer.
“Isn’t this Fisher’s party?” I whisper to Jeremy, feeling cool enough to refer to Brent by his last name.
“Mike Cohen likes to play the host at every party, no matter who’s throwing it.”
I nod. “I see.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Jeremy says, and I like the implication that this is the first of many of these kinds of parties.
Everyone comes to Jeremy, and since I’m sitting next to him, someone is almost always talking to me too. The beer makes me warm.
I see Brent across the room, leaning in close to kiss Marcy McDonald’s neck. Marcy surveys the room, clearly relishing her role as the lady of the house. I glance at Jeremy to see if he’s noticed her. I know I’m not his date or anything—it’s more that I’m worried he’ll be upset to see her. I have a feeling that whatever it is that broke them up has something to do with Kate. It’s the only thing I can imagine Jeremy getting that upset about.
Jeremy is looking right at her. He looks at me, quietly angry.
“Do you want another drink?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say, even though I know I’m getting drunk and I’m a little worried about how it’s going to end up.
“Okay.” He takes a breath and stands up, going in the opposite direction from where Brent and Marcy are standing. With any luck, they’ll have moved by the time he comes back.
They do move—toward me. Just like that, Marcy is sitting next to me. She perches on the couch, perky and straight-backed. I’m sunk in, my bare arms sweating against the leather. It’s like I’m Cinderella, the messy girl covered in soot, and she’s one of the prince’s other suitors; pristine and poised, light on her feet, bred to be the girl he chooses.
“So, Connelly, you and Jeremy, huh?”
I shouldn’t be surprised that she knows my name, even though we’ve never really been introduced—after all, I know hers—but I am. I try to sit up too, and immediately regret the attempt; I’m settled so deeply into the couch that I have to use the arm of the couch to pull myself up, like I’m such a mess I can’t even sit up on my own.
“What?” I say dumbly, so embarrassed by now that I’ve forgotten what she said.
“He’s a good guy. Just, you know, stay on his good side.”
Her breath hangs in the air between us, smelling of cigarettes and liquor. I guess mine smells like that too.
“Marcy, I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ll find out,” she says, and makes a big show of crossing her legs and nodding knowingly. I don’t want to participate in this conversation, and I think that if I just sit here quietly, she’ll go away. With Jeremy gone, no one else is coming over to talk to me.
Now he’s coming back. Oh shit. I want to sink into the couch. Actually, I’d prefer that Marcy sink into the couch, all the way in and through to the other side, and then Jeremy can sit right where she’s sitting now, hand me my beer, and everything will be fine.
“Hey, Marce,” Jeremy says politely.
She looks up at him. “Hiya, Jer.”
He hands me my beer and offers her the other.
“No thanks. You know I don’t like beer.”
“I forgot,” he says, but then he takes a swig from the bottle that she just refused, like he’d always planned to keep it for himself. He looks down at her, deliberately but not impolitely, waiting for her to get up and walk away.
She begins to stand. “Listen, Jer, I didn’t do anything wrong, okay? I never did anything wrong.” And then she walks away, presumably to bitch about us to someone else.
Jeremy sits down next to me. I know he’s still not going to tell me what happened between them, but he doesn’t have to now. Just knowing that she hurt him is enough to make me hate her too.
“You having fun?” Jeremy asks me.
“Well, the last three minutes notwithstanding—yeah, I’m having a great time.” I smile wide, and Jeremy grins back at me.
It’s after two when