Lies That Bind Us(47)

“And I turn around, and there’s Mel, looking just like she always did! Older, of course. This was only two years ago, after all. But still. Same old Mel. And she was by herself and looking kind of blue, so I went over to say hi. I don’t know that she remembered me right away, and she had already had a few little drinkies and wasn’t in the best mood, and I was worried about her getting home OK, so I stayed with her and we just talked and talked. And drank. And drank. And after that night, we’ve been inseparable.”

“Well,” said Brad in the vague, smiling lull that followed this. “That was gripping. Wouldn’t you say, Jan? I was right there with her. I could see the barstool, the sawdust on the floor, the smell of spilled beer, and the burly red-headed barkeep called, I’m almost certain, Pat.”

Kristen thumped him hard on the shoulder and said, “Be nice,” but Gretchen seemed oblivious.

“Why was Melissa so sad?” I asked, still trying to be the good person, a better person than I really was—which is to say that I was, in my usual way, lying.

“Well,” said Gretchen, leaning in conspiratorially, “she’d had a bit of a fight with Si and had come to get away, have a few laughs and a few drinks . . .”

“Go home with a strange man,” said Brad.

The look Kristen gave him this time had no humor in it at all, but again Gretchen rode the wave right through.

“Between you and me,” she said, “if I hadn’t been there . . .”

She made a face to suggest what she wasn’t prepared to say, eyebrows raised, eyes almost shut, held tilting to the left.

“Good thing you were, then,” said Marcus.

“Must have been quite a fight she’d had with Si,” said Brad, putting inverted commas around the nickname.

Again, the look from Gretchen, secretive, loving being in the middle and able to perform her closeness to our dazzling hostess, but as she opened her mouth to reply, something flashed through her face. She actually brought one hand up to stop her mouth and she flushed pink, her eyes going round with something like shock, or panic. When she did finally speak, it was in a lower, uncertain tone, and she looked down primly.

“Oh, you know. Just couples stuff. Ordinary. I mean, everyone fights from time to time, right?”

A lie, and a big one. It was written all over her face. She’d blundered into it, like she was reversing a car and slammed into a telephone pole she didn’t know was there till the second she hit it. Then she’d hit the accelerator and set the tires spinning, screeching, burning in her haste to get away.

Clumsy.

The look in her eyes was panic and a sudden desperate need to be gone, and I mentally adjusted my metaphor. It wasn’t like she’d backed into a telephone pole. It was like she’d run over a body.

“Sure,” said Brad. “We all have our little squabbles, don’t we, dear?”

“They don’t usually lead us to go out looking for a new bloke,” said Kristen. “But yeah.”

“Well, no,” said Gretchen. “Obviously. I didn’t mean that . . . and from time to time, everyone . . . I mean, I’ll bet you . . .”

“You’ll bet I what?” said Brad, no trace of friendliness now.

“Nothing,” said Gretchen, who now looked like she wished she had gone to bed. On cue, she checked her watch, her hand visibly shaking. “Is that the time? Boy. I need to hit the hay.”

The room was suddenly loaded with a tension so electric, you could almost hear it humming like cables stretched between pylons, like the heaviness of the air before a storm. For my part, it was just awkwardness, embarrassment, and maybe Marcus felt the same way, though it was hard to be sure at this distance. From the others I felt a swelling anger and hostility that I couldn’t completely explain. Brad got to his feet, teeth gritted and eying Gretchen as if he were going to start yelling questions or accusations; Kristen got up quickly, taking his hand and gripping it even as he tried to shrug away.

“Us too,” she said. “You want to use the bathroom first?”

Gretchen blinked, catching up.

“No,” she said. “You guys go ahead. I think I’m just going to crash.”

Gretchen fled, and after a deliberately staged bit of business with glass washing and tidying to make sure she was safely out of the way in her room, Brad and Kristen went up after her in steely silence.

“What the fuck was that all about?” said Marcus in a whisper.

We both got the giggles, then sat back with our drinks, shaking out heads.

“There are some weird-ass tensions in this group,” I said. “Was it always like this?”

Marcus shook his head.

“Gretchen wasn’t here last time, of course,” he said. “But no, I don’t think so. It’s different now.”

I was suddenly self-conscious. It was different for us, at least, because we were different.

“Just older, I guess,” I said. I had wanted to be alone with him like this, and not simply because I had meant to ask him about the cave, but I was suddenly weary beyond words, and I didn’t think I was alert enough to get into anything even vaguely difficult with Marcus. Not now. I had caught some of the strange tension off Brad and Gretchen’s exchange like it was contagious, and now I just wanted to go to bed and wake up in the light and warmth of the Cretan sun . . .