Friends Like These(32)

“Oh yeah?” I asked in a monotone. Finch was just making crap up, baiting me.

“And a little bird also told me your dad is a real piece of work.”

Unfortunately that was probably something Finch had actually heard. From Keith, I imagined, maybe Derrick.

“You should tell that little bird to mind their own fucking business.”

“Whoa!” Finch’s eyes went wide with delight. “Look at the mouth on you, debutante! Your daddy teach you to talk dirty like that?”

“Finch!” Derrick shouted, appearing from nowhere, beer in hand, tendons in his neck straining. “Don’t talk to Maeve like that!”

“Come on, we’re all friends here.”

“No, we’re not.” Derrick looked furious. “You’re not friends with any of us.”

“Derrick, you and I are absolutely friends,” Finch said icily. “I know you better than anybody, remember?”

“Oh, I remember.” Derrick leaned toward Finch in an alarmingly threatening fashion. “I’m just not sure I care anymore.”

“Hey, guys, stop.” I snapped my fingers between them, then grabbed up the shot glasses in my fingers and shoved them toward Finch. We did not need a bar fight. “Get some more shots, Finch. You’re right. It’s a party. We could all stand to loosen up a bit.”

Finch kept his eyes on Derrick for a long moment before finally taking the glasses from me. “Sure thing.”

Derrick dropped himself down into his chair once Finch was gone. “I’m sorry about him,” he said, then stayed quiet for a minute. “What do you think Alice would say about all this ridiculousness if she was still here?”

“If Alice was still here, none of this would be happening.”

This was probably true, strictly speaking. Not that Alice was exactly a steadying influence. Keith and Alice’s relationship had always been stormy, partly because Alice was intense about everything and everyone. She’d been that way from the second we’d met as freshman-year roommates. I’d already been unpacked when she arrived, huge duffel bag slung over her intimidatingly sinewy arm.

“I am so excited that we’re sharing a room!” she’d said, pulling me into one of her fierce, bony hugs. When she released me, she eyed my pricey pink shift dress and matching pink headband. I braced myself for some kind of dig. I’d saved ages for that outfit, only to immediately regret it the second I stepped on Vassar’s campus and saw that everyone was dressed in black. “Oh I love that dress. It’s so retro chic. We should put our clothes in one closet and share everything!”

I’d always felt both flattered and overwhelmed by Alice’s attention. That was her specialty— keeping you off balance. She was rarely intentionally manipulative, though. I’d had friends like that— dangling you on a string so they could be the smart one or the pretty one or the thin one. Wanting you around only so that they could be more compared to your less. But Alice wasn’t like that. She was a good person. She really was.

“You’re right,” Derrick said. “If Alice was here, I guess we’d all be different. I probably wouldn’t even be with Beth.” He stayed quiet then, waiting for me to inquire. But there was no way I was touching his marriage. “So, you and Bates . . .”

“Things are good,” I said. And they were good. “We’ll see.”

“And— just to confirm— Bates is his actual name?”

I laughed. Derrick’s delivery had been priceless— a little bit jealous, but not too much. “Well, he is a friend of Jonathan’s, so . . .”

“Ah, right.” Derrick nodded knowingly. “That does explain it. Well, I’m glad you’re with someone who makes you happy, that you’ve been able to move on. Much better than the rest of us have, anyway.”

“That sounds a little like a criticism.”

“No, no. That wasn’t what I meant.” Derrick shifted in his chair. “The rest of us are just so paralyzed by guilt or something— you’ve made healthier choices. That’s all I meant.”

Even if it was a swipe, Derrick was entitled maybe. He was allowed to have hurt feelings.

I sighed. “What’s the good of drowning in guilt, all these years later?” I asked. “I mean, life . . . it’s short.”

Derrick looked at me pointedly. “Right.”

“Obviously, it was a mistake what we did after— not calling the police.”

Derrick looked at me again, like he was going to say something else. Or like he was waiting for me to add something more. But then he shook his head and put a hand over mine. It was unexpectedly warm and comforting. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re definitely right.”

“Well, well!” Finch bellowed as he cracked a set of full shot glasses down on the table, spraying most of their contents into the air.

I jerked my hand back from under Derrick’s and wiped at my damp arm. “Was that necessary?”

“Sorry, I was just distracted by the fact that I leave for one second and come back, and here you two are holding hands,” he said. “You don’t waste any time.”

“We weren’t holding hands,” I said. Except we had been, hadn’t we?

Finch kicked back one of the shots, grimaced, then picked up another. “You tell yourself whatever you need to, debutante,” he said. “And I’ll keep on calling it like it is.”