Never Have I Ever(7)

That scowl had not changed, and she gave it to me full force over her shoulder as I followed her in. Then she went stomping up the stairs to her room with no idea that the basement still held a gaggle of bombed book-clubbers.

I took a final bracing sip of G&T, then set the glass on the counter. I could feel gin buzzing in my hands, and this right here was about as tipsy as I got. Ever. I opened the door to the basement. I could hear them cackling. I shut the door fast behind me and started down, hurrying so as not to miss anything more.

Tate was saying, “Everybody does that. It’s just some people lie about it. It isn’t bad.”

Panda talked over her, saying, “No, no, I know, like, I’m not a prude or anything. It’s just that Francis, he barely ever wants to . . . you know. When it happens, it’s great and all, but he’s . . . he’s . . .”

“He’s a sex camel,” Roux finished for her as I got to the bottom of the stairs, and they all laughed.

They sat on the floor, four women inside a fairy ring of abandoned chairs, clustered around the coffee table. It was littered with sucked-dry lime wedges and paper plates crusted with the dregs of hummus and onion dip. Each woman held a rocks glass with a finger of my good gin in the bottom. Judging by the level in the bottle, they’d already done a shot, maybe two, while I’d been busy shooing Maddy inside.

“A what camel?” Lavonda said. “Is that a spirit ammimal?”

“No, no,” Tate said, superior and drunk-wise. “I get it. She means that Francis stores up his humps.”

They burst into noisy laughter again. Only Roux saw me. She was sitting like the north point of the compass, facing the stairs. Lavonda had her back to me, and Tate and Panda were the drunken witches of the east and west, in profile. Roux’s eyes lit as they met mine. We grinned at each other, neither of us half as drunk as they were.

“Then you took matters into your own hands. So to speak,” Lavonda said, giggling. “But that doesn’t count as bad.”

“Well, but you have to take into consideration that I didn’t take things into my own hands,” Panda said, sounding sly.

“Panda, you doglet! Do you actually own a . . .” Tate made a bzzzzz noise, as if this were subtler than saying “vibrator.” It wasn’t.

“I mos’ certainly do not,” said Panda, smug. “But they make those disposable toothbrushes now. You know the kind? With batteries?”

Roux snorted, laughing now, too. “Okay, but I still think Lavonda’s winning. That’s gross, not bad.”

“Except I brush my teeth with a regular old Oral-B,” Panda said, and then there was a pause. She made them wait for it, but I got there first and felt a bubble of shocked laughter rising. “Only Francis brushes with the battery-powered kind.”

Then they were all laughing like a pack of jackals, covering my own laughter. Poor Francis! I would never be able to look at his lovely white teeth in the same way again.

“Oh, my God,” Lavonda said, lifting her plastic cup. A good inch of clear liquid sloshed around in the bottom. “You got me. You have the lead.”

“Tate?” Roux said, lofting her own glass. “I don’t think you can beat that. Drink.”

“Hold on!” Tate said, sitting up very straight. Panda never beat Tate at anything. Tate leaned in. “I frenched a guy last week. Not my husband. Boom, bitches. Why don’t y’all drink to that.”

The hilarity drained instantly. Silence from Panda. Silence from Lavonda. I found myself stepping in closer.

“Who?” Panda said, and there was such outrage in her voice that even sloppy-drunk Tate seemed to hear it. “Who was it? Someone we know? Someone’s husband?”

Tate backpedaled. “God, no! No one you know.”

I did not believe this.

“Well, that wins,” Roux said, wry, and drained her cup.

Panda and Lavonda were still staring at Tate.

“You let him?” Panda said.

Tate said, “No, no, I pushed him right away. I guess I . . . felt sorry. He was saying how his wife was pregnant and she was being the sex camel. I felt bad for him, you know? He misread it, and he tried something. I shut it down. Of course. Not a big deal. Panda wins. Here, I’ll drink.” She guzzled at her cup.

I was reverberating with a second shock. Pregnant? Did she mean Charlotte’s husband? Surely not. The world was full of pregnant women. Just because Char was the only pregnant person in our neighborhood right now, it didn’t mean Tate had started something up with Phillip Baxter.

“Who was it, Tate?” I had to know. I couldn’t stand here, passive, eavesdropping. Tate turned her head to peer at me with owlish eyes. I don’t think she’d realized I was back until that moment. Her eyes widened, and her face flushed a deep, dark red. Panda and Lavonda were her inner circle, but I was Charlotte’s. Tate couldn’t look away from me, and I could see drunk wheels spinning in her head.

“Just a guy I met . . . um, at the car place. We were stuck in that waiting room, and we got talking,” she said, overloud, looking right at me, and she was lying.

“It’s just a game, y’all,” Roux said, getting up. “Panda won. Come join us for the next round, Amy.”

She walked toward me, slow and slinky, like a parody of a fifties housewife, carrying a glass with a shot of gin at the bottom.