This Lullaby(21)

“Nah. Just nab me some bread or something.”

“Okay, Gandhi,” Ringo said, and somebody snorted. “We’ll see you in there.”

The guitarist tossed down his cigarette, Ringo threw his water bottle toward the Dumpster—and missed—and then they went inside, the door slamming shut behind them.

I sat there, watching him, knowing for once he couldn’t see me first. He wasn’t smoking, instead just sitting there on the wall, drumming his fingers. I’d always been a sucker for dark-headed boys, and from a distance his suit didn’t look so tacky: he was almost cute. And tall. Tall was good.

I stood up and brushed my hands through my hair. Okay, so maybe he was really annoying. And I hated the way he’d bumped me against the wall. But I was here now, and it seemed only fitting that I take a few steps toward him, show myself, if only to throw him off a bit.

I was about to come around the Dumpster and into full sight when the door opened again and two girls—daughters of some cousin of Don’s—came out. They were younger than me, by a couple of years, and lived in Ohio.

“I told you he’d be out here!” one of them, the blond, said to the other. Then they both giggled. The taller one was hanging back, hand on the door, but her sister walked right up, plopping down beside Dexter. “We were looking for you.”

“Really,” Dexter said, and smiled politely. “Well, hello.”

“Hello yourself,” the blond said, and I made a face, in the dark. “You got a cigarette?”

Dexter patted his pockets. “Nope,” he said. “Don’t smoke.”

“No way!” the blond said, hitting him in the leg. “I thought all guys in bands smoked.” The taller girl, still by the door, glanced back behind her, her face nervous. “I smoke,” the blond said, “but my mother would kill me if she knew. Kill me.”

“Hmmm,” Dexter replied, as if this was actually interesting.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” the blond said abruptly.

“Meghan!” her sister hissed. “God!”

“I’m just asking,” Meghan said, sliding a little closer to Dexter. “It’s just a question.”

“Well,” Dexter said, “actually . . .”

And at that, I turned around and headed back the way I’d come, already pissed at myself. I’d come close to doing something really stupid—way lowering my standards, which judging by Jonathan were rock bottom already. This was the way the old me worked, living just for the next second, hour, wanting only to have a boy want me for a night, no more. I’d changed. I’d quit that, along with smoking—okay, with one lapse—and drinking—for the most part. But the sleeping around thing, that I’d held true to. Completely. And I’d been ready to throw it away, or at least bend it a bit, for a Frank Sinatra wanna-be who would have easily settled for Meghan from Ohio. God.

Back inside, the cake was out on the dance floor, with my mother and Don posing beside it, their hands intertwined over the cake knife as the photographer moved all around them, flash popping. I stood on the edge of the crowd, watching as Don fed my mother a piece, carefully easing it into her mouth. Another flash popped, capturing the moment. Ah, love.

The rest of the night went pretty much as I expected. My mother and Don left in a shower of birdseed and bubbles (with much of the hotel cleaning staff standing by looking hostile), Chloe ended up making out with Don’s nephew in the lobby, and Jess and I got stuck in the bathroom, holding Lissa’s head while she alternately puked up her fifteen-dollar-a-head dinner and moaned about Adam.

“Don’t you just love weddings?” Jess asked me, passing over another wad of wet paper towels, which I pressed against Lissa’s forehead as she stood up.

“I do,” Lissa wailed, missing the sarcasm. She patted the towels to her face. “I really, really, do.”

Jess rolled her eyes at me, but I just shook my head as I led Lissa out of the stall and to the sinks. She looked in the mirror at herself—smeared makeup, hair wild and curly, dress with a questionable brown stain on the sleeve—and sniffled. “This has to be the worst time of my life,” she moaned, blinking at herself.

“Now, now,” I told her, taking her hand, “you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

“No, you won’t,” Jess said, getting the door. “Tomorrow, you’ll have a wicked hangover and feel even worse.”

“Jess,” I said.

“But the next day,” she went on, patting Lissa’s shoulder, “the next day you’ll feel much better. You’ll see.”

So we were a bedraggled bunch as we made our way out into the lobby, with Lissa held up between us. It was one in the morning, my hair was flat, and my feet hurt. The end of a wedding reception is always so goddamn depressing, I thought to myself. And only the bride and groom are spared, jetting off into the sunset while the rest of us wake up the next morning to just another day.

“Where’s Chloe?” I asked Jess as we struggled through the revolving doors. Lissa was already falling asleep, even as her feet were moving.

“No idea. Last I saw her she was all over what’s-his-bucket back there by the piano.”

I glanced behind me into the lobby, but no Chloe. She always seemed to be elsewhere when anyone else was puking. It was like she had a sixth sense or something.