"Oh my G.o.d, I am so psyched so psyched to see you," Joanne exclaims, enunciating dramatically and sounding at the same time absolutely genuine. "Hey-this is Tony," she adds, as her boyfriend catches up to them. He's about the same height she is, though factoring in her teased-up hair, he appears to be inches shorter. He's wide around the middle-side by side they're like an unbreachable human wall. Joanne nuzzles into his chest as if she's trying to shrink herself. to see you," Joanne exclaims, enunciating dramatically and sounding at the same time absolutely genuine. "Hey-this is Tony," she adds, as her boyfriend catches up to them. He's about the same height she is, though factoring in her teased-up hair, he appears to be inches shorter. He's wide around the middle-side by side they're like an unbreachable human wall. Joanne nuzzles into his chest as if she's trying to shrink herself.

Ruby pulls Chris closer, and Joanne shakes his hand vigorously, saying, "How perfect is this?"

Ruby starts to explain that Joanne rescued her from Dorian last night, and Chris says with a smirk, "Yeah, I saw how that wound up."

Ruby says, "I can't believe I ran into you."

"Dis place ain't dat big," Tony says in an accent thick as the crust on a Jersey pizza.

Joanne says, "I didn't win anything last night. Remember? So I gotta win something for my birthday."

Ruby says, "Oh, that's right! It's today."

Tony says, "She'll celebrate for a frickin' week. She acts like it's frickin' CHONNA-ker CHONNA-ker-"

"Like what?" Chris asks.

"Like she's a Jew at Christmas and wants a stuffed animal a day for eight frickin' days."

"Oh, Chonnaker, Chonnaker," Chris says. "I always wondered how to p.r.o.nounce that."

Ruby can tell that Chris is suppressing laughter. She squeezes his hand, wanting him to be kind.

Joanne says, "I believe in birthweeks. A whole week to celebrate."

Tony says, "'Cept with you it totally is weeks. weeks. Like, as in Like, as in plurals." plurals."

Now Chris's laughter begins to leak out. Tony breaks into a smile.

Joanne looks at Ruby and rolls her eyes. Men Men, she seems to huff. "Oh, Rubes, listen. Wendy? From last night."

"Wendy, yeah. What about-"

"Totally in trouble. Her cousin was there. At XS. He saw the whole thing, and he totally told his mom, who is Wend's Aunt Marie, so she told Wendy's mom, and like, in trouble." in trouble."

"I'm so sorry," Ruby says.

"Oh, come on! It's not your fault someone's mother punishes her."

But Ruby's apology is not only for Wendy's situation but also for Chris's behavior, as he continues to snicker uncontrollably, with no sign of stopping.

Joanne rambles on about Wendy coming home drunk and disheveled and facing her mother's wrath: "Totally grounded, totally took away the keys to the Datsun, which is like Wend's car bought and paid for with her own money, and plus on top of it had to go to ma.s.s at like 10 A.M A.M. in the morning."

Ruby drops Chris's hand. Even Calvin, at his most vocally critical moments, was never rude to someone's face. Chris's unstoppable laughter is at at, not with with. Tony seems to have picked up on it, staring at Chris with a hardening look in his eyes.

Finally Joanne lowers her voice and says, "Rubes, is he on on some-thin'?" some-thin'?"

"I think he's just punchy."

"Maybe someone oughtta punch him him," Tony says.

"We didn't get a lot of sleep," Ruby says. Joanne squeals in obvious delight.

Joanne invites them to join her and Tony at Club XS for happy hour, but Ruby insists they need to get going. It clicks with Ruby in a way it didn't last night that Joanne is a local girl, that Club XS isn't some vacation hangout she stumbled upon but a regular part of her nightlife. It's not so different than when she herself goes below 14th Street in Manhattan looking for a good time. Joanne and Tony and Wendy are the "townies" Alice was disparaging yesterday. The term is supposed to be laced with pathos-these poor people stuck in this hick resort town, relying on wheels of fortune for birthday thrills. But of course there's nothing sad about Joanne. She's living her life just fine. She offers Ruby another sisterly embrace with a promise to stay in touch.

Tony continues to eye Chris, who at last has calmed and is straightening himself back up. "It's been real," he says, through sputtering breath. "Don't mind me, I'm just..." He doesn't finish.

When they're barely out of earshot, Chris says, "Dat was a p.i.s.ser p.i.s.ser."

Ruby turns away from him. Without waiting, she moves toward the street.

"Wait up."

"We've wasted enough time already-" she snaps.

"They were your your friends." friends."

"So you could have tried to be friendly."

"That guy was ridiculous. I couldn't help laughing a little."

"A little?" She keeps up her pace.

Chris catches up to her. "Don't be mad at me," he says. She turns to meet his face. His wounded expression melts her anger. She doesn't want to fight-it ruins everything. But she hates sn.o.bbery. Her mother can be such a sn.o.b-so many expectations.

"Let's get to the house," she says. "Let's get this over with."

He nods and takes her hand again.

But when they turn the corner and Alice's rental comes into view, Ruby pulls from his grasp, with the excuse of pushing a flyaway strand of hair from her face, and then she creates a little physical distance between them. Chris says nothing. He probably understands that this could be awkward. She hopes he does. Calvin could be there.

They pa.s.s by the Deadheads and climb the front steps of Alice's house, pa.s.sing the keg, overturned on the porch in a dirty puddle. Pop music blares through the screen door, a yearning male voice singing, "I can dream about you, if I can't hold you tonight." "I can dream about you, if I can't hold you tonight." The house is emptier than Ruby had expected, and it's thoroughly trashed. Long-stemmed roses wilt in a browning heap atop chunks of gla.s.s. Empty liquor bottles lie scattered in every corner. On the same couch where she sat yesterday with Calvin, an unfamiliar guy snores heavily, drooling onto the shoulder of his blue football jersey. A sour smell permeates the air and seems to intensify the continuing pressure inside her skull. She should have asked Chris for more aspirin. The house is emptier than Ruby had expected, and it's thoroughly trashed. Long-stemmed roses wilt in a browning heap atop chunks of gla.s.s. Empty liquor bottles lie scattered in every corner. On the same couch where she sat yesterday with Calvin, an unfamiliar guy snores heavily, drooling onto the shoulder of his blue football jersey. A sour smell permeates the air and seems to intensify the continuing pressure inside her skull. She should have asked Chris for more aspirin.

Chris is looking through the archway to the dining room, where Benjamin drops his face close to the table and emerges a few seconds later wiping his nose. So there's still c.o.ke in the house. Did he ever come down? Cicely is there, too, and f.u.c.kin' Nick, shirtless now, rolling dice on the table, playing some kind of game. Alice blasts into the dining room, coming into view so quickly it's like she'd been shoved from the kitchen. Her hands are covered in yellow rubber gloves. She holds a squirt bottle in one hand and a sponge in the other and immediately leans over the table and begins spritzing and wiping. "Hey!" Benjamin shouts. "Back off, Mrs. Clean!"

"Alice?" Ruby calls out, to no reply. Louder, "Alice! Um, it's me."

All heads turn. Alice covers her nose and mouth, her eyes darting around in alarm, as if the room had just been swarmed by a SWAT team. And then clarity takes hold and she's immediately rushing toward Ruby. "I thought you were raped and left for dead in a Dumpster!" She clutches Ruby in a waft of ammonia that Ruby recoils from. "Where were you?"

Before Ruby can reply, Alice shoots a look at Chris, and her face darkens. "I knew it," she says.

"Nice to see you, too," Chris says.

Alice pulls Ruby toward the dining room table. "Come with me!"

Benjamin's bugged-out eyes scan back and forth from Ruby to Chris. His mouth takes on a twisted grin. His hair is an unkempt mop, a hundred little antennae sticking out every which way. He says, "What a gruesome twosome you are."

"What's happening, Ben," Chris mutters, nodding toward the powder shining on the table.

Benjamin says, "None of this for you unless you're nice to me."

"Is Calvin here?" Ruby asks.

"That's a fine question," Benjamin says.

"He's f.u.c.kin' looking for you and s.h.i.t," Nick says.

"He's been looking for you all night," Alice adds. "No one knew where you were!"

Ruby feels her stomach tighten. "I called this morning. Someone picked up the phone."

"You called here?"

"I asked for you by name."

Alice says, "It was probably one of the Smurfs. We were invaded by Smurfs, an army of trashy boys dressed in blue. There was Jack Daniel's Smurf and Pizza Face Smurf-"

"And Loverboy Smurf," Cicely adds, "Last seen with Dorian." She motions with her head toward the bedrooms.

"We'll call him Date Rape Smurf," Benjamin says.

"Some girl answered the phone," Ruby offers.

"f.u.c.kin' Smurfette," Nick says. Ruby notices that he's got a bruise the size of a postcard on his shoulder, as if he's fallen or been punched. Then she thinks of the scratch on her neck and reflexively pulls her hair forward to conceal it. She suddenly thinks of Dorian's clothes, discarded last night. In a parking lot. Where was was that? that?

Alice reaches her arms wide. "The Smurfside Heights Varsity Football Date Rape Army! They totally stomped all over our lovely house. What about my security deposit? No one else is leaving until this place is spic-and-span!" Alice waves the squirt bottle like a wand, its nozzle dribbling onto the carpet. "I repeat. No. One. Leaves. No. One. Leaves."

Ruby says, "I just want to get my stuff from Calvin."

Cicely looks up from the table. "I'll help you, Alice."

Alice says, "Do a little blow, you'll get your energy back."

Chris says, "Ben, how much have you you done?" done?"

"It sounds like criticism when you talk that way. Come on, Christopher-have one for old times' sake."

"Old times being yesterday," Alice says, shooting a daggered look at Chris. "Ruby, let me make you a drinkie."

"I drank enough yesterday for the whole summer."

"But I went to the A&P and bought all the fixings for b.l.o.o.d.y Marys. You know, there are tons of vitamins in the tomato juice, plus celery, orange slices, olives, and green peppers. It's liquid salad! Wait-do we have any vodka left?"

Alice runs to the kitchen, Ruby calls out after her, "Make mine a Virgin Mary."

"That's appropriate," Cicely says with a giggle, as Nick, at her side, chuckles along with her.

"Is it?" Benjamin asks. "Still?"

Ignore them. "If Calvin doesn't come back soon," she says, "I'm going to have to go. We don't want to drive in the dark." "If Calvin doesn't come back soon," she says, "I'm going to have to go. We don't want to drive in the dark."

"Relax," Benjamin says. "Pull up a chair." He kicks at the chair next to him and sends it tumbling backward with a thud onto the carpet.

Chris lifts it up and sits down, a simple gesture that Ruby can't help but find worrisome.

"That's better," Benjamin continues. "We can entertain each other with stories of our evenings. I'll start. Let's see, after we last saw you, I brought Dorian back here and held her hand while she puked in the toilet."

"I'm sure you completely did not," Cicely says. "I was the one who stayed with her."

"In my mind I was very helpful," Benjamin says. He turns to Ruby. "OK, now your turn."

His face, even in its amped-up state, still manages to convey such pleasure, such gloating, that she finds herself saying with a kind of spiteful pride, "It's none of your business where we spent the night."

Benjamin tsk-tsks and shakes his head in exaggerated disapproval. "I sense a new alliance here. I smell...consummation."

"Don't push it, Ben," Chris says. He adds, "Ruby, we can wait out front if you want." But he reaches for her, pulling her onto his lap. She sits stiffly, his thighbone a hard shelf under her rear end, wishing she had listened to him back in the hotel room, that they had skipped the house and just gotten on the road.

Alice reappears carrying a tray of pint gla.s.ses sloshing red liquid, each topped off with so many wedges of fruit and vegetables they could be tall, whimsical Easter bonnets. "This one's yours," Alice says, handing a slippery gla.s.s to Ruby. "I made it weak. What should we toast to?"

Cicely says, "To Ruby being safe and sound," and there's something so sincere in the tone of her voice that Ruby finds herself going along and clinking her gla.s.s with the rest of them. She's suddenly aware that her mouth is watering, ravenous for sustenance. The drink, it turns out, is loaded with vodka.

Benjamin raises his gla.s.s again. "To the last American virgin."

"Ben, I want to talk to you," Chris says. "Ruby, give me a minute, OK?"

She nods as Benjamin, with a theatrical flourish, rises from the table and disappears with Chris down the hall toward the bedrooms.

Alice turns to Nick. "Shoo. Time for girl talk."

"Like I f.u.c.kin' care?" he says. Ruby watches him stumble, shirtless and bruised, into the living room, where he rummages behind the couch and finds a telephone, receiver off the hook. He wanders onto the front porch with the phone in hand, stretching the cord to its limit. She watches her chance to call her parents slip out the door with it. Another delay.

She reluctantly takes a seat. She gulps the b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, vodka and all. Girl talk is not what she needs. What she needs is to get out of here, quickly. What she needs is to turn back the clock a few hours to place the calls to her parents that she failed to make. And then on top of that the irony of sitting here waiting for Calvin after having blown him off all night! She feels the liquor p.r.i.c.kling her belly. Maybe it will actually help her hangover. Hair of the dog. She's heard her mother speak of that.

Alice leans close and asks, "Did you? With him?"

"I don't feel comfortable talking about it."

"You did!"

"That's between me and-"

"Poor Calvin," Cicely says.

"He's going to be crushed," Alice adds.

Ruby chomps at a celery stalk. The crunching reverberates inside her skull, drowning out the chatter, for a moment.

"It hasn't been working out," Ruby says, washing down the celery with another gulp. "I don't know what he's told you, but things between us-"