The Gospel of Winter (2 page)

The party filled quickly, and moving from one spot to another often required bumping people as you passed them. Guests slugged down their drinks so as not to spill them. They pitched toward me, speaking in their
won-derful
voices. “Top marks,” I'd scream back. “Oh, Yale, definitely Yale.” To really pull off the part, I almost affected one of those weird accents some Americans adopt, where they sound vaguely British but they're really from the Upper East Side. Instead, I just careened from room to room, strategizing how to disappear amid the sweaty and aggressive laughter.

As I slid past a knot of people beside the piano, trying to make a break for the office, one of Old Donovan's former colleagues, Mike Kowolski, saw me and waved. He shuffled across the foyer, balancing the weight of his belly on his legs. Mark, his son, followed behind. If Mark hadn't had his father's strong, hammerhead jaw, it would've been hard to believe they were related. He strode around CDA with a cool, confident distance I always imagined was boredom. We met at the foot of the grand staircase, and Mike slapped
down hard on my shoulder. “Look at you working the party like a solicitor. My God, Aidan, it's been a while. You're as tall as I am, and since when did your old man let you run around with hair like that? A man shouldn't hide his eyes.” He wagged his finger between us. “You'll introduce Mark to a few men tonight, won't you? Can't have you grabbing all the internship opportunities before your friend here, right?”

“What's up, Donovan?” Mark said. We were both sophomores at CDA, but the last time he had said hello to me was at the mandatory swim test at the beginning of the year. To call us friends was a joke. He was already a cocaptain of the swim team, and he'd had to greet all of us, one by one, before we dove into the water and proved we could make it across the pool and back without drowning. Mostly, I thought of him as the Bronze Man because his skin was naturally amber all year round, and the tight curls against his head never seemed to grow or get trimmed. We'd been in Sunday school together, but by middle school the only time we really talked was when our fathers had made our families get together for dinner, and, of course, the last time had been years ago, before my father had left the firm to start his own.

“Mark's got to talk to some of the men,” Mike said. “There's no way around it. This isn't a party, it's a job fair, right?” He nodded to his son.

“I know, Dad.”

“It's all in the way you look at things, boys. Make it an opportunity.” Mike poked me in the chest.

Mark glanced back and forth between his father and me. “Well, maybe Aidan should show me around, then.”

Mike took Mark by the arm.

“Carpe diem,”
Mark said. “Look, I got it. But I can just hang with Aidan right now. It's cool.”

“I'll tour him around,” I said, trying to sound as cool as possible.

Mark tried to pull out of his father's grip, but Mike wouldn't let go. He leaned toward us. “It's about focus, boys. It's not a game. Focus, focus, focus. When you see something you want, you've got to go after it and fucking nail it.” He smiled at us and pulled me in close too, so we were locked tightly together. There was a whiff of shrimp in his breath. “Right?” he asked.

“You said it,” I responded.

Mark gave me a
thanks-a-lot
smile, and Mike pushed his son toward a circle of men by the fireplace in the sitting room. Although they made space for them, Mark looked through the space between shoulders to me. His startlingly light blue eyes landed on me with only a glance, and stuck.
Get me the hell out of here,
he intimated. I wasn't used to anyone looking to me for help. Soon enough, though, Mark was doing the drill I was accustomed to doing at Mother's parties—rolling out the résumé—and he was beyond saving for the moment.

Go take your face off,
I wanted to say to Mike. It's what I wanted to say to many of the kids at CDA too. Take off
those big, plastic faces that bulldoze their way into rooms with their fucking grins. I hung out with kids occasionally—sometimes the debate club or the chess club would have dinner at someone's house, or I'd go sit in the stands with other kids to watch the field hockey team or the football team—but I'd sit there listening to everyone talk to one another as if confidence had come to them as a birthright. Nobody ever said
I don't know
or
I'm afraid
, and they acted like the masks they wore were their real faces and that they could sustain themselves forever on their own self-assurance—like they really believed they didn't need anybody else. What was that John Donne poem we'd read in Weinstein's class, “No Man Is An Island”? Not here. We were a goddamn social archipelago that called itself a community. Why did I feel like I was the only one who lived in a nightmare?

What was worse was that I knew people did have fears. I'd seen it briefly on the faces of everyone at CDA earlier that fall, when, on a bright, clear Tuesday morning, we all became afraid of airplanes and the word
jihad
. After that day, fear had become our way of life—kids, adults, it didn't matter. I'd heard the guidance counselors talking about it: “I don't know what to say to these kids. I'm afraid too!” So why did I feel like I was the only one looking for some kind of stability, some kind of normalcy, someone who could hold back the vast tide of bullshit and tell me
everything is going to be okay
?

I did a loop down the side hall to the library, leaving Mark to fend for himself, and I took a seat at the foot of the small staircase near the makeshift bar.
Take your face off,
I wanted to say to all of Mother's guests. They weren't any better than the kids at CDA. Mother had declared that this year's Christmas Eve party would be the biggest and most extravagant ever.
We need it,
she had said,
all of us
, and her guests seemed to agree. Like the movies I'd seen about Mexico's Day of the Dead or of Carnival, everyone at Mother's party had their faces painted with too much makeup or the flush of alcohol.

After a while, Mother found me. I was surprised she'd been able to locate me in the packed room, but she was determined. When she squeezed through a group of men in line for the bar, she pulled along two more of my classmates from CDA. It was obvious from the way she beamed as she brought them toward me that she had invited these two in particular. She just hadn't told me.

I fixed my posture immediately. Every idiot with a beating heart knew Josie Fenton and Sophie Harrington. So many of us at CDA thought of them as celebrities, as if life would be glamorous if you carried yourself the right way. For a brief stint that fall, Josie had dated a senior, but she had called it off after only a month. I was used to looking at Josie and talking to her with my eyes. She sat in front of me in Honors English 10. I imagined combing my hand through her long brown hair. She cocked her head while she wrote at her desk, making her hair fall to one side. It would
expose the smooth, cool slope of her neck, the spot where there was no better place to kiss a girl, I thought. Sophie had a different reputation, which too many guys were too eager to brag about—and since guys were always looking at her, she had developed the confidence to stare back with her dark eyes and thin-lipped smirk that made her look older than the rest of us, or at least more cynical.

Mother was obviously delusional enough to think the girls talked to me at school because they were her friends' daughters, and she wore one of those smiles I wasn't supposed to let fall as she dragged them through the room toward me. “Be a good host now,” she said as she withdrew herself. “You have guests tonight too.”

Josie and Sophie stood beside me, peering through the crowd as if they were looking for someone. In their high heels and close-fitting skirts, they looked like the adults in the room. I got up and wiped my palms on my legs. “I didn't know you were coming tonight,” I said, and knew I'd lost the only moment I had to offer up some wit or charm.

“Last-minute kind of thing, I guess,” Sophie said. The lone freckle on her pale cheek rose up her face as she smiled.

“Hope it didn't ruin any other plans?”

“No. Whatever,” Sophie said. Josie flashed a quick smile. She wore silver earrings with blue beads that matched her eyes.

“I hope they didn't bribe you to come here.”

“Come on,” Josie said, rolling her eyes. She sounded tired. “
Everyone knows your mother throws great parties. No one turns down an invitation, right?” She glanced toward the bar. “Look at all that alcohol.”

Even if she didn't mean it, I appreciated it. “Can I offer you a drink?” I asked her.

She was still gazing at something back in the foyer and remained quiet. Sophie looked at her. “Maybe a couple of Diet Cokes?”

“No,” I said. “I mean a real drink.”

“What?” Josie asked quickly. “Really?”

“It's a party, right?”

“That'd be cool,” Sophie said. “My mother will be smashed, anyway.”

“Mine would probably encourage it,” I said. “Especially if she saw me hanging out with the two of you all night.” They shot tight-lipped glances at each other, and so I quickly, added, “And Mark's here.”

“Mark Kowolski?” Josie asked.

“See if you can drag him away from his father. He's got Mark leashed to a pack of guys in the living room, last I saw.”

“Oooh, a rescue,” Sophie said. “We can handle that. Where do we meet you with the drinks?”

I gave them directions across the foyer to Old Donovan's study. They threaded their arms and moved away as one unit, squeezing through the crowd in the library. It looked like a dance and, probably because they were in my house, I thought maybe I could join them.

I convinced the bartender to give me a couple of unopened bottles of soda water and some wineglasses, and I marched through the party as quickly as I could. When I got to Old Donovan's study, they were all there. Josie and Sophie walked alongside one wall of books. They weren't scowling. They didn't hush up as I approached. In fact, I was surprised: They looked like they were having a good time. Mark stood by the giant sepia-toned globe that stood between two leather chairs.

“Your dad likes to read, huh?” Josie asked. “He has this office and the library out there?”

“What's a
dad
?” I said as I put the bottles on the desk. Sophie turned and gave me a sympathetic look. Josie nodded.

“The boss,” Mark said. “
Results!
That's my dad.
Results
,
results
,
results
.”

“Maybe he'll have a breakdown,” Josie said. “That's what happened to my dad. Now he's, like, Ayurveda-vinyasa Dad.”

“Maybe,” Mark said.

“Well, if Old Donovan were here, we couldn't use his room,” I continued. “Check this out.” I unlatched the lock on the globe in front of Mark, lifted its top half, and revealed the bar within it. “Vodka sodas?” I asked, lifting the bottle from its slot. “We can toast to our fathers, whether they're already gone or we wish they were.”

“Seriously,” Josie said.

“Dudes,” Mark said. “Think about this clearly. We'll
get caught drinking. They'll smell it on us. Last time I got caught, my dad nearly strangled me. I was, like, chained up at the house for a month. Don't we have anything else?” Mark asked. He jabbed at me. “You got to have something else, man. Got any herb? We all
poke smot
. I never get caught when I'm
poking
.”

I smiled at him; I was happy to dish out the pills, too. “Let's start with a drink, though. We won't get caught. I never do.” They took seats beside the globe, and I set to work fixing the drinks. It was good to have a task, something to keep me in motion, because my heart raced as if I'd done another bump. I had no idea what to say to Josie, Sophie, or Mark. Conversation required spontaneity, and spontaneity made me nervous. I didn't want to say anything stupid, or anything I'd regret.

“Take a sip,” I said as I handed them their glasses.

“Belvedere, right?” Josie asked after she tasted it. “Smooth.”

“I thought you only liked Ketel One.” Sophie laughed and then took a sip. “Remember that at Dustin's? Oh my God, we got so wasted.”

I raised my glass the way I'd seen some of the adults do out in the party, holding it by the base and not the stem. “Cheers, I guess.”

We clinked glasses and laughed about the rest of the party getting drunker. I tried not to smile too much, but I couldn't help it. I didn't like my smile. I liked what my face
looked like when I listened, or when I smoked a cigarette—I'd looked in the mirror as I'd done both, and I could live with it—but when I smiled, I was someone severely deranged.

I was surprised every time I made them laugh, and I hoped I wouldn't run out of things to say. I was more than halfway through my drink when I realized they still had nearly full glasses. Especially Mark. He had put his down on Old Donovan's desk. There was a pause in the conversation. Sophie stared at her feet. Josie got up and walked to the window that looked across the yard to the hedgerow along the Fieldings' property.

“What are we doing at this old-person party?” Mark asked. Sophie rolled her eyes in agreement. “I mean, no offense, Donovan, but this would be cooler if we weren't ten feet away from our parents.”

“Doesn't matter to me,” I said. “Here's how I get through it.” I pulled the bottle of Adderall out of my inside pocket and shook it. “I'm already zooming.”

Sophie squinted. “You just pop these like vitamins or whatever?”

“No,” Josie said. “You snort them, right?” She walked back toward me and smiled deviously. “Is that what you're doing every day?”