Jio pulled on Charlotte’s sleeve. “Look at this blazer!” They had yet to master their indoor voice. Their empty Solo cup probably didn’t help. “You look like a capitalist! I love it!”
Her face flushed as all three of them studied her outfit. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been around this many people interested in her existence. “Uh, thank you.”
“New York must be good for you,” Jio said. “Do you just love it there? We barely hear from you these days!”
The back of her neck felt hot. “It’s not bad,” she dodged. “Work keeps me busy. I can’t have a pet with my schedule. But The Rock is so cute!” She desperately tried to change the topic.
“Isn’t he? I want another dog, but Matt won’t let me get one!” They shoved their boyfriend’s shoulder.
Matt rolled his eyes. “We can’t afford another dog.”
“We could if we rescued!” But Jio had already turned back to Nina. They peppered her with questions about Peru. “Did you discover any new plants? How were the bugs?”
“It’s the vet bills that are the problem,” Matt murmured to Charlotte. “Dogs eat weird shit off the sidewalk.”
She nodded sagely. Matt looked nice—he’d styled his short brown hair into a professional-looking comb-over. Thankfully he also wore uninteresting business casual attire. As if on cue, he asked, “Are you still at Front End? I watched Roger Ludermore’s speech from Davos. The one about effective altruism? Interesting stuff.”
Here we go again.
Charlotte whipped out her safe Roger anecdotes. Matt laughed in all the right places, bless him. At the mention of a famous actor turned startup investor, Jio demanded that she start the story over, their blue eyes bright and eager.
Nina left to refill their drinks. When she returned, conversation moved on to gossip about their graduating class: who lived where, who dumped who, who sold out and took a job as a lobbyist. Charlotte stayed at the periphery, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She didn’t have much intel to contribute—staying in contact with folks didn’t come naturally to her.
Charlotte vaguely remembered the role she used to play in the group dynamic during their undergrad days. She and Matt were the quiet ones, but she could be relied on for a funny non sequitur and her memory for names and faces. Everyone texted her when they needed help assembling furniture or fixing a clogged sink, and she liked that. She liked to be helpful, and to talk about art or politics one-on-one with her hands deep in a practical problem. She and Jio once spent a whole afternoon discussing Beanie Babies and scarcity economics as they repainted Acronym’s attic. Perched atop the dusty folding ladder, Charlotte didn’t feel like the shortest and shyest member of the clique.
At parties and group hangs like this one, Charlotte was always half of a pair. Jackie made plans and Charlotte remembered them. When Jackie told an outlandish but mostly accurate story, Charlotte supplied the details she forgot.
What was the name of that Film Studies TA I hooked up with? The one whose entire personality was having the Pulp Fiction soundtrack on vinyl?
Ted Casella.
Teddy Casella! Thank you, Char.
As the group chatted at the reception, peppering their gossip with references to their new lives that she didn’t understand, Charlotte felt like an actor who didn’t know her lines. Five years was a long time, and the dynamic of the group had shifted without her.
Thankfully no one seemed to mind when she just listened.
“Remember Batty Lawson?” Nina said sotto voce. “From the Philosophy Society? I heard he made a fortune in Bitcoin.”
Jio mimed retching into their party cup. Charlotte guffawed, and they winked at her.
Amy from the 3Ds (Dead mom, cancer) joined them. After she gave everyone the requisite hugs—and did not scold Charlotte for falling off the surface of the earth—she added her intel. “Thomas Irons lives in Tampa now,” she said in a discreet murmur. “He bought a condo on the water.”
“With what money?” Jio asked. “Did he go full tech bro?”
“I think he always had money. His family is from Chappaqua.”
Nina plucked a dog hair from the back of Jio’s crop top. “I don’t remember him.”
Charlotte grimaced and swirled beer around her cup. “He was tight with Ben Mead.”
The name felt large in her mouth, rusty from disuse. She tried to swallow through the dryness in her throat, and then, remembering her drink, took a long pull of pilsner.
Jio winced. “That asshole. Is he coming?”
Rancid yellow embarrassment curdled in her throat, the way it always did when Ben’s name came up around her friends. She shrugged like she hadn’t given the question much thought.
In reality, she had checked the list of alumni registered for Reunion & Commencement over and over again in the weeks leading up to the event. Her ex-boyfriend’s name never appeared, but she found it hard to imagine that Ben would miss the chance to come back to Hein. When they were students, he stalked across campus like he owned the place…which he kind of did, because his father sat on the board of trustees.
Nina gracefully changed the subject. “I think Thomas was in my coding class.” She bit her lip while she searched her memory. “Did he have white-boy dreadlocks?”
“Yeah, and a perpetual smear of coke on his nose,” Jio leered.
Amy giggled into her rosé.
“Yes, that’s who I’m thinking of,” Nina said matter-of-factly.
Charlotte didn’t laugh. Purple, she thought as she wetted her lips. Shame. And…sludge green guilt. By the end of the night, she would have enough colors for an eye shadow palette.
Speaker feedback shrieked through their gossip. Amy hissed through her teeth as she pressed her free hand against her ear. Conversations died out as someone tapped a microphone across the patio.
Charlotte twisted to look over her shoulder in the direction of the bar. She couldn’t see anything over the crowd.
“Want a boost?” Nina asked.
Charlotte glared up at her without any real malice. “Har har.”
The person holding the mic hopped on top of the stone wall behind the bar. He smoothed down his jeans with his free hand as he straightened up.
