Page 75 of All These Beautiful Strangers

“Listen here, you little shit,” I said, “don’t you even think about—”

But before I could finish, Teddy hung up.

My phone rang. I fumbled for the light on my bedside table.

“Mother of Christ,” Margot muttered next to me. She held up a hand to shield her eyes from the lamp.

“Sorry. Go back to sleep,” I said, squinting at the clock.

2:18 a.m. Who the hell would be calling at this hour? I grabbed for my phone. The number on the screen was Teddy’s. Fuck him.

I turned off the light and rolled over, tucking my arm around Margot’s warm body and pulling her to me. She ran her fingertips along my forearm and settled her body against mine.

A few seconds later, my phone rang again.

Margot groaned and pulled a pillow over her head to muffle the sound.

I grabbed for my phone again and answered it.

“You better be dying in a ditch somewhere right now,” I said.

Only, it wasn’t Teddy’s voice that answered me. It was Grace’s.

“Alistair?” she said.

I sat up.

“Alistair, I’m sorry to be calling,” she said. She sounded slightly breathless. “I know it’s late,” she said, “but I didn’t know who else to call.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s Teddy,” she said. “He’s fine—he just, he had a lot to drink, and then he got sick in the cab, and so the driver pulled over and made us get out, and nobody else will take us when they see the state he’s in. He’s a mess, and I don’t think I can get him down to the subway by myself—he’s too heavy, and he keeps falling.”

“Where are you now?” I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“The West Village,” she said. “Seventh and Greenwich.”

“Stay there,” I said. “I’m coming to get you.”

Half an hour later, I’d driven to Lower Manhattan. I spotted them almost immediately, Teddy huddled on the sidewalk and Grace standing in her winter peacoat, breathing a fog of warm air into the cold March night, looking lost and uncertain. I pulled over.

Grace called my name when she saw me. “I’ve never seen him like this before,” she said. “I tried to get him to go home hours ago, but he wouldn’t leave the bar.”

Her lips were blue and she was shivering. I wanted to hurt my brother for making her stand out in the cold in the middle of the night like this.

“I’ll help you get him in the car,” was all I said.

I could smell my brother before I reached him. He had the remnants of vomit down the front of his coat and he smelled like sour Chinese food and wine. Grace took Teddy gently by one arm, and I took him by the other, perhaps a little roughly, and shuffled him toward the idling car.

“I know it’s spring break,” I said to Teddy. “But this isn’t fucking Cancún.”

Teddy crawled in and crumpled in the backseat. Grace got in after him, and I went around front to get in the driver’s seat. As I put the car into drive, I looked at Teddy in the rearview mirror.

“What was the occasion?” I asked dryly.

Teddy just kept his eyes closed and hugged himself, groaning in discomfort.

“It was your father,” Grace said. “He called Teddy about missing that meeting, and I don’t know, it didn’t go well.”