Page 24

I could still feel Marcie’s thoughtful gaze on me as he led me away, but Philip himself seemed to assume I must want to sit next to Ryan rather than James, and I decided to leave him with that impression.

‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you,’ James’s father said, pulling the chair out for me. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, giving him a brilliant smile.

To my surprise, the last seat was taken a moment later by Kit’s girlfriend, Sarah. My guess about this being a core-group-only event had clearly been wrong.

I smiled at her as she sat down, realising that she was looking over at me.

‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ Sarah said, immediately. And I felt a jab of fellow feeling, the two of us for some reason being kept out of the loop.

‘Esther got her a ticket,’ Kit said, breezily, apparently unconcerned that Sarah was not next to him.

After that he sank quickly into outraged banter about being accused of plagiarism over a mock exam essay he had– in fact– plagiarised.

This seemed fairly typical of Kit, from what I’d learned so far.

Sarah laughed, but I saw her eyes cut across to me again and again, whoever I was talking to.

Her opinion on me seemed to have shifted since the last meet-up, and I couldn’t quite suss out what was going on there, or why my presence specifically bothered her.

But I knew it was something that could go either way: something I could use in my favour, or something that might ruin everything if I wasn’t careful.

The wine tasting itself ended up being a lot less stressful than I’d predicted, anyway.

Now that I’d made a stand as someone who didn’t care about the theory, I felt free to resist all efforts at giving flavour notes and instead commented on whether I liked them or not.

Or as I decided to put it, ‘Bullshit or not bullshit.’

Somehow my refusal to play along had a direct effect on Esther, too.

Her earlier anxiety over spoiling the taste had evaporated, along with her comments on terroir.

And when she refused to drink any more than a sip of one of the reds, giving a definite ‘Not my thing,’ I saw Kit looking over at me with a very considering expression.

It made me wonder whether I was infringing on his little kingdom of influence too far.

The weird thing was that, as the wine hit them all, they didn’t turn nastier or less forgiving, like I’d been expecting.

There were no scathing comments about people who didn’t know their appellations , and no remarks about people poorer, or stupider, or in a minority, or any of the casual sexism I’d experienced from some of the guys at Columbia.

There was actually a social awareness to this crowd that made me understand why Holly Moore had wanted to spend time with them, and the drunk versions of them were only more fun.

Ryan seemed to be spitting most of his wine out, to do him credit, though there were the occasional moments when I saw a glass that had been half full suddenly empty. I was on the alert for any behaviour changes, but he seemed much as normal, if an increment louder and happier.

I guess the one uncomfortable note to it all was Sarah’s behaviour.

She was no longer looking over at me but instead away from us all, in an increasingly unhappy silence.

When Kit occasionally leaned round James to murmur a comment to her, it seemed that she was unenthusiastic about replying.

Definite trouble in paradise , I thought, which was much better than trouble directed at me.

In between all of this, I was constantly looking for a way to introduce the topics of Holly and Tanya. It took until dessert before I found my opportunity, and, in fact, it was James choosing to leave early– despite his family still all being there– who gave me the chance.

‘I wish he’d stay and let us cheer him up,’ I said. ‘But I guess if you guys have spent all year being there for him, maybe it’s not about that. Maybe it’s just a matter of time.’

‘He needs to date again,’ Ryan said, shaking his head. ‘It’s time.’

‘Ryan!’ Esther’s response was shocked. Even, I thought, hurt. ‘You can’t… Holly wasn’t just anyone. You don’t just find someone else when you were with your soulmate.’

Ryan gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I know she wasn’t just anyone. But he’s twenty-one. He can’t rule himself out of dating forever. And I think if he could date, then he’d believe that life wasn’t over. It’d do him good.’

‘It’s not forever,’ Esther said, stiffly. ‘It’s only been a year. Not even a year.’

I suddenly saw an opportunity opening up: a chance to mention Tanya, and with a familiar, headlong feeling of risk, I took it.

‘I don’t see how you could go through that and not blame yourself,’ I said.

‘It’s impossible to lose someone and not feel like it’s your fault.

I met a girl from here, a natural sciences student, who was over in Vermont for the summer.

My mom made me go and talk to her so I was prepped for Cambridge, and I kind of liked her so we stayed in touch even when I…

postponed. And then she fell off the map, and I found out later she’d died of an overdose once she’d been back over here a while.

’ I had to take a little pause then. It was harder than I’d thought it would be, telling them about Tanya.

About the guilt I’d felt. I hadn’t expected to feel like I was using her story when, in fact, it was essentially true.

And I’m sorry, Reid, if you feel like I was using it, too.

‘I didn’t really know her. Not really. But she was this super-talented hockey player, and it seemed like such a waste.

I felt like I should have helped her. You know? ’

I looked up at each of them, finding a strangely tense silence, and I realised that Kit was staring at me with none of his usual composure. His mouth was slack and his expression shocked.

It was Sarah– no longer looking away from us but looking right at me– who finally broke the silence. ‘Wow, was that… was that the girl from Selwyn?’

They know something , I thought with horrified triumph. They know her.

‘It… yeah, it was,’ was all I could manage.

‘That’s so weird,’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘Kit and Ryan met her, too. Didn’t you? Tanya, wasn’t it?’

I felt it in my stomach, Reid. The twist of bitter triumph.

I looked sharply at the two boys and had to hold in the immediate hard questions I desperately wanted to ask. It was only reasonable to be surprised at this point. Not anything else. But I could feel my hand shaking against the tablecloth as I asked, ‘Whoa, seriously? You knew her?’

Kit was shaking his head. ‘No, not really. Just met her at a dinner. Only the once, but… like you say.’ He held my gaze for a moment and then rose with what was a very un-Kit-like clumsiness. ‘Back in a second.’

I stared after him, and then said, ‘God, that’s so strange. The same Tanya.’

Ryan shook his head, frowning. ‘I mean, he didn’t really meet her.

Neither of us did. She was at the same formal exchange.

The rugby first eleven went to Queen’s formal hosted by the first hockey girls, so you can imagine how chaotic it was.

We didn’t even talk to her. She was down the other end of the group and she left early.

’ He looked towards the door, and I realised that his eyes were a little unfocused.

‘He’s kind of rinsing it for a story, to be honest.’

Sarah pulled a strange little face and took a long pull of wine before rising to follow Kit, and I suddenly wondered whether this was what Ryan did when he was drunk. Whether he lost all of his social filters and said the things nobody wanted to hear. Whether he was a bit of an asshole.

If he does, then that could be seriously useful , I thought.

Esther was shaking her head at Ryan.

‘He’s not rinsing it,’ she said, quietly. ‘It just shook him up. He was right there, and didn’t notice that she was struggling. And then the next day, she was dead. Of course he felt bad. You felt bad, too, didn’t you?’

I had to take a long drink myself at that point to hide the dizzy, nauseating understanding that flooded through me.

Shit , I thought as I swallowed it down. They were there with her the night she died.

So you see, Reid? I was right.

After everything you said to me, I was fucking right.