Page 9 of Kill Your Darlings

And now the buffet was closed, the tables cleared, the dance party happening.

The song was “Tempted” by Squeeze. Despite their turning fifty, most of Wendy and Thom’s friends on Goose Neck were ten years older at least, and the spectacle of them cutting moves on the VFW dance floor was mostly horrifying.

She sipped her white wine and watched from a distance.

Why was it that perfectly good dancers started to look ridiculous once they hit a certain age?

Her oldest friend, Daniela, had come up from New York for this party.

The two of them had spent their college years in Houston, hitting clubs, staying up till dawn.

Daniela had been a tireless and sexy dancer.

And she wasn’t a bad dancer now, but she just looked like.

.. like a mom, Wendy supposed, since she was one, three times over.

But still, it was a depressing sight. Thom, on the other hand, had always been a spectacle on the dance floor, all quick pivots and flailing elbows.

He was dancing now with Laura Ferreira, Jason’s girlfriend, who seemed only mildly embarrassed by his gyrations.

Laura was two years younger than Jason, not a big difference except for maybe in high school, especially with Jason leaving for college soon.

Laura was quiet, studious, arty, and rather beautiful, and Wendy hoped that when Jason broke her heart he would be kind about it. She thought he would be.

The song ended and something new began that Wendy didn’t immediately recognize, some recent bass-heavy hit. No one left the

dance floor.

She finished her wine and was trying to figure out what to do next when Walter Johnson approached, bringing her a fresh glass.

“Saw you were getting low,” he said.

Walter was a watercolor artist who had moved to Goose Neck two years earlier. Wendy knew him because he volunteered to work

events at the Saltwick Institute, the nonprofit writers’ residency where Wendy worked as the director of retreat and operations.

Thom had become convinced that Walter only volunteered in order to spend time with Wendy. She scoffed whenever he’d say this,

but secretly believed he was probably right. He was not a particularly attractive man, with thinning hair and deep-set eyes

and that body shape particular to certain men, all their weight in their stomach, so that their pants were always drooping

a little off their hipless frames. But he was the only man who ever made a point of seeking her out at parties and art openings,

and he always asked her questions about herself. Wendy had no interest in him—why would she want another fragile, middle-aged

man in her life?—but she appreciated his interest.

While she gossiped with Walter, Thom danced over and said they should join him on the dance floor. His forehead was sweaty,

and he was breathing heavily.

“Maybe you should take a break, darling,” Wendy said.

“‘Fifty-year-old man dies on dance floor. Story at eleven.’”

“What song do you think you’d like to die dancing to?” Walter said.

“That’s a good question. Let me think for a moment.”

Wendy watched Thom as he pondered. He loved this type of thing, making lists of favorite songs, movies, books. Talking about

the best sandwich he’d ever had.

“It would have to be New Order, I think.”

“Which song?”

“‘Blue Monday’?”

Walter was nodding, reverently. Wendy’s annoyance grew.

“Ha, right. I’d be dancing like a maniac, then the heart would stop and I’d hit the floor. It wouldn’t be so bad, fading out

to Bernard Sumner’s voice.”

“‘How does it feel?’” Walter quoted the song.

“Oh my God, perfect death lyric. How ’bout you, Walter? What’s your collapse-on-the-dance-floor song?”

Wendy was just about to down her glass of wine in order to give herself an excuse to walk away, but Walter turned to her and

said, “Let’s hear Wendy’s first.”

“‘Into the Groove,’” Thom quickly said.

Wendy frowned. “No Madonna. I mean, I love her, but not while I’m dying. I’d say ‘Sinnerman’ by Nina Simone.”

“Oh, good one,” Walter said, then while he was trying to figure out which song he’d like to go out on, Wendy did chug her

wine and slide away.

At the bar she realized she was getting tipsy, but instead of that making her decide to order a water she asked for a vodka and soda with a splash of cranberry.

Kerry, Marcia and Jim Lever’s youngest daughter, whom they’d hired to bartend, made the drink while Wendy turned to look at the party from this new vantage point.

She knew everyone here, this strange hodgepodge of a lifetime’s worth of friends.

Daniela was her oldest friend. Who was her most recent?

Probably Mike and Louise, that boring couple.

Not that Thom and she weren’t their own version of a boring couple.

Maybe Mike and Louise had dark secrets of their own.

“Here you go, Mrs.Graves,” Kerry was saying, placing the tall drink on the shellacked surface of the bar.

“Call me Wendy, please,” she said.

As she took her first sip Daniela rushed over from the dance floor. “What are you drinking?”

“I asked for a vodka and soda, but this tastes like a vodka and vodka.”

“Yay. I’m joining you,” Daniela said. “And I need you drunk enough to start dancing.”

Two hours later, Wendy was drunk, now sitting snugly on a vinyl couch between Daniela and Caroline, her boss at Saltwick. Caroline and Daniela were talking

at the same time, which gave her the opportunity to ignore them both and concentrate on how delicious her current cocktail

was. It was a concoction delivered to her by Walter, of course, some kind of mule with rye whiskey. She heard Jason say into

his microphone that per the bureaucratic regime of the VFW, he was forced to play the last song of the night. “This one’s

for you, Mom,” he said, and the rat-a-tat drums of “Sinnerman” began. Wendy laughed, whiskey dribbling down her chin.

“What’s funny?” Daniela said.

“Oh, earlier I said I’d like to die while dancing to this song, so it’s a little eerie that it’s being played.”

“Let’s get up and dance, then.”

She and Daniela began to dance, and Wendy felt twenty again, the room spinning but in a good way, Daniela twenty again too,

at least looking like she was. Walter shimmied over, dancing with his elbows locked in close to his sides, and whispered into

her ear, “Please stay alive.”

“I know, right?” Wendy said, laughing hard enough that she stopped dancing for a moment.

Then she was moving again, wondering where Thom was, surprised he wasn’t back on the dance floor.

Then she spotted him leaning up against the bar talking with Ellen Larson.

Thom was gesticulating with his hands, Ellen leaning a little back, but she had a relaxed half smile on her face.

Just flirting, Wendy told herself, but she kept an eye on them for the next ten minutes.

Who even invited Ellen? And hadn’t she had a baby recently?

What was she doing out in the middle of the night?

Daniela grabbed her hands and they swung around, the song tailing toward its conclusion, Nina Simone singing “power” again

and again. When it finally ended and Daniela and she stood there, breathing hard, sweating, both laughing, Wendy swung her

head around to see who was still at the party. Someone turned on the overhead fluorescent lights and the room was bathed in

a harsh glow, illuminating the ragged tackiness of the VFW hall and the motley assortment of the party’s remaining guests.

Thom was coming toward her, a glass of something in his hand. Ellen was gone all of a sudden.

“Here, drink this,” Thom said.

“Are you crazy?”

“It’s water.”

“Oh.” Wendy drank, the water tasting better than anything she’d consumed that night, even though she was a little annoyed

that Thom was trying to take care of her.

They were driven home by Jason and Laura in Jason’s Kia. They sat together in the backseat like two kids while Jason continued

to play music from his phone that was somehow coming out of his car speakers. Jason dropped them off then pulled out of the

gravel driveway to take Laura to her home on the other side of town.

When they got into the house Thom asked Wendy if she’d like a nightcap in the living room.

“God, no. I need to get into bed.”

She went upstairs, surprised that Thom followed her, talking about the highs and lows of the party.

“Aren’t you drunk?” Wendy said.

Thom laughed. “Strangely, no. I told myself to alternate every alcoholic beverage with a glass of water and then I actually

stuck to my own plan, and now I’m completely sober.”

“That makes one of us.”

“Good, I’m glad you had fun.”

“I’m not sure I did.” Wendy had stripped off all her clothes and crawled under the covers.

“You looked like you were having fun.”

“I had fun with Daniela. I had fun dancing. What was going on with you and that mousy girl from down the street?”

“Who, Ellen?”

“Yeah, Ellen. Didn’t she just have a baby?”

“She only came to the party for an hour. Didn’t she say happy birthday to you?”

“If she did, I don’t remember. She clearly came to see you.”

Thom pulled on the flannel pajama bottoms he liked to sleep in and got into his side of the bed, propping himself up on his

pillows. “Are you jealous of a twenty-five-year-old new mom?”

“Jesus, Thom. Of course not. I’m just scared you’re going to get drunk and decide that whatever teenager you’re obsessed with

should hear all about how you married a monster.”

“I don’t think you’re a monster. You know that.”

“Maybe you should think of me as a monster.”

“Why is that?”

“You’re not the only murderer in this family, you know. You’re just the only one who can’t move past it.” Despite how tired

she was, her spoken words felt cathartic, like the beginning of something.

“Sure, sure,” Thom said. “We were in it together.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said. “It’s... never mind. It’s late. I’m drunk. Jason will be back soon.”