A bunch of people were lined up on the couch, drinking, and beside them the TV was on with just static, a soundless blur. I couldn’t hear, the music was so loud, and I kept having to step over people sitting on the floor and backed against the walls, as I followed Macon to the kitchen.

He seemed to know everybody, people reaching out to slap his shoulder as he passed, his name floating over my head in different voices. At the keg he filled up a cup for me, then himself, while I tried to make myself as small as possible to fit in the tiny space behind him.

Macon handed me my beer and I sucked most of it down right away out of nervousness. He grinned and filled it again, then motioned me to follow him down a hallway, past a trash can overflowing with beer cans, to a bedroom.

“Knock-knock,” he said as we walked in. A guy was sitting on the bed, and there was a girl with him, leaning over the side. The room was small and dark, with just a candle lit on the headboard, one with cabinets and shelves, like in my parents’ room.

“Hey, hey,” said the guy on the bed, who had short hair and a tattoo on his arm. “What’s up, man?”

“Not much.” Macon sat down at the foot of the bed. “This is Halley. Halley, this is Ronnie.”

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello.” Ronnie had very sleepy eyes and his hair was short and spiky, black, his voice low and gravelly. He slid his hand across the bed to the leg of the girl beside him, who gave up on whatever she was looking for on the floor and started to lift her head out of the shadows.

“I lost my damn earring,” she said, as her hair slid across her face, and I could make out her mouth. “It rolled under the bed and I can’t reach it.” As she sat upright, her features all falling into place, she looked at me, and I looked right back. It was Elizabeth Gunderson.

“Hey,” she said to Macon, doing that hair swing, so out of place here. “Hi, Halley.”

“Hi.” I was still staring at her. She was wearing a T-shirt that was too big on her and shorts, obviously not what she’d come to the party in. Elizabeth Gunderson worked fast.

Ronnie reached down beside the bed, on the floor, and picked up a purple bong, which he handed to Macon. I sucked down the rest of my beer, just to have something to do, as he took the hit and handed it back.

“You want one?” Ronnie asked me, and I could feel Elizabeth watching me as she lit a cigarette. I wondered what her father, with his Ralph Lauren looks and BMW, would think if he could see her. I wondered what my father would think of me. As she watched me, in the dark, I could have sworn she was smiling.

“Sure,” I said, pushing the thought of my father away as quickly as it came. I handed Macon my empty cup and took the bong, pressing it to my mouth the way I’d seen it done at other parties. He lit it and I breathed in, the smoke curling up toward my mouth, thicker and thicker, until there was a sudden rush of air and my lungs were full, hot. I held it until it hurt and then blew it out, the smoke thick against my teeth.

“Thanks,” I said to Ronnie, handing it back as Macon slid his hand across my back. He’d been wrong. I could fit in here. I could fit in anywhere.

After a while Ronnie and Macon went outside to do something and left me and Elizabeth alone in the dark together. He handed me his beer as he left, which I downed half of because I was suddenly so thirsty, my tongue sticking to my lips. I’d never been stoned before, so I didn’t know what to think about what I was feeling. I wasn’t about to ask Elizabeth Gunderson, who had taken three bong hits before I lost count and was now stretched out across the bed, smoking, examining her toes. I was still perched at the foot, looking at the shag carpet which was suddenly fascinating, and wondering why I’d never tried this before.

“So,” she said suddenly, rolling over onto her stomach. “When’s Scarlett due, anyway?”

“May,” I said, and my voice sounded strange to me. “The second week, or something.”

“I can’t believe she’s having Michael’s baby,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t even know they’d hooked up.”

I licked my lips again, taking a tiny sip of beer, then looked around Ronnie’s room, at the towels hung over the window for a curtain, at the Penthouse magazine by my foot, at the litter box that was by the door. I didn’t see any cat.

Then I remembered I was talking to Elizabeth, so I thought back to what we’d been saying, which was hard, and then said, “They didn’t hook up. They went out all summer.”

“Did they?” Elizabeth said. Her voice didn’t sound strange at all. “I had no idea.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, taking another precious sip of my beer, which was warm and flat. “They were really in love.”

“I didn’t know,” she said slowly. “They must have been awfully secretive about it. I saw Michael a lot last summer, and he never mentioned her.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I had the feeling we were getting into sticky territory, so I changed the subject. Scarlett didn’t belong in this room, in this place, any more than my mother did. “So is Ronnie your boyfriend?”

She laughed, like she knew something I didn’t. “Boyfriend? No. He’s just—Ronnie.”

“Oh.”

“It’s funny that she’s keeping the baby,” Elizabeth said, pulling Scarlett right back between us. “I mean, it’s going to ruin her life.”