Page 62 of The Black Table
I may not be well-versed in parties, but I’m starting to see the pattern. It’s less about what you haven’t done, and more about what your friends have, and how you can get them sloppy drunk on their own indiscretion. The game circles around, mercifully inthe opposite direction from me, as confessions are solicited, or offered, and with pride.
I start to think about what I’ll say when it’s my turn.Never have I ever gotten less than a B on a language exam. Never have I ever had a curfew because my parents knew I would never leave the house because I had no friends. Never have I ever…My thoughts trail off as a slight shift tilts itself under the legs of my chair. I flatten my palms on the table for purchase. Look up at the chandelier.
The wine,I think.Way too much now. And it’s coming on all at once, like a bunch of ice cubes rushing from the bottom of the glass, hitting me in the face.
I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry, and my throat feels tight behind the impressive red collar of the Valentino dress. There’s ice water, I realize, and I take a sip, but it does little to assuage the thick feeling in my mouth and throat. I’ve been drunk before, but this is…I’m not sure. Different. Banquet drunk, I suppose.
The girl on Elena’s other side is thinking, “Never have I ever…” She drums her fingers against her jaw. “Had sex while my parents were home.”
Plenty of drinks at that. Even Elena takes a little sip, looking the tiniest bit embarrassed, although I feel like it’s for show. “Only halfway,” she says. “It doesn’t really count.” But she scoffs, tosses her head. “My turn?” she asks.
Everyone nods. I do too, except that my head feels heavy when I do it, rocking back and forth like my brain is sloshing with its own momentum.Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, get yourself together.I know the stewards are quick on the refills, but can I really be this trashed? On wine? It’s not like I don’t have a full stomach.I gorged myself on that fish. And I got seconds of the garlic toast. I even had a real lunch today, more than just an apple or almonds.
And still, I brace my thumb and forefinger against my temple, gently rest my elbow against the table, manners be damned. Things are spinning, fading, sliding.I need to get a grip.
“Let’s see,” Elena says, biting the tip of her thumb. It’s obviously fake consideration. I can tell. She knows exactly what she wants to tell all of us and is just making us wait for the theatricality of it all. Which, considering the state of my head, my body, I don’t appreciate at all.
Somewhere, in another universe, stewards are coming around with dessert plates, some sort of small chocolate cake that smells bitter and coffee-like, with a cinnamon-freckled cream dolloped on top of it. But I can barely think about dessert, let alone the sweet-smelling port that they’re dosing out into snifters.
“Never have I ever,” Elena says. “Never have I ever. Oh, I know,” she says, her voice too perky, too certain. It makes my stomach feel like a block of ice before I even know why. “Never have I ever been locked up in a mental hospital.”
A few gasps, some uneasy giggles, and she’s looking right at me. Soon everyone else is, too.
“I promise,” she says, her voice distant, echoing. Her face, more a general area than something I can pinpoint.
I move my hand from my temple to the table again, press the other one next to it, pushing down, trying to be steady.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Elena says, and draws a cross right above her heart, on the tan, expansive skin beneath her collarbone.
Right where my scar is.
Nobody moves. Nobody even laughs or says anything, let alone drinks. But Elena doesn’t take her eyes off of me.
“Shouldn’t you take a drink, Gwenna?” she says, her voice cool but friendly, non-confrontational. “Or was that something you were trying to hide from everyone?”
I can’t answer, won’t answer. My tongue is too thick, my temples are pounding.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I push off on the table, stand up, the chair scooting behind me, and the men in the generalvicinity leap up from their chairs, showing sloppy decorum, but I wave them away.
“No, it’s…” I try to explain. “I’m going to…” I lurch to the side, clutch one of the chairs for balance.
“Oh my God,” I hear a female voice whisper, “she’s drunk.”
I’m not,I think.I mean, I am, but something’s not right.
“I have to go,” I mutter, I think, or at least I hear the words in my head, as I take loping, uneven steps down the length of the table, to the sound of ghoulish laughter, and out the arched doorways, to the foyer, and out into the night.
I gasp for air.
It hurts, burns to breathe, and nothing feels stable underneath me, like trying to walk across a treadmill that keeps changing direction, and these stupid fucking shoes aren’t helping. I’ve been tipsy before, been drunk once or twice, actually, enough to rush back home and quietly vomit into my bathroom toilet, hoping my mom would never hear. But this feels different.
This feels…
Maybe I’m sick. Freshmen come down with things all the time, don’t they? Mononucleosis, the flu. Meningitis.
I press a hand to my forehead, suddenly clammy, and realize I’m sweating all over. Sweating in this beautiful dress that I don’t deserve to have, my stomach churning up the gourmet food I didn’t even want to eat, my feet teetering beneath me, and I stagger along the cobblestone path toward Broceliande, and room 326.
Somehow, I make it to the room, just as my stomach gives a heavy lurch. I barely make it to the bathroom sink. Wine, bile, something, whatever it is, it all comes up. I wretch, feverish, wobbling, my knees giving out, and I catch my reflection in the mirror, pale as powder, sweating, lips flushed, eyes bloodshot.
