By then it had started getting light outside and I had to leave. Nick sat up watching me put my dress back on. I didn’t know what to say to him. We looked at one another with agonised expressions and then looked away. Downstairs in my room I couldn’t sleep. I sat on my bed, holding my knees against my chest and watching the light move through the chink in the shutters. Eventually I opened up the window and looked out at the sea. It was dawn, and the sky was silvery blue and exquisite. In the room above I could hear Nick walking around. If I closed my eyes I felt that I was very close to him, close enough to hear him breathing. I sat at the window that way until I heard doors opening upstairs, and the dog barking, and the coffee machine switched on for breakfast.
15
The following night, Evelyn wanted to play a game where we split into teams and entered names of famous people into a large bowl. You drew a name out of the bowl and your teammates had to ask yes or no questions about the name until they figured out who it was. It was dark and we were sitting in the living room with the lights on and the shutters open. Occasionally a moth would fly in through the window and Nick would catch it in his hands and throw it back out again, while Derek encouraged him to kill it. Bobbi told Derek to stop and he said, don’t tell me animal rights extend to moths now, do they? Bobbi’s lips were stained dark with wine, she was drunk.
No, Bobbi said. Just kill it yourself if you want it to die.
Melissa and Derek and I were on one team together, and Nick and Bobbi and Evelyn were on the other. Melissa brought out another bottle of wine while we were writing down the names and putting them into the bowl, though we’d already had a lot of wine at dinner. Nick put his hand over his empty water glass when Melissa offered. They seemed to share a look of some kind before she went away to refill her own.
First it was the other team’s turn, and Nick was drawing out the names. He read the first one and frowned and then went oh, okay. Bobbi asked if it was a man and he said no. Is it a woman? she said. Yes, yeah. Evelyn asked if she was a politician or an actress or a sportsperson, she wasn’t any of those. Bobbi said, a musician? And Nick said, not that I know of, no.
Is this person famous? Bobbi said.
Well, define famous, he said.
Do we all know who this person is? said Evelyn.
You both definitely do, Nick said.
Oh, said Bobbi. Okay, so, is this someone we know in real life?
He said it was. Melissa and Derek and I were sitting wordlessly watching this. I became very conscious of the wine glass in my hand, holding the stem too hard against my thumb.
Is it someone you like? Bobbi said. Or don’t like?
Me personally? Yeah, I like her.
And does she like you? said Bobbi.
Is that really going to help you figure out who it is? he said.
It might, said Bobbi.
I don’t know, he said.
So you like her, but you don’t know if she likes you, said Bobbi. Do you not know her very well? Or is she mysterious?
He shook his head and laughed to himself, like he found this line of questioning extremely stupid. I sensed that Melissa and Derek and I had all become quite still. No one was talking or drinking any more.
I guess it’s a little of both, he said.
You don’t know her very well and she’s mysterious? said Evelyn.
Is she smarter than you? Bobbi said.
Yeah, though a lot of people are. These questions don’t seem very strategic.
Okay, okay, said Bobbi. Is this person more emotional, or more rational?
Oh, rational, I guess.
Like, unemotional, said Bobbi. Emotionally unintelligent.
What? No. That’s not what I said.
A dull heat rose into my face and I looked into my glass. I thought Nick seemed faintly agitated, or at least not cool and relaxed like he usually pretended to be, and then I wondered when I’d decided he was pretending.
Extrovert or introvert? said Evelyn.
Introvert I would think, Nick said.
Young or old? said Evelyn.
Young, definitely young.
This person is a child? said Bobbi.
No, no, an adult. Jesus.
An adult woman, okay, said Bobbi. And do you think you’d find her attractive in a swimsuit?
Nick looked at Bobbi for an excruciatingly long second, and then put the piece of paper down.
Bobbi already knows who it is, said Nick.
We all know who it is, Melissa said quietly.
I don’t, said Evelyn. Who is it? Is it you, Bobbi?
Bobbi grinned a little mischievous grin and said, it was Frances. I watched her, but I couldn’t figure out who this performance had been aimed at. Bobbi herself was the only person who found it amusing, but that didn’t seem to bother her; she looked like it had played out just as she intended. I realised, stupidly late, that she had almost certainly put my name into the bowl in the first place. I was reminded of her wildness, her tendency to get inside things and break them open, and I felt fearful of her, not for the first time. She wanted to expose something private about how I felt, to turn it from a secret into something else, a joke or a game.