The liquid in my surprisingly dainty teacup had a yellowish tone and a slightly sluggish movement, almost syrupy. I had seen some of them sipping at their cups and others tossing it back as I came in. I can already tell that I’m not going to like this, I thought even as I lifted the cup to my lips and swallowed the contents.
The liquor hit the back of my tongue, burned its way down my throat, and scorched my chest before settling uneasily in my belly. I opened my mouth, dragonish, to suck back a mouthful of air to calm the fiery sting. I had had worse, but not often, and not recently. I shook my head hard, and the table burst into laughter, and in the case of one boy, applause.
“Here, here, have another,” the girl said, and I was smart enough to get the bottle away from her even if my grasp felt a little shaky.
“No, darling, no, I saw you, let me…”
I fumbled for her cup, slopping more in than out. She lifted it to me in an ironic salute before taking a ladylike sip and pulling it away from her lips.
“Oh, is that the way I’m meant to do it?” I asked, mock-aghast. “I just don’t know anything…”
It started what sounded like a familiar fight at the table, conducted half in English and half in something else, fast and fervent and intense. The girl next to me took another sip, giving me a smile that was entirely in her eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was friendly or not.
“So Khai invited a girl who doesn’t know anything.”
“Well, I know that I don’t know anything,” I said, leaning in. “Maybe you could teach me…”
She narrowed her eyes at that, leaning back away from me in a way that made me sit up straighter. Of course this wasn’t the Cendrillon, and it wasn’t Peggy’s either, the tiny little place under the Porter Bowling Alley which was mostly for girls and only served up pickled hard-boiled eggs from enormous jars of brine for refreshments. I had forgotten, so I lifted my chin and pretended I hadn’t forgotten anything.
“What’s someone like you come here to learn?” she asked.
“How about your name for a start?”
She hesitated as if even that was asking for the moon, and then she shrugged.
“Bai. What’s yours?”
“Jordan Baker,” I responded, and she gave me a confused look.
“No, your right name,” she said, and I scooted back a little farther.
“It is my right name,” I said coolly. “You can use it or you can pick out something better to call me.”
She frowned as if trying to decide if she wanted to name me, and then the steel door burst open and a whole new group of people came in, led by Khai. They were half-in, half-out of what I now knew to be costumes for their act, and they were trailing bits of paper behind them, slivers of turquoise that slithered through the air like snakes, shreds of pink that blew into cherry blossoms as I looked, scraps of crimson that landed on one girl’s long sleeve to smolder there before a helpful boy beat it to steam with the flat of his hand.
More importantly, they had two more bottles of alcohol, and despite how little I liked the stuff, I felt a jolt of relief.
The night got fuzzy after that. Bai insisted on filling my glass again, and so I filled hers in vengeance, and I know that someone laughed at us and someone else was trying to explain the history of the liquor to me, though I listened as well as I ever did, which was to say, not at all. I remembered throwing my arm around Bai’s shoulder and having her shove me off quickly, and then I went and leaned against Khai, who liked it a little better though not as much as I wanted him to.
At some point, after everyone was red-faced and staggering a little, people started pulling out the most delicate scissors I had ever seen, spindly as storks with long narrow blades and deadly sharp tips.