At least Natalie had asked to borrow Roma’s car today before picking up the barbecue. She didn’t want to risk spilling sauce in her own car. She’d said so, and Roma had handed her the keys, as she always did. The seats were splattered and stained from all the times Natalie hadn’t even asked.
Well, what to do? Roma could find out the child’s address and take him home herself. It was strange: she’d felt a sense of recognition when she saw him coming around the yard, as if he belonged to her. In fact, she had felt a piercing, painful love, so when she laid her head on the kitchen table and talked about resting up for the party, she’d really wanted to cry.
She should have expected Natalie to do exactly this. Often when a group of girls were out and about—at the candy store where tourists jostled for sweets, or at the deli where sandwiches were named for the college dormitories—there’d be a particularly cute child feasting on a sundae, or a toddler flailing underfoot while its distracted parents dithered about burgers. Natalie would stop in her tracks and say, Oh, I’d like to steal that little thing. The other girls laughed, but Roma discerned a hint of craziness in the lilting voice and mournful gaze. She’d imagined Natalie snatching an infant from its mother’s arms or seizing a youngster from a schoolyard.
Natalie must have found Warren at the barbecue joint. She was a criminal, she ought to be in jail, his parents must be frantic. Roma had to figure out how to get Warren back to safety and keep the sorority out of trouble, but the next wave of girls was surging through the door, violently cheery.
She dried her face on an owl-themed towel and stepped into the hall. She liked all the girls, even those who sent her hand to her hip. She didn’t want college ever to end, because then the rush parties would be over, and every autumn of her life, she would miss them.
She would grow old with missing them.
“Hi, I’m Stephanie,” cried a girl in a plaid wool suit. Whoever heard of wearing wool in this climate, the first week of September?
“Where are you from?” Roma asked.
“Alexandria,” came the answer. Or had she said Winchester? Roma’s ears buzzed with the soprano clamor. “I’m a business major, unless I switch to poli sci.”
“We do stress scholarship in our sorority,” Roma said.
“If I don’t get in, I’m going to kill myself.” The girl flexed her red-frosted lips.
“Some have,” said Roma, as sweat crept from the edges of the plaid wool.
* * *
WARREN dreamed about Aunt Tate and the game they played on hot evenings. They were out in the backyard and Aunt Tate was making an arc of water with the garden hose. Under the rainbow, she called it. He raced back and forth under the waterfall until Aunt Tate turned the hose on him full blast, driving him down to the grass. It felt ticklish, cool, and wonderful.
There in the quiet, sunlit room, he woke up and remembered about Natalie. Merry voices drifted through the floorboards. He wanted to find Natalie and learn the choo-choo song. He climbed down from the bunk and went downstairs into a crowd of flowered sundresses.
A girl knelt beside him and said, “Whose boy are you?” She had freckles on her nose and clinky bracelets on her arm.
“I’m Warren.”
The girls laughed, looking around at the others with raised eyebrows.
Roma appeared, her blonde curls gone frizzy, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Let’s get you some punch,” she said, but the gladness had gone out of her voice.
The punch was pink, with slices of lemon floating in it. There were cookies and gumdrops in crystal bowls, which Roma offered to him. Natalie came over, shaking glitter out of her black hair, and swooped down to hug him.
“Did you have a good nap?” she said.
“Natalie, you should have changed out of your jeans,” Roma said. “You know the rules.”
“Oh, fiddle,” Natalie said. “I didn’t want to come back to these stupid parties. Guess what? I got married.”
Roma’s cheeks turned pink like the punch.
“You really did? Who?”
Natalie paused. “Oh, it’s just a joke.”
“Funny,” Roma said, but she wasn’t laughing.
“Warren, Roma is very important,” Natalie said. “She’s our president.”
“Oh,” he said, but somehow he felt she was making fun of Roma. “Natalie’s a queen. Did you know that?” he said to Roma.
Natalie knelt down and clasped his hands, her grip warm and tight.
“I’ll take good care of you,” she said.
He gazed back at her, his mouth tasting of peppermint gumdrops. His stomach rumbled.
“I heard that little tummy growl,” she said. “We’ll have pizza after the last party. What do you like on yours?”
“Green peppers.”
“Me too,” Natalie said. He was surprised to see tears in her eyes.
“Where do you live, Warren?” Roma asked.
“At 4920 Grace Road,” he said.
Roma nodded slowly. “I think I know where that is. Is it near a grocery store?”
“Yes.”
Natalie pulled him against her hip and held him there. Her legs felt as slim and sturdy as the young trees in his backyard. She and Roma were arguing. He tried to follow what they were saying, but all he understood was they were mad because of him.
“Haven’t you ever seen somebody and just loved them?” Natalie said. “I saw his eyes and I had to. I knew he could love me back.”
“You are so selfish,” Roma said. “How do you think his parents feel right now? If you take him home right now, I won’t tell anybody.”
“Don’t fight,” said Warren. He was thinking of the way his mama and daddy used to get so mad at each other.
“It’s all right, Warren,” said Natalie. “We’re at a party. We’re having fun.”
“I had a dream,” he said, the happiness of that dream coming back to him. “Aunt Tate was making a rainbow in the yard.”
But somebody tapped Natalie on the shoulder and she turned away, so it was Roma who bent down to listen to him.
* * *
IN the breaks between parties, when there were only sisters in the house, the kitchen was the place to be. Girls shrieked as they plunged their bare feet into a tub of ice water, churning it up and down, yelling as they slipped ice cubes down each other’s backs. Climbing out of the tub, they groaned as they rubbed ice across their cheeks and foreheads and arms.
A current of fire ran from Roma’s heels all the way to her scalp—exhaustion or adrenaline, she didn’t know which. There had been seven parties in five hours. One more, only one, to go. She ordered two sophomores to drag the tub out and dump it in the yard. The others scurried to find their shoes in the heap on the kitchen floor.
She closed her eyes as the bell rang again, the next-to-last rush bell she would ever hear. The bell