Clara looked away from the hallway where Max and the girl had disappeared. “What are you talking about, my belle?”

“She’s a little soused,” Henry said, putting his hand to Effie’s back.

“I’m as soused as I ought to be. It’s a party, isn’t it?”

Clara laughed. “It certainly is!”

The beat let loose again and they were jostled but Effie cried over the music: “I used to think you were an awful person!”

Clara laughed again and cried, “What?”

“You and Holly,” Effie said, bobbing her shoulders to her own beat. “I used to think you were terrible! Well—you were terrible! I used to pray for your souls, but I didn’t mean it. I’d say, ‘Lord, please don’t send Holly and Clara to hell on my account, I’m sure they don’t know any better.’”

Clara stopped dancing and looked down at her incredulously. “Effie Mae, are you trying to tell me a joke?”

Henry took Effie’s arm and told her to stop it, but she jerked away. “Quit clutching me, Henry—damn! I’m not saying anything bad. I am building up to a compliment, in fact.”

“What a relief,” Clara said.

“I’m talking to Clara anyhow. As a matter of fact,” Effie said, placing her hand on Henry’s chest, “why don’t you go fix yourself a drink and let us two have some girl time?”

Clara looked at him and shrugged; she seemed content to hear whatever Effie had to say. And what did he care? He didn’t know these people. He left Effie to do what she would—to put her foot in her mouth, if that’s what she wanted. To hell with it.

Behind the bar, he made his best guess at a gin and tonic. He poured it half and half over the last fistful of ice from the bucket, and the first swallow seared his throat. Never mind: it would be a sipping drink. He was in a state of inebriation in which he felt in full possession of himself and at the same time in complete control of the room, free to wander anywhere, drop in on any conversation, or just stand and watch people without feeling self-conscious. He saw Scott dancing with a woman who wasn’t his wife—as far as Henry understood—and his hands were lost up the back of her skirt. For shame, he thought, and laughed. Elsewhere a group of young men was huddled close together near the foyer, around a small table on which sat a transistor radio, talking excitedly about something to do with the Soviets, and when one of them looked at him warily he had the thrilling idea that they might be covert Communists, of the sort that had supposedly infiltrated the upper echelons of American society—here, it was possible!—and quickly he left them to their business.