“Yes.” Clarice had been trying not to take her eye off Samantha and Barry, but she had lost them.

“You know, there are a lot of African-American girls in Charlotte’s class. Which I think is great. I’m a hundred percent behind diversity,” Judy continued. “And some of them live on Park Avenue or Central Park West, and that’s just a lot more convenient.”

Clarice looked at Judy. “Have you seen Charlie Acton?”

“Beg your pardon?” Judy couldn’t make the connection from the African-American elite to Charlie Acton.

“Dr. Acton. Have you seen him?”

“He must be here somewhere.”

“Would you excuse me?” Clarice got up and followed the blue twinkling light to the exit. Her body was breaking into a cold sweat and she couldn’t bear to be in the room for another minute.

The hallway was empty except for a couple of three-hundred-pound security guards.

“Can I help you, miss?”

“No, I’m fine.” Clarice held on to the wall. “Where’s the ladies’ room? I’m not feeling very well.” She took her baseball cap off, which left her hair damp and uncharacteristically matted.

“It’s up the steps. You want me to take you?” the guard asked.

“No, I’m fine,” she answered, still holding on to the wall.

“Watch out for those steps. This church was condemned until they decided to have this party here.”

Clarice climbed the steps slowly. Her head was now spinning from the continuous loud music, the lack of food, and only Perrier Jouët and Dr Pepper to drink. She thought she’d lie down on the floor in the ladies’ room until Barry was finished schmoozing and rat-fucking or whatever the hell he needed to do at these kinds of events.

Clarice grabbed hold of the knob of the door and pulled it open. In front of her was Samantha on her knees in the backless Diana Ross gown and Barry with his pants down.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

·CHAPTER NINETEEN·

Charlie

Charlie lost sight of Samantha before she began dancing with Barry. Since the time they first started dating, Samantha had made it clear to Charlie she had absolutely no interest in having a man hang on her. She far preferred for them to part at any function and then, later in bed, deliver to one another the evening’s choice anthropological findings.

“The only way to really enjoy a party,” she once told Charlie, “is to treat it like a dig. If you explore it in the right way, it will give you some serious insight into how we live. And since it all is meaningless, at least that way it can be a little funny.”

Charlie had begun talking to an African-American Princeton graduate who was planning to make an updated film of Genet’s The Blacks.

“How are you going to finance this?” Charlie asked.