RANDY WAS STILL super pissed, and it was like every time he laughed or had a decent time, he was doing it to spite Megan, who he was pretty sure he was going to break up with sooner rather than later after today. God, just look at her over there. She already looked hammered and it was only 9:00.

AMANDA KEPT SHOOTING Megan glances and getting kind of mad that Megan wasn’t coming over to say hello. Wouldn’t that be the big thing to do? Every time they’d ever gotten into a fight, Amanda had been the person to make up, and she wanted proof this time that Megan could be the bigger person. It would be good for Megan to practice some humility. Unless the truth was that Megan didn’t really want to be friends with Amanda, and in that case.

ADAM, HONEY, do you mind if Mommy goes to make a phone call?”

Adam shook his head.

MEGAN WONDERED if maybe she ought to go over and talk to Amanda and Carrie. What would happen if she walked over there and pretended like there was no beef between any of them? Would that be possible? That seemed to be everyone else’s policy. Maybe she could try it.

ANTHEA WAS TALKING out her issues with Peter, the guy she was at the party with, and she was wondering if it was better to keep sleeping with him without them dating, or if she should offer him some kind of ultimatum and then (probably) get dumped and then wait around for someone who actually wanted to treat her decently. Learning a little self-respect might be a good thing. She wasn’t so arrogant that she couldn’t admit she didn’t always have the most self-respect. She started nodding.

JILLIAN WENT INTO her bedroom and cradled her cell phone in her hands and looked at it and felt chilly because of the ac.

“WHAT IS YOUR, LIKE, ultimate goal? What would be the one wish you would ask to have granted right now, if you—I mean, if that could actually happen?”

Megan stumbled a little bit out of drunkenness and opened another beer. “I would like to have sex with an enormous man.”

Anthea started laughing.

“No, I don’t mean his penis or his height or anything. I mean enormous” she indicated this with her hands, spreading her arms wide and moving them in circular sorts of patterns, “—to me. Enormous to me. I want to be psychically overwhelmed by a magical sex man.”

Anthea started laughing.

“What about you?” asked Megan.

“I guess I want that, too.”

“Hey, lets go talk to my friend Amanda over there.”

“All right, I know her.”

RANDY WATCHED MEGAN and the girl walk across the lawn towards Amanda and Carrie.