The party was in an old U-shaped motel that had been converted into apartments. I shouldn’t have gone; I was still smarting from Margolis’s verbal kick in the teeth, still racked with embarrassment and humiliation. The party was loud. I heard it long before I reached it: screams and laughter and that Kate Bush song that just wouldn’t go away. Across the leaf-covered swimming pool, on the opposite side of the complex, a handful of guys leaned in a door way, holding beers and watching us. I pushed through the crowd until I found Frankie.

“Brother!” he said, throwing his arm around my neck.

For the first time in my life, the term irked me. I had no idea why, since my recent altercation had had nothing to do with my being someone’s brother—unless that was part of it, in which case I was even more of a mess than I thought.

“The host is insane,” Frankie said. “He’s already threatened to throw everyone out because somebody broke his Hummel. He owned a Hummel, can you believe that? But he’s got this whole door-prize thing he wants to do later, so I think we’re safe.”

Someone stepped between us, right in front of me, and spoke into Frankie’s ear. Frankie dug into his pocket. When the guy stepped away, he said, “You want a beer?”

“What’s that?” I pointed to his pocket.

“Nothing.” He grinned. “I’m just glad to see you.”

“Cough it up.”

“What is this, a shakedown?”

“I want some,” I said.

“No you don’t.”

“Don’t tell me what I want. I’m two years older than you.” I was suddenly fuming. I took hold of his ear.

“Ow!”

“Give it,” I said.

He jerked his head away and stabbed his fingers into his pocket. “Here, grouch. Do you even know what it’s called?”

He’d extracted a single beige capsule and was holding it in his palm between us. I shrugged as if it didn’t make any difference. “MDA,” he said. “Which is …?”

“I don’t care.”

“Care,” he said. “It’s just about everything out there right now, combined into one.”

“Do you take it?”

“Occasionally.”

I scooped it out of his palm.

“Half,” he said. “You’ll be flying if you take the whole thing.”

“I want to fly.” With that, the capsule was on my tongue. I borrowed a beer from the nearest person, and swigged.

“Jesus,” Frankie said. He looked at me with the gravest, most adult expression I’d ever seen on his face. “Stick close, okay?”

I didn’t want to. Chip walked up and smirked at the two of us. I found a beer of my own, and shoved off into the crowd.