An hour or so later, Alice was leaning against a pillar at the back of the dining room, in the shadows of a tall, leafy plant, watching Tommy listen intently to something the Harvard girl—a pretty redhead, not remotely bespectacled, greasy, or tic-afflicted—was saying. She was watching so hard she didn’t realize someone was standing beside her. She turned. It was Cybill, engrossed in a heartache-y scene of her own, arms crossed tightly across her chest so that it appeared as if she was hugging herself, and almost to the point of pain. Alice tracked her gaze, followed it out the window, over to Jude. He was on the porch, on his hands and knees, trying to get to his feet. He was by himself now. No college-girl tennis pro around. He was so drunk or high, he was like one of those cartoon characters stuck in glue, couldn’t pull himself up off the ground.

“He didn’t used to be like this,” Cybill said, softly, almost to herself.

At last Jude gave up the struggle, stopped scrambling, and just collapsed, lay there on his back, limbs splayed, mouth open, a bit of drool trickling out the side. His sunglasses had fallen off his pretty doll’s face and onto his chest, looking to Alice’s eye like a small black bra. “Oh yeah?” Alice said. “He seems to me like the kind of guy who was born wild.”

“Wild, yes. But not out of control.”

“When did it change?”

“A year ago.”

“A year ago,” Alice repeated, her brain starting to buzz, make connections.

Cybill blinked, like she suddenly realized that she was talking in a personal way to someone she barely knew, and wasn’t even sure she liked. Her voice got louder, harder, more flip: an in-public voice. “Yeah, a year ago. You know, when his dad got elected to office. Mr. Devlin stopped being around, Jude started acting out. Cries for attention and all that. Typical kid-of-a-famous-person behavior.”

“His dad got elected two years ago.”

Cybill rolled her eyes. “Okay, two years ago. Whatever. Minor computational error. God, I didn’t realize you were president of the math club.”

“No, I don’t think you did make a computational error. It was a year ago that he changed. Right around the time he got involved with Camilla. Isn’t that right?” When Cybill failed to respond: “Isn’t it?”

Cybill looked at Alice, and Alice could see she was trying to decide something. Finally she nodded.