Wow, Alice thought, guess Charlie was right about that punch-in-the-mouth thing. Cybill acted like a bitch, and then Charlie acted like an even bigger one. Now Cybill was still acting like a bitch, only not to Charlie and Alice. To Charlie and Alice she was going out of her way to be nice. Nice for her, anyway.

“Not that this is going to mean anything to you,” Cybill said, as she weaved her way through the sea of white bucks and pastel plaid bow ties, frosted lipsticks and ballet flats, “but I’m looking for a guy named Jude.”

“A dude named Jude,” Charlie said. “Okay.”

“He always keeps a little something on hand. But if I can’t find him, you’re just going to have to wait for the party to start killing brain cells.”

“We’re at the party.”

“No, we’re at the geezer party. I mean the real party, which begins as soon as this one ends.”

With a subtle tilt of her head, Cybill gestured to the couple they were passing on the left. The woman was pretty, underweight, brittle-looking. The man was heavy, but in a way that conveyed prosperity and success, not laziness and loserdom. Like he’d gained the weight not from sitting on the couch drinking beer and watching reruns, but from eating the very best cuts of meat and drinking the very best vintages of wine in the very best restaurants. His red, jowly face and shellacked-looking thatch of reddish-brown hair rang a faint bell. So did his loud, braying voice. He was trying to get the woman to eat a crab cake. “Come on, Bits,” he said, holding the fork to her mouth like she was a baby in a highchair, “just take a little bite. One teensy-weensy bite for me.”

The woman smiled coyly, shook her head.

“That’s lieutenant governor Billy Devlin and his wife, Betsey,” Cybill said. “Also known as Jude’s mom and dad.”

“Oh yeah,” Charlie said, her face lighting up in recognition. “From Massachusetts. Our mother campaigned against him. Not that he should take it personally. She hates Republicans on principle.”

“You might want to tell her to keep her preference on the down-low around here.”

“I’ll tell her, but she won’t listen.”

“Self-preservation isn’t really her thing,” Alice added.

Charlie laughed, said with affection, “No, it is not. Hey, if we can’t find the son, let’s hit up the mom. Her pupils are so dilated her eyes are almost all black. Whatever she’s on, I want some.”

“Valium or Xanax, most likely,” Cybill said. “She spent the spring detoxing in a luxury rehab facility in Sonoma Valley.”

“Well, looks like she’s going to be spending the summer de-detoxing in the Valley of the Dolls.”