“You don’t drink because you’re a wuss,” Janelle told her. “Joe’s not. Isn’t that right?”

“It’s just—I’ve never tried it,” Joe said.

“Not even with your friends?”

Joe stammered, trying to push out a response. But it was too late. Janelle pounced.

“What? No friends, either?”

“I have friends,” Joe said, a prickle in his voice.

“A girlfriend?” Janelle asked, teasing.

“Maybe. I-I don’t know what she is.”

Behind Quincy, Betz whispered, “Imaginary is my guess.”

Janelle glared at her before turning back to Joe, saying, “Then you’ll have quite a story to tell the next time you see her.”

She began to pour, splashing liquor from several bottles into a cup and filling it the rest of the way with orange juice. She took the cup to Joe, forcing his fingers around the red plastic.

“Drink up.”

Joe tipped his face toward the cup instead of the other way around, his nose dipping bird-like beneath the rim. A cough rose from inside the cup. His first sip. When he came up for air, his eyes were wide and goofy.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“Okay? You totally love it,” Janelle replied.

Joe smacked his lips together. “It’s too sweet.”

“I can fix that.” Janelle grabbed the cup from his hands as quickly as she had put it into them. Then she was back at the bar, snatching a lemon and searching her work area.

“Does anyone have a knife?”

She spotted one on the counter, a carving knife intended for the chicken Amy and Betz were preparing. Grabbing it, Janelle pushed it into the lemon, slicing through peel, pulp and, ultimately, her finger.

“Dammit!”

At first, Quincy thought she was being dramatic for Joe’s sake. Giving him what the rest of them had dubbed “The Janelle Show” behind her back. But then she saw the blood pumping from Janelle’s finger, spilling over the paper napkin pressed against it, littering the counter in drops the size of rose petals.

“Ow,” Janelle whimpered, tears forming. “Ouch, owie, ow.”

Quincy swooped in behind her, cooing, performing her roommate-appointed duty to soothe. “It’ll be okay. Lift your hand. Put pressure on it.”

She flailed around the kitchen, searching for a first-aid kit while Janelle hopped from foot to foot, wincing at the sight of all that blood. “Hurry,” she urged.

Quincy found a tin of Band-Aids beneath the sink. The old-fashioned kind with a hinged, flip-top lid. So old she couldn’t remember the last time she had a similar pack in her own house. She grabbed the biggest Band-Aid she could find and wrapped it around Janelle’s finger, begging her to hold still.

“All done,” Quincy said, backing away, hands raised. “You’re good as new.”

The drama lured Joe off the couch. He hovered nearby, watching Janelle examine her bandaged finger. He lowered his gaze to the knife on the counter and its blood-splotched blade.

“That looks sharp,” he said, picking up the knife and touching the pad of his index finger against its tip. “You need to be more careful.”

He stared at Janelle and Quincy, as if seeking assurances that they would be. Beads of liquid clung to his bottom lip—remnants of his first cocktail. He wiped them away with the back of his hand and, knife still in his grip, licked his lips.

CHAPTER 13

Jeff retrieves me a half-hour later, summoned by Jonah Thompson, who found his number on my cell phone, which I handed to him when he asked me the name of an emergency contact person, shortly after I puked all over his shoes. I’m in the lobby ladies room when he arrives, hunched over a toilet even though my stomach feels as squeezed dry as an empty water bottle. It’s up to one of Jonah’s co-workers to fetch me from the stall. A tiny bird of a reporter named Emily who nervously calls to me from just inside the door, like I’m someone contagious, someone to be feared.

Back at the apartment, Jeff puts me to bed in spite of protests that I’m feeling much better. Apparently, I’m not, for I’m asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. I sleep fitfully for the rest of the afternoon, only vaguely aware of either Jeff or Sam popping into the bedroom to check on me. By evening, I’m wide awake and famished. Jeff brings in a tray of food fit for an invalid—chicken noodle soup, toast, and ginger ale.

“It’s not the flu, you know,” I tell him.

“You don’t know that for sure,” Jeff says. “It sounds like you were pretty sick.”

From a combination of lack of sleep and Wild Turkey and so many Xanax. And Him, of course. Seeing that picture of Him.

“It must have been something I ate,” I say. “I’m much better now. Honest. I’m fine.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that your mother called.”

I groan. I can’t help it.

“She said the neighbors are asking why you’re on the front page of the newspapers,” Jeff continues.

”One newspaper,” I say.

“She wants to know what to tell them.”

“Of course she does.”

Jeff snags a triangle of toast, takes a bite, puts it back on my tray. While chewing, he says, “It wouldn’t hurt to call her back.”