Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,90

listened attentively with their crisscross peanut butter cookies and warping paper mugs of cider. I felt pride for Jack, but also a sick, forward-moving fear. It was strange to experience in one night the difference between wanting something you cannot have and having something you cannot want. I wished it wasn’t my time to learn it. No one else seemed to be learning much of anything.

When the curtain call came, the audience stood, and Jack and Dan played again. I went backstage to find Kate. Kids scrambled to sign programs and solidify romances. Parents obstructed staircases and dressing room doors, kissing greased faces, bestowing obligatory bouquets. Paul Z. pushed a towering stack of chairs past me, and Richie adjusted the lamps behind the chapel. An increasing sense of unease came over me. The evening’s incidents kept playing out in my mind—Kate thanking me, Rourke and Los Angeles and the flickering in his eyes, the rush of the crowd, and Jack’s song. In my head and my heart, it rang and rang again. Jack is my hero, I told myself, with all his messages and abilities. And yet I had a troubling sense, a visionary sense. I felt like I was holding hands with myself, guiding my shell through an evening previously lived.

Rourke’s back blocked the door of the girls’ dressing room. Seeing it moved me—just the idea of him possessed the clarity that everything else lacked. I took two steps closer through the crowded hall. I could hear the sound of his words through the back of his chest, the vibrations. He was talking to them about the show. He must have sensed me because he turned to look, then he quickly stepped left, making room. He leaned against the side wall and folded his arms; I stood next to him. My left breast pressed lightly into his right arm, behind the elbow. I didn’t move; neither did he. All the talk drifted down to nothing.

“Congratulations,” I said to no one in particular.

“Are you coming to the cast party, Evie?” Adrienne asked.

“C’mon, Evie, everyone’s going,” Cathy Benjamin said.

Michelle said, “You’re coming, right, Harrison?”

“Only going if she’s going,” Rourke said, jerking his head slightly, referring to me. The girls giggled, except for Kate. He looked at the ground thoughtfully, taking a minute, nodding twice. “Well, thanks again for good work,” he told them. When he turned and stepped sideways to pass through the door frame, his body brushed flat against mine, his head bowing down, his face looking to my face. It’s a treacherous world, his eyes seemed to say. Unlike everyone else, he did not deny the treachery.

I staggered lazily up the theater aisle toward a group of people waiting for Jack and Dan. Dan’s father, Dr. Lewis, and his girlfriend, Micah, were there with Jim Peterson, the sax player from Dr. Lewis’s band. Smokey Cologne was there too, with Troy Resnick, Kathy Hanfling, Joss Mathers, and Nina Spear.

Dr. Lewis hugged me. “Fabulous sets! Where’s Irene?”

“A lecture, I think. She’s coming tomorrow. To the matinee.”

“What’s she teaching this semester, Evie,” Jim inquired. “Poetry?”

“Short stories.”

He nodded and they all nodded, saying to say hi.

Micah caressed my cheek with one finger. Her wrist bangles clattered lightly, reminding me of distant porch chimes. “Coming to our house for the party, Eveline?”

“Of course she is,” Dr. Lewis said emphatically.

Smokey stood, which meant Jack was coming. He crammed his hands into the pockets of his tattered herringbone coat and shook his purple hair from his face to little practical effect. Beneath Smokey’s bangs, his eyes were chronically claret and watery, making it appear as though he’d reached us by way of a channel. “Smokey is one strange dude,” Jack would say, “but a great fucking drummer.”

Jack swung an open hand to Smokey in greeting. “Marvin,” Jack said, using Smokey’s real name. “What’s up?”

“Nice job, men.” Dr. Lewis launched a new round of applause. “Glad to know my gear is being put to good use.” His hand rested on Jack’s arm. Discreetly he asked, “Did your parents come?”

“He didn’t even tell them about it, Dad,” Dan informed his father, and we all headed for the door in a funny bundle.

On the brick path that led from the doors of Guild Hall to the street, we dispersed. Dan climbed into Smokey’s black Nova, and Jack and I headed east on Main Street, walking in the direction of the village. Jack unfolded his collar and pulled his Chinese Red Army cap to his eyes. I tucked my hands