My father told me once that people don’t change—they just reveal more of who they really are. If that was true, then I was starting not to like who Jeff Byron really was.
We all ordered drinks then. Well, only four of us ordered alcohol—rum and Coke for Delilah, vodka sodas for Teddy and Jeff, water for Jacinta. I ordered red wine, which my mother will sometimes have “to soothe her nerves.” When she’s really, really stressed, she does what Skags and I have dubbed a Xanaxtini—a couple pills with red wine to wash it down. She’s not some kind of stereotypical pill-popper, but once in a while, I think the stress of being Anne Rye, the brand, gets to her.
Jeff managed to draw Teddy into a discussion about the upcoming football season, while Delilah, Jacinta, and I spoke about Delilah’s plans for Fashion Week. I honestly couldn’t tell you what they were, because I was acutely aware of the tension hanging in the air. I felt like I was play-acting a conversation rather than actually tuning into what Jacinta and Delilah were saying. It was as if I were an extra in some movie about the world’s most effed-up love triangle—or maybe, if you added Misti, it was a square?
We were a couple of rounds in when a doleful Giovanni brought us tequila shots and limes.
“On the house,” he said.
“Hey, thanks, man,” Jeff said.
“No problem,” Giovanni said. “You guys are good customers.” He reached over to fist-bump Jeff, so then Teddy had to do the same thing, while Delilah mimed throwing up under the table and Jacinta tried not to giggle.
“You do a shot, too, man,” Teddy said solemnly. “You deserve it.” Delilah snorted, and Teddy glared at her.
So we all did shots together—even Giovanni. I think if his manager had shown up, he would’ve gotten in a lot of trouble, but it was a busy night and nobody was paying much attention to us.
Giovanni left the table, and Delilah immediately began cracking up. I don’t know what usually happens when you combine a ton of marijuana with alcohol, but in Delilah’s case, it meant she was suddenly amused by absolutely everything. Jacinta looked at her and smiled fondly, and Delilah held her gaze for a long moment before bursting into another fit of giggles. Jacinta started giggling, too, and that’s when Teddy looked right at her and said, “So when do you head back to Florida?”
Jacinta fell silent while Delilah kept giggling.
“It’s gotta be pretty humid this time of year,” Teddy said.
“Uh-oh,” Delilah said, tittering. “He’s starting in on something. Everybody get out of the way.”
“Does your grandparents’ apartment have air-conditioning?” Teddy continued, never taking his eyes off Jacinta. I peered at her through my wine-and-tequila haze and watched all the blood drain from her face.
“Teddy,” Delilah said, her Marilyn Monroe voice even breathier than usual. “Are you trying to start a fight? There’s no fighting at Baxley’s. Baxley’s is for lovers.” She sent herself off into another fit of giggles. I watched with growing alarm, while Jeff displayed increasing interest as Jacinta and Teddy stared at each other.
“You know she’s a fraud, right?” Teddy said to Delilah, finally breaking eye contact with Jacinta. “You know she’s a liar.”
“Shut up, you idiot,” Delilah laughed.
“I’m not fucking kidding, Delilah!” Teddy hissed. She quit giggling.
“What are you even talking about?” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Your girlfriend here,” he said, jerking his thumb at a frozen Jacinta. “I’m talking about this girl. You know her name’s not even Jacinta Trimalchio? She made it up.”
“So what?” Delilah challenged him. “So what if she made it up? You go by Teddy and your real name is Alistair Theodore.”
“It’s not like that, Delilah,” Teddy said. “She’s Adriana DeStefano. You remember that girl?”
At this, Jacinta stood up, knocking her glass of ice water into my lap. I jumped, wincing at the coldness.
“I’m so sorry,” Jacinta said to me, handing me her cloth napkin. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” I said. “Of course you didn’t.”
“I don’t want to stay here,” Jacinta said. I don’t think any one of us wanted to stay there. Yet still there we remained, pinned to our booth by some immovable force.
Teddy and Delilah glared daggers at each other from across the table.
“I know who she is,” Delilah spat. “You think I wouldn’t know my old best friend?”
Teddy seemed momentarily startled. “You knew?”
“Of course I knew! No—Jacinta, sit down. It’s all right.” Gingerly, Jacinta sat.
“Of course I knew,” Delilah continued airily, putting a protective arm around Jacinta. “She told me herself. So what?”
“Who is Adriana DeStefano?” I whispered to Jacinta.
For a moment, silence. And then—
“I am, Naomi,” Jacinta said quietly, looking down at the table. “That’s my real name.”
“She’s from Staten Island,” Teddy said, his voice dripping with acid. “Her father was a federal contractor. Bought his way into Trumbo. Into our world.”
“Whose world?” I asked, hopelessly confused.
“Ours,” Teddy said. “You know. Mine and Delilah’s and Jeff’s and—ours. People who come to Baxley’s. People like us.”
He may as well have just come out and said it: the right kind of people.
“She’s a fraud just like her father,” Teddy said. He slammed his hand down on the table. “She’s a psycho and a fraud!”
“Teddy!” Delilah hissed. “Do not speak about her father that way. She never did anything to you, and neither did he.”
“She never did anything?” Teddy repeated, astonished. “She never did anything to me? Are you out of your fucking mind?” He was yelling now.
A manager hurried over and said, “Is everything all right here?”
“Everything’s fine,” Teddy snapped. “We’re fine.”
“Please try to keep your voice a little lower,” the manager said politely. Then he backed away.
“Yes, Teddy, do shut up,” Delilah said.
“You used to go to Trumbo?” I asked Jacinta. “You never told me that. Or your real name.” I couldn’t help but feel a little—well, maybe betrayed isn’t quite the word, but you’d think Jacinta would’ve trusted me enough to tell me this stuff.
“That day when you came to my house,” I said to Delilah. “You knew who she was?”
“Not until you left the room,” Delilah said without taking her eyes off Jacinta. “Then she told me.”
I exhaled slowly. It was starting to make a kind of creepy sense now. All I wanted to do was zap myself home to Chicago and tell Skags everything.
Jacinta opened her mouth and then closed it without saying anything. Her green eyes were big and watery.
“There’s plenty she didn’t tell you, Naomi,” Teddy said. “Like how the feds put her father away for selling busted body armor to the army. Or how her family lost everything but her trust fund—which, as far as I can tell, is how she’s been funding this whole summer. Or how she’s basically just a shitty blogger from Florida.”
“Why do you keep talking about Florida?” Delilah demanded. “She’s not from Florida. She has nothing to do with Florida.”
Teddy’s eyes widened. A slow smirk spread across his face.
“Oh, interesting,” he said. “So she hasn’t told you everything.”