Page 154 of The Stranger

Who doesn’t like compliments? Apparently, this girl. But Alejandro is handsome, uncomplicated, and he appears to be interested. Three qualities that ought to place him above a certain brooding Frenchman.

“Thank you.” I smile, but in a friendly sort of way. “You scrub up well yourself.”

His answering grin is warm and immediate.

There. That was easy. No need to examine every syllable for meaning. No wondering if his interest is real. I glance away. Everyone around us seems blithe, bronzed, and beautiful. And I still can’t find it in me to give a fuck.

“Your mission tonight.” Zoe tips her head to my shoulder. “Should you accept it, is to drink something expensive you haven’t paid for.”

“Steal?”

“Girl, someone else is gonna buy that drink.”

“Oh. Right.”

“And you’re gonna dance until the sun comes up and, before it does, kiss at least three people.”

“Three?” My nose shrinks back into my skull. I couldn’t think of anything worse.

“Two, if one of them is very talented.”

“I’d like to submit my interest early,” Al says, though I pretend not to hear as Zoe’s arm comes down in front of me like a barrier at a rail crossing. She points to a courtyard with twinkling lights.

“Here.”

The bar is almost hidden behind a courtyard filled with lemon trees strung with fairy lights. We have a drink there—beers all around—before moving on to somewhere to dance. A cavernous club with ceilings vaulted like a church. The dance floor is packed, the DJ playing dance music loud enough to discourage overthinking.

We find a table—it’s bolted to the floor—the seating a couple of olive-colored velvet semi-circles. Alejandro flags down a waitress and orders wine before declaring the bottle inferior to Casa Alegría’s. Then taking far too long to explain why. Thanks to the music, I hear only one word in three. Pretty sure I’m not missing anything as I periodically nod and smile. I’m not in the business of making people feel bad. Al is a nice guy, even if he is a total wine bore.

“To think,” Zoe says, leaning in with a gleam, “I could be peeling garlic right now.”

“And I could be,”—stabbing M. LDH with a butterknife—“washing my hair.”

“The vibes. They are not vibing. Let’s order another drink.”

Cocktails this time. A margarita for Zoe and a Paloma for me. Tequila, pink grapefruit, and lime over ice with a chilli-salt rim. It’s refreshingly delicious and just bitter enough to suit my mood.

The drinks go down way too easily, and another round is ordered as my colleagues (friends?) gossip and throw verbal shit at each other. I try to keep up, though my heart isn’t in it. But I can fake happy. Carefree. And it’s even easier when Paloma number three makes me comfortably numb. When one of the girls suggests we dance, I’m the first on my feet.

I’ll dance his coldness out of my body, I think, reaching for my glass and draining the what’s left. I give in to an alcohol-induced shudder. I’ll dance until my feet ache as much as my chest. And if nice but boring Al puts his hands on my waist, I might just let him. Not that it’ll mean anything, other than it might feel nice to be wanted by someone who isn’t afraid of saying so.

Zoe leads, and I follow the sway of her hips to the crush of bodies dancing beneath pulsing violet lights. The bass beats inside my rib cage as heat and perfume, damp skin and sweat rises all around me.

“This place slaps!” Zoe yells, throwing up her hands. “And I am so buzzed.”

I force a laugh as, above us, lights scatter shards of silver across the ceiling. The music begins to weave its magic. I throw my head back and lose myself to it, my thoughts utterly irrelevant as it makes slaves of us all. On the dance floor, there is only the beat and the press of strangers, and the promise that, if I dance hard enough, I might forget.

Hips moving, a prickle of awareness caresses my skin. Wishful thinking maybe, as I remind myself he isn’t here. But if he was… My hands slide up my body as I imagine them as his. A sway of my hips, my movements commanded by a flicker of memory. The way he pulled my hands above my head a few hours ago. I mirror the motion, body undulating, dress rising higher and teasing my thighs. Maybe it isn’t the music that possesses me at all. He’s not even here, and I’m still obsessing.

My body stiffens as someone grabs my hips from behind. I find myself thinking, No, Al, not now. Not when I’m thinking about him. I put my hands over the larger, rougher ones, and turn my head over my shoulder, a polite smile in place. Worse than Al, it’s a stranger. He says something in Spanish but I’m already shaking my head and moving away to words of disappointment I don’t understand.

“No?” Zoe yells. “But he was a snack.”

And I want the whole meal, idiot that I am.

One tune segues to another, and another, and then into something a little angrier. Zoe’s eyes fly wide as the dark, pulsing beat of Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” fades in. Catchy enough, dance-y enough, but the remix transposes Alanis Morissette over the chorus as she belts out the furious anthem of “You Oughta Know”. The tune is an absolute banger. Sultry, defiant and dance floor perfect. I lose my body the music, and almost my voice as I join in with the words.

All around me, women go wild, dancing like they’re in a mosh pit. With a little less violence. I’d guess that most of us have lived somewhere inside one or both of these songs. The dizzy, reckless craving of a love that turns addictive, and the white-hot fury of discovering it wasn’t reciprocated. Desire and betrayal, hunger and rage. Every beat is something to surrender to, every lyric something to scream, until we’re not dancing as much as we are exorcising every man-made regret.