Page 13 of Life Out of Order

“Alba, you haven’t introduced us,” Caralora says.

“Oops,” I say. “This is Zach Purcell. Zach, this is Nick and Caralora Lamont, our host and hostess.” I can tell that Zach is wondering what the twins’ relationship is, but they are so identical even now that I hope he will figure it out. The twins are very bored with explaining themselves.

“Beautiful house,” Zach says. “Alba gave me a partial tour.”

“We love it,” says Caralora. She turns to me. “I think this will be the last party we give here. Our parents are putting it on the market in the spring. They’re getting divorced.”

“Oh, no! But . . . why?” The Lamonts are the fantasy parents of my cohort of friends: so cool, so kind, you can tell them anything, you will always be fed and allowed to sleep in a spare bedroom without commentary. I have appeared naked at their door many times, and they always greeted me as though this were just my entertaining quirk. They were distraught when Caralora and I broke up.

“Well, you know. I mean, we don’t know, either. We just found out this morning.”

“It’s going around,” I say, glancing at Zach. “A parent divorce epidemic.”

He says, “I’m sorry. I don’t know your family, obviously, but your house seems really wonderful.”

Nick says, “We were happy here. I thought so, anyway.”

“We were,” Caralora says.

“I thought your parents went to Paris?” I say.

“She’s in Paris, he went to Memphis to visit our grandmother. To tell her,” Caralora says. “We should have gone with him, but we’d already planned this and we thought what the hell, let’s have one last hurrah. You never know these days, anything could happen tomorrow, better drink up while you can.”

“True,” Zach says, looking at me. “Anything can happen.”

“Alba, do you know something we don’t?” Nick looks tired and annoyed. “Should we be buying gold and bottled water?”

“Relax, as far as I know the apocalypse won’t be here for another twenty years.”

“Okay, cool,” Nick says. “We’ll definitely be dead by then.”

“Only twenty years?” Caralora says.

Nick pours the rest of the champagne into our glasses. “Whiskey, anyone?” We all nod. Nick rummages in cabinets. “I guess we’ve drunk it all. Time for the emergency supplies.” He walks out of the kitchen. The house is so quiet now that I can hear his soft tread on the stairs.

“Caralora, where did you get all these people?” I ask quietly.

“What people?” she stage-whispers. She mimes writing. Zach and I exchange looks; neither of us has paper or pen about our persons. Caralora retrieves a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint pen from the drawer next to the kitchen phone. Caralora makes the keep talking gesture with her left hand; with her right she writes, Don’t know. Nick invited.

Zach says, “Um, do you happen to have any smokes?” He writes, Nick got list from me—I’m Bartleby.

Caralora smiles, obviously relieved. “Sorry, neither of us smoke.” Caralora looks at me and adds, Older Alba gave us Bartleby’s number. We wondered who you were. Things are starting to make sense.

Nick returns with a bottle of Laphroaig. Caralora says, “Nick, you cad. You’ve been holding out on me.” She shows Nick the paper; Nick gives Zach a thumbs-up.

“I bought it for us, for tomorrow’s hangovers. But we’re all family here.” He washes and dries our glasses again and pours generously. We mumble our thanks and sip the amber liquid. “Ah, that’s beautiful.”

Caralora writes, Why is that helicopter hovering?

I say, “I don’t usually like whiskey, but this tastes like barbecued Listerine.”

Nick laughs. “You’re a philistine, Alba.” He writes, Curfew enforcement?

We all stare at each other, trying to decide how paranoid to be.

Zach says, “Do you mind if we borrow some blankets and sleep on the second floor? It’s kind of chilly, but there are unoccupied beds.”

“That’s fine, we’ve got extra sleeping bags,” Caralora says. “We can turn up the heat, too.” They have copters? she writes.