The Turning Season by Sharon Shinn Page B

met a bunch of Celeste’s friends and found them all fairly shallow and interchangeable—pretty, empty-headed twentysomethings who share apartments and hold meaningless jobs and spend most of their time talking about the drinking they’re going to do on the weekend. Seriously, I once had the most excruciating conversation with a girl named Tiffie who literally could not think of anything to ask me except where I liked to party. When I apologetically replied that I didn’t get a chance to party very often, she said, “But which do you like better? Black Market or Galaxy? The mixed drinks are better at Galaxy, I think, but they have better music at Black Market.” I had no reply for this, so I just started asking her stupid questions:
Who’s your favorite band? Do you ever get a chance to go to St. Louis or Springfield? What bars do you go to?
I had never felt so old in my life.
    I don’t see Tiffie at the table where Celeste eventually steers me, though the three girls sitting there could be her spiritual sisters. They’re all slim and blond, dressed like Celeste in strappy little tops that look too small for them and cropped jeans that hug their boyish hips. They greet both of us happily and I give everyone the broadest smile I can summon, since I don’t want to spoil anyone’s mood, but I’m already sorry I’m here. I don’t know these people, I don’t like these people, I have nothing in common with these people, and I am a dead bore. I’d rather be back on the property mucking out dog cages.
    â€œWhat do you want to drink?” one of the girls asks. “We just ordered another pitcher and a couple more glasses.”
    â€œBeer is good for now,” Celeste says, and I nod. I don’t plan to drink enough for it to make a difference.
    â€œSo how are you doing, girlfriend?” one of the other blondes asks Celeste. “We missed you Saturday night!”
    Saturday night. When she was out at my place, watching DVDs with Alonzo, and never once complaining about what she might be missing back in town. Celeste doesn’t even glance at me to see my contrite expression.
    â€œDoing great. Ready to start
dancing
,” she says enthusiastically. “Anyone here we know?”
    The blondes start reeling off names of the men they’ve spotted so far, one of whom I recognize as Celeste’s most recent ex, then the waitress arrives with a foamy pitcher of beer and some fresh glasses.
    â€œLet me get this one,” I say, because I feel like I should contribute
something
to the evening and I don’t figure I’ll be drinking much from later pitchers. I ask the waitress, “Could we have, like, pretzels or chips, too?”
    â€œSure,” she says. “Be right back.”
    But she hasn’t returned yet when the band members hit their first noisy chords and suddenly we’re assaulted by a wall of music. One of the blondes starts dancing in her chair, shimmying her shoulders and moving her hips, but I don’t recognize the song. Celeste leans over to shout something in the ear of one of her other friends, and I take a long, long pull on my beer.
    It’s going to be an endless night.
    I know the second number, though, CeeLo Green’s “Fuck You,” and Celeste turns to me in delight. It’s our current favorite song, the one we play for each other when we’re feeling down, so we both jump up and sashay to the dance floor. This early in the night, not many people are dancing and most of them are women, but the upbeat rhythm of the song shoves any thought of embarrassment right out of my head.
    I don’t know what it is about music. I can be in the most forbidding, curmudgeonly of moods; I can be feeling withdrawn, awkward, socially inept, despairing of ever connecting with another human being. And then a certain song starts playing and I just toss aside all inhibitions and go boogying across the