You are acting like you committed a felony and she looks at me like I’m the delivery guy waiting for a tip. “I’m stealing our girl for two minutes, Joseph.”

You allow her to steal you and I really must look like the fucking delivery guy as I stand here, not knowing anyone, not being known. No girls are coming on to me and maybe I don’t look good in here. The only certainty is that I hate this Peach as much as I knew I would, and she hates me right back. She knows how to work you, Beck. You are apologizing for no wine, for not bringing Lynn and Chana, for not taking better care of your purse. And she is forgiving, stroking your back, telling you not to worry. I’m invisible to you in her presence, just like everyone else. Peach Is . . . in the way. I look around but nobody wants to say hi to me. It’s like they can smell the public school on me. A skinny Indian chick mad dogs me before she nosedives into a line of Adderall or coke and I get out my phone and send a tweet from Benji:

Everything in moderation especially moderation. #homesoda #gobulldogs #smokecrackeveryday

I look up this address on Zillow. This place is worth twenty-four million dollars and I find an article about the decor in a fucking society blog. Peach’s mother looks even meaner and taller than Peach and who knows? Maybe it’s tough to come into this world and crawl on rugs that cost a hundred grand. Peach learned piano on a mint black Steinway and went to the planetarium whenever she wanted. Of course she takes the glories of the Upper West Side for granted. Of course she loves you for fawning over the Prada. I see a hand-carved credenza and I move in for a closer look. It’s an excellent piece, one of a kind. One door has a Jewish star and one door has a cross and maybe I have a shot in this scene. Peach is like me, half Jewish and half Catholic. I grew up with no religion and she had all religion. She celebrates everything and I celebrate nothing and you’ve come back to me, with her.

“Isn’t this piece cool?” you say and you lean against the credenza.

“It’s great,” I agree. “You know, Peach, I’m also Jewish and Catholic.”

“Oh, Joseph.” She is correcting me. I can feel it. “I’m not Catholic. I’m Methodist, but you’re sweet.”

“That’s cool,” I say and I want to go home. I also want to tell her I’m Joe, not Joseph, bastard spawn of Alma Goldberg and Ronnie Passero.

You fake a cough and you look from me to her and back again and your voice is high. “You guys are also both New Yorkers.”

Peach speaks slowly, like I’m ESL. “Which borough are you from?”

Cunt. “Bed-Stuy.”

“I read that people are starting to move there,” she says. “I hope the gentrification doesn’t destroy all the local color.”

The only reason I do not bash her head in is that you seem so nervous about us meeting that you don’t notice her dissing me. I didn’t ask her what she does for a living but for some reason she is talking about her job. “I’m an architect,” she says. “I design buildings.”

I know what a fucking architect is and nobody is ever an architect in real life, only in movies. And did you tell her I am dumb? I try to stay afloat. “That’s cool.”

“No, what’s cool is the fact that you didn’t go to college,” she gushes. “I’m such a follower. My parents went to Brown, so I went to Brown.”

I smile. “My parents didn’t go to Brown, so I didn’t go to Brown.”

She looks at you. “He’s funny, Beck. No wonder you’re so into him.”

You smile. You blush. I’m okay. “He’s pretty good, yep.”

She raves about how amazing it is that I eschewed formal education entirely.

It is not a compliment but I thank her anyway. She tightens the scarf around her neck and chastises you for lighting a cigarette as some asshole packs a bong a foot away.

She is done with me, for now, and she asks if you’ve heard from Lynn and Chana. You apologize. You’re nervous about what she thinks of you and I wish I could pull you out of here and take you to my borough. She’s a hypocrite, a fucking nightmare of a person, worse than I imagined. You are soft and she is hard in skintight red skinny jeans you would never wear. She’s anorexic and slightly tattooed with thick frayed hair and a big red blow-job mouth and a Joker’s smile and long, spindly, hairy arms that end in sharp, unpainted nails bitten to the quick. You ooze joy and she is an open wound, shrill and wan, unfucked and unloved. She clearly wants you to herself and I don’t want to make life difficult for you so I interject, “Sorry, girls. Is there a bathroom nearby?”

You point me toward the bathroom and I flee. No wonder Lynn and Chana didn’t come. If she were a dog, shooting her would be the humane thing to do. But I can’t very well shoot her. What I can do is walk around to find the library I saw in the blog. I gasp when I turn on the lights in the library. It’s that fucking great. The Salinger family doesn’t fuck around and I reach for a first edition of Saul Bellow’s second novel, The Victim. The poor Bellow’s dust jacket is torn. Peach’s parents know how to buy books and make babies but they clearly aren’t very good at caring for their purchases and their products. Brown people are singing “Hey Jude” again (how original!) and I miss you. I return the broken Bellow to its home and you and Peach walk into the library. I freeze. I hope I’m not in trouble.

“We figured we’d find you here.” Peach laughs, as if you two are the we and I am just me. “I would let you borrow a book but my parents are so possessive of their babies.”

“I’m all right,” I say and I never asked to borrow a fucking book. “But thanks.”

You link your arm through mine and it feels good and you sigh. “Isn’t this amazing, Joe?”

“Yeah,” I say. “You could spend a year in here.”

Peach again: “Sometimes I feel like college ruined reading for me, you know?”

“I do know,” you say and your arm is not linked through mine anymore. “Joe, I bet you’ve read more books in this room than me.”

Peach approves. “A good salesman has to know his product, right?”

I hate Peach more than Sare. She called me a salesman and in the living room, the Brown people applaud themselves for knowing the words to “Hey Jude,” as if it’s not one of the most famous songs in the world. Peach sneezes and pulls a handkerchief out of her pocket. She’s probably allergic to me and you leave me and run to her, lovingly. “Do you have a cold?”

“I bet you’re reacting to the dust in here,” I say. “You’re probably not used to it.”

“Good point,” you say and Peach is silenced, temporarily, as you lead us back to the party. I’ve never needed a drink so badly in my life and we pass the Brown people as they maul “Sweet Virginia.” You get a text from Chana. She’s not coming. Peach huffs. “You know, if I were Chana, I might be embarrassed to show my face here too. Is there any guy in this house that she didn’t sleep with at school? Pardon my crassness, Joseph.”

I hate that I am so grateful to be acknowledged and you smile at me (hooray!) and Peach pulls us both into the dining room to greet some guests. It’s more high ceilings and high Brown people holding court and kicking back at the longest table I’ve ever seen in my life. They’re blowing lines off mismatched candy-colored plates. And the booze. There’s tons of it. “What’s your poison, Joe?” Peach wants to know. “Beer?”

“Vodka,” I answer and I smile but she doesn’t.

“Rocks?”

“If they’re little ones,” I say.

She looks at me and then at you and then at me and she guffaws. “Excuse me?”

“Crushed ice does better with vodka than cubes.”

I learned that from Benji and Peach crosses her arms and you’re fumbling in your purse for something to say, for a tunnel away from me, and I gotta fix this and get rid of her and I try: “Whatever ice you got will work.”