She felt slightly bare—but also slightly careless, insouciant, as the French said. No, the word was not insouciant. The word was sexy. Not even when she wore her little white shorts and sandals, showing her legs from all the way up here to the tips of her toes, did she feel this sexy.

Hoyt became so attentive it was almost embarrassing. Anywhere she sat, he sat next to her, rubbing her shoulder, her back, her leg—just the outer flank, which didn’t seem so awful, since she had so much leg showing in the first place—stroking her cheek, stroking her hair where it cascaded down the back of her head and neck—

Nicole was not very talkative. For one thing, every now and then Julian, who was getting good and drunk, would direct his frat-boy one-liners to Charlotte instead of her. With Hoyt, there was no contest. He was rapt. Funny how rapidly things could turn around…and the last shall be first.

Finally the four of them went downstairs to dinner.

24. To…Us!

The party was in a section of the vast interior court that could be reserved for such affairs. Charlotte and Hoyt walked hand in hand down one of the country-tiled stairways that meandered lazily from landing to landing, down through a forest of trees in tubs. Mimi’s high heels were not made for walking downstairs. Charlotte had never even had a pair on before. Each step caused an ultra-contraction of the calf muscle…and yet there was something sexy about that, too. Up on their floor, before they descended, she had sneaked a look at her legs in the full-length mirror by the elevators. Propped way up as they were on a pair of heels as high as…as…as high as her feet were long, practically, and revealed as they were by a red hemline that barely cleared her hip sockets, those were a pair of…legs she had. She couldn’t help wondering what the view looked like to men, if any, coming down the stairs behind them.

Through the leaves of all the trees she could see a dusk lit up ever so romantically by candles on regular regatta tables with white tablecloths. Had she been told that the dusk was created by a maintenance man turning rheostat dials in a bank of light switches, it would not have diminished her awe. In this lush, romantic setting, she was meandering down a picturesque terra-cotta stairway hand in hand with the coolest guy in all of Dupont—who caressed her hand now and again with light squeezes. She couldn’t help but wonder who was looking—and she hoped that Crissy was one of them, although she no longer nursed a resentment against her. After all, even Crissy was a part of this, this magic moment.

The section of the court Saint Ray had booked was walled off by shrubs planted in the inevitable tubs and trimmed so that they looked like seven- or eight-foot-high privet hedges. At the entryway to the section, white stanchions had been embedded in the hedge tubs, and they reached a good fifteen feet above the floor. From one hung the mauve-and-gold flag of the university, with the famous coat of arms featuring a stylized cougar rampant. The cougar was mostly lost in the folds, thanks to the dead, still air of the atrium, but there was something grand about it all the same. Dupont! From the other stanchion hung the flag of the Saint Raymond fraternity, consisting of the Raymundus Vox Christi cross of royal purple and scarlet—against a field of deepest aubergine, embroidered with small corn-yellow stars. As every Saint Ray was told at the time of initiation—and forgot within a week—the scarlet represented the blood of Christ and the martyred Saint Raymond. The royal purple represented the martyred saint’s special place in the kingdom of Christ the King. The bent ring was a symbol of the loop of iron driven through Raymond’s lips to silence the evangelical voice with which he had begun to convert his Roman captors themselves to Christianity. At the moment, all that was lost in folds, too, but no one could help but be drawn to the brilliant swaths of scarlet against the royal purple and the deepest aubergine.

So gaudily rich were these two flagpole tapestries that the entryway between the hotel’s hedges in tubs came close to being a grand entrance—at least close enough for a group of Dupont men and their dates, who already felt swell about themselves. As Charlotte and Hoyt, still holding hands, made their entrance, a hundred, a thousand, pairs of eyes seemed to turn toward them. The place was packed with Saint Rays and their dates, and obviously most had done their share of pre-gaming. The usual rumble of party conversation was already shot through with cackles and hoots. Somebody deep in the pack cried out in a voice that strove to be deep and manly, “You can’t get any tonight, you might as well tie it in a fucking knot!”

Charlotte barely even noticed the Fuck Patois any longer. What riveted her were all the faces turning toward Charlotte Simmons and her date of all dates, the cool and handsome Hoyt Thorpe. There was Harrison the lacrosse player and there were Boo-man and Heady and—yes! Vance and Crissy—Crissy in a very low cut black dress, looking dumbfounded, eyes fixed on Charlotte Simmons of the lissome legs exalted upon four-inch-stiletto-heeled red satin pumps with toe cleavage—Charlotte Simmons of the waist so tiny, her upper torso rose up in a V, making the cleavage of her bosom look more formidable than it really was.

Harrison came toward them, beaming, eyes lit up with alcohol, lit up so brightly the scars on the side of his face from the brawl didn’t look sad at all, looking not bad in his rented tuxedo with his big neck swelling up out of a too-small winged collar, no doubt also rented, singing out to Hoyt, “Yo! Dawg!” He began running his eyes up and down Charlotte. “Where you been keeping our Charlotte?”

It was the first time he had ever called her by name, too!

“Away from you fucking predators, is where, if you really wanna know,” said Hoyt.

“Well, well…” said Harrison, still giving Charlotte the once-over. “Welcome to the feast of Saint Raymond. What can I get you to drink? Wait a minute, I don’t remember—you don’t drink or something like that?”

“Tonight Charlotte’s breaking training,” said Hoyt. “Just this one night. In honor of Saint Raymond.”

“Awesome,” said Harrison. “What’ll you have?”

Charlotte hesitated. She knew her head had what they were always calling a buzz, but it was only that—a buzz. It didn’t change anything, except that it seemed to make everybody else more comfortable.

“An orange juice with vodka?”

“Okay, one orange juice with vodka.” Harrison beamed again and started to turn away.

“Hey, tiger,” said Hoyt, “what about me?”

“I’m here to take care of the ladies, Dawwwg,” said Harrison with a hyped-up attitude and smile.

“How about a little fucking show of gratitude?” said Hoyt. “Who was it that brought”—he gestured toward Charlotte—“to this event?”

“Ahhhhh,” said Harrison. “In that case, whattaya fucking want?”

“Same as Charlotte. With vodka. You know with vodka?”

Charlotte began reflecting, giddy with triumph, upon what had just taken place. Sure, she knew she couldn’t take at face value the two of them going on about how pretty she was and how smart she was and all that…but…they were attentive! They were really attentive! And on the way down, the whole carload couldn’t have ignored her more completely. Hoyt had paid some attention, but he did it as if he were feeding quarters to a parking meter. But now—it wasn’t just the flattery either…There was no mistaking the looks that not just Harrison but also Boo-man and Heady and Vance and their—

Vance and Crissy! Had to talk to Hoyt and Harrison or laugh or do something to show Crissy what a great time she was having with them. Well—she’d laugh, that’s what she’d do, but she put so much energy into it, she actually crowed out a sharp yawp. Hoyt and Harrison looked at her.