Page 3 of Exit Party

This was interesting to Ari, who toyed intermittently with the idea of becoming a better person. “Better how?”

“Just better overall. Better able to not completely lose his shit at the slightest provocation.”

“There you are,” Gloria said to Ari, and she looked a bit lost, so Ari put an arm over Gloria’s shoulder.

“How do you two know each other?” James asked.

“We’re roommates,” Gloria said, and Ari felt a flush of something like love in that moment. She knew Gloria because she’d been in prison with Gloria’s cousin.

Time passed; the conversation moved on; Kareem went in to attend to something; at some point Ari looked up, and a woman she didn’t know was standing in the doorway, staring at them.

“Hey, Saraya,” someone said, “you coming out? The rain stopped.”

Ari realized that this was the same woman she’d seen earlier, wearing a silver pleated dress, but she’d changed into casual clothes now, jean shorts and a T-shirt. There was something oddly focused in the way the woman was looking at them, specifically in the way she was looking at Ari.

“Ibari,” she said, “where are we?”

There was a beat of silence, then Gloria said, “Who?”

It was a moment before Ari could speak.

“Ibari is my legal name.” Ari was staring at this stranger, this Saraya. “How did you know that name?”

“Really?” Gloria said. “I didn’t know that was your name.”

“Because I’ve literally never used it. It’s just the name on my ID.”

“I don’t know where I am,” Saraya said. There was panic in her voice. “I don’t know where I am.” She was looking at Gloria now. No, looking at the scar on Gloria’s forehead. Gloria’s hand drifted up to touch the scar.

“You look like someone,” Saraya said to Gloria. Gloria frowned.

“I thought she’d left the party,” James said in a choked voice. Ari glanced at him and saw fear on his face. He was afraid of Saraya. It didn’t make sense to her—Saraya was a small person, much smaller than James, and she seemed disoriented—but then Saraya turned away and slipped back inside, and he exhaled.

“Is she on something?” someone asked.

“It’s a stressful world,” someone else said. “Who isn’t on something.”

“Excuse me,” Ari said, and went to find Saraya, because she’d never been more baffled by an interaction. She moved through crowded rooms, she looked into every face, she circled back through the kitchen and stepped out for a moment onto the landing to look down the stairs at the quiet street. Saraya was gone. But there: in the crowded living room, by the window, a small knot of people were talking and laughing. One of them was the woman in the silver pleated dress. The fabric gleamed in the lamplight as she moved. Her back was to Ari, but she was Saraya, Ari was certain of it. No, that wasn’t possible. Saraya must have had a twin. Ari moved on through the apartment and realized there was one room she hadn’t checked, a closed door by the bathroom.

It was Kareem’s bedroom, jackets piled on the bed. James was here, sitting on the bed with his eyes closed.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I feel crazy,” he said.

She closed the door behind her, and then, on impulse, locked it. She came to sit beside him. “I feel crazy too.”

They sat for a moment in silence, listening to the party on the other side of the door.

“There’s . . . too many people out there,” James said, but she wouldn’t fully understand what he meant by this for several years. In the moment, she just thought he didn’t like crowds. “Nothing makes sense,” he murmured, and then, “Could I kiss you?”

“Yes,” she said, and five minutes later they were having sex on top of the pile of jackets. When they were done she kissed him again, and left him there blinking with his pants around his ankles.

The rest of the party was a blur in retrospect. You don’t remember parties, you remember snapshots: a passing comment, a drink, a feeling of companionship, a green silk shirt, a rain jacket pressed to the side of your face in a locked bedroom. There was a moment around midnight when Gloria seemed tearful—she couldn’t find Kareem, which was confusing, because why would he leave his own party—but she recovered and a half-hour later was dancing with Ari and some other people in the middle of the living room, furniture pushed to the sides. James was somewhere on the periphery, talking with everyone, a little flushed.

Ari wanted fresh air, and more importantly quiet. She slipped out of the apartment and down the stairs to the street, where she sat for a while on the bottom step. The steps were wet but she didn’t care. She listened to the sounds of insects and distant music, far-off voices, a barking dog. It still felt like a revelation to be outdoors and alone in the world, unsupervised, with nowhere to be. She was thinking of Saraya again, wishing she’d been able to find her. How could Saraya possibly have known Ari’s legal name?

A man was approaching, walking up the street. Kareem. He looked a little wild-eyed, his green silk shirt dark from the rain. He said, “You’re Ari, right?”