I need some more money. My teacher said I needed somesporting bras. She says that I . . I. ." His voice trailedoff and he looked away from them."S...mantha." Susan's voice of command drew him back. "Yourinstructor said . . . *what*?!" That I bounce." Sam answered in a very small voice."Bounce?" spluttered Susan before she and all the other womenagain dissolved into laughter.Sam flushed bright red and wanted to sink under the table.Gentle Gwen came to her rescue, moving her chair closer to. Okay? Carolyn already told me. You don’t have to. You didn’t want me at the time because of what you thought I did, and its my fault I wasn’t there with you.’ Brent had just described what we had done for Halloween, pretty accurately, but I couldn’t tell what else he knew about that week. ‘What else did Carolyn tell you?’ ‘Just that guys were buying you all drinks all night and she and Trisha were flirting with all of them and they were all flirting back and trying to hook up with you. She said. Everybody gets one free drink when you enter, after that, there are plenty of free soft drinks available to those who want them, but you buy your own alcoholic beverages.Sometime after Rigmor and I had gotten there, I'd noticed Cecilia arrive with Rachael, another girl from advertising. I watched them carefully make the rounds of must say hello-to's, but it was obvious that Cecilia didn't notice me sitting in our quiet corner. Then they settled themselves at a table with a couple of other women. Antoine spied his cellphone for the time. Being late for a date with his mistress was excusable, he thought, but not for Katrina’s fortieth-birthday dinner six blocks away at Sardi’s. In his mind he fumbled for the words to inform his girlfriend that she indeed would become his mistress once he and Katrina remarried. He hoped that Inez would understand that, with a baby son on the way, remarriage would be more practical than paying child support for more than twenty years and, worse, having to.