The Cave Dwellers by Christina McDowell (readict books TXT) 📕

“Happy Birthday, Lizbet.” He taps her on the ass and steps inside the mansion with his head held high. She spins back around to face Billy. They lock eyes in silence as he hands her the bouquet of roses.

“These don’t include the gift I got you,” he says.

“They’re beautiful, thank you.” Bunny places them on the marble and gold-plated table in the foyer. “Go get a drink, I’ll see you in a minute,” she says, the tension between them palpable.

An Ariana Grande song blasts through the grand ballroom once danced upon in buckled shoes. Adults drink brandy in the roped-off red library filled with velvet chairs and leather-bound books about legacy and war, while about two hundred students from the surrounding private schools smuggle in bottles of liquor and dance in dresses and shoes bought on Net-a-Porter.

Bunny immediately turns her attention to Mackenzie, kissing her on the cheek as she enters. Bunny says, “Someone is over by the staircase waiting for you,” sliding her eyes over to Marty, looking dapper in a red bow tie and suspenders. When Mackenzie walks over to him, Bunny sees that her hair is parted to the other side of her head, her hair extension clips much more visible to hide the back of her head.

“I got my early acceptance letter from Harvard,” Marty says, pushing his new round spectacles up his nose.

“Stop it!” Mackenzie swings her arms around his neck and kisses him, then quickly retreats into her shy self.

Chase catches them in the act of sweet embrace; he stumbles over taking swigs from his clear water bottle filled with the finest Russian vodka. “What’s this I hear?”

Marty sees that Chase’s khakis are falling below his waist. “No belt? Headed for public school next year, eh?”

“I’m no commoner like you, compadre, I’m headed to the place where the tits and ass are part of the state, where the sun shines”—he opens his arms as if he’s won a state championship and dry-humps the air—“and everyone gets a taste of Chase!”

“Oh, you’re headed to UDC, that’s right,” Marty teases.

“Come on! Rollins College, baby! No shame in the game.” Chase takes another swig of vodka.

Bunny approaches this cluster of imbalanced entitlement. “Did you all get your little treat from Stan yet?”

“You mean dessert?” Marty smiles and takes two pills from his pocket. He hands one to Mackenzie. “One for you, my darling.”

“Where are Billy and Stan, by the way?” Bunny looks over her shoulder and sees Stan sliding down the gold banister like a twelve-year-old. Billy, standing at the bottom, catches him, and they double over with laughter. Others are grinding on the dance floor. Insecure teenagers pop their pills and open the double French doors out into the garden inspired by the Italian Renaissance. They dance around statues of family war heroes and roll around in the snowy grass in their faux fur coats and parkas, watching their breath swirl into the cold air.

“Looks like we’re behind,” Bunny says. “What? Did everyone pregame without me?”

“Stan had a few people over before and bused some of us here,” Chase says.

“Fucking dicks,” Bunny says.

“Well, I wasn’t invited either,” Mackenzie says. “I would have told you, you know that.”

“It’s fine.” Bunny turns to Chase, feeling irritated. “Give me one. I know you took more than your fair share, you greedy bastard, gimme. It’s my birthday.”

Chase rolls his eyes, guilty; he hands Bunny a pill with a smiley face.

“Come on, Mack, I’m taking you to Alice in Wonderland.” Bunny pulls Mackenzie away from Marty.

Mackenzie mouths sorry and waves. Marty smiles, acknowledging that he’ll see her in a bit. She turns to Bunny. “He just told me he got into Harvard!”

“Great, I’m probably going to get into Yale, now swallow this,” Bunny demands, unfazed by Marty’s acceptance letter. Unexcited for any kind of future she knows and feels has already been carved out for her.

Mackenzie holds the pill in her hand. “Well, I didn’t apply early anywhere, I only applied to UNC Chapel Hill, since that’s where my parents want me to go and where my dad went.”

“How much money did they give them?” Bunny takes a swig of vodka, swallowing her pill.

“Money? I dunno.”

“Well, they probably gave them money, so you’ll get in, don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m not worried, I’m just saying I didn’t apply early.” Mackenzie takes a swig and finally swallows the pill in an attempt to defuse her defensiveness, a by-product of a specific kind of academic virus that spreads this time of year.

Bunny takes in the room and sees Lily Anderson flirting with Billy under the grand archway in the loggia just off the dance floor. Stan blows O’s of smoke in the cold air of the doorway to the garden. Bunny tucks her phone in the side of her skirt and takes another swig, feels the molly start to soften her bloodstream, tickle her nerves, loosen her motor skills, tighten her jaw. She positions herself closer to Stan, but so Billy can see her.

“Let me bum one.”

Stan hands Bunny a Capri, one of those skinny cigarettes you mostly see in Europe. “Feelin’ good, Lizbet?” he asks.

Bunny inhales, the end of her cigarette lit like a burning star. “So good.” She exhales in Billy’s direction, laser-eyes Lily Anderson’s back.

Strobe lights swirl the dance floor as everyone makes their way over. Bunny and Stan sway back and forth together, giggling, then laughing, then laughing harder before they catch Billy’s attention. Lily Anderson goes off to get more vodka, and Billy walks over, sliding his arm around Bunny’s neck, nuzzling his head into her. “Mmm… you smell good. I don’t wanna fight anymore.”

Bunny inhales the scent of his skin underneath the aftershave and cigarettes and grabs his face. “I don’t either,” she says and kisses him, and it’s slow and teasing, their lips tingling, and charged eye contact when they let go; she pushes him away from her.

“You wanna get rough?” Billy asks playfully.

“You wanna go upstairs?” Bunny asks, the