The Leftovers

at her, remembering how good—how cathartic and even righteous—it had felt to confront her in those daydreams, as if she were an instrument of divine justice. But she understood now that it was an imaginary Kylie that she’d wanted to punish, a prettier and more confident woman than the one standing in front of her. The real Kylie looked too flustered and contrite to slap. She also seemed a lot shorter than Nora remembered, maybe because she wasn’t surrounded by a sea of toddlers.
    “Mrs. Durst?” Kylie squinted worriedly at Nora. “Are you okay, Mrs. Durst?”
    “Why do you keep calling me that?”
    “I don’t know.” Kylie studied her retro suede sneakers. In her skinny jeans and tight little T-shirt—it was also black, with a white exclamation point between what Doug had called her “little cheerleader boobs”—she looked like she belonged in a basement rock club, not a middle school cafeteria. “I just don’t feel like I have the right to use your first name anymore.”
    “How considerate.”
    “I’m sorry.” Kylie’s face turned a more intense shade of pink. “I just didn’t expect to see you here. You never came to the mixers before.”
    “I don’t get out much,” Nora explained.
    Kylie ventured a tentative smile. Her face was a little fuller than it used to be, a little more ordinary. Not so young anymore, are we? Nora thought.
    “You’re a really good dancer,” Kylie told her. “It looked like you were having fun out there.”
    “I’m all about the fun,” Nora said. She could sense people watching them from a distance, homing in on the drama. “How about you? Enjoying yourself?”
    “I just got here.”
    “Lots of older guys,” Nora pointed out. “Maybe even some married ones.”
    Kylie nodded, as if she appreciated the dig.
    “I deserve that,” she said. “And I just want you to know how sorry I am for what happened. Believe me, you can’t even imagine how terrible I’ve felt…”
    She kept talking, but all Nora could think about was the silver piercing in the middle of her tongue, the dull metallic pearl she could occasionally glimpse when Kylie opened her mouth a little wider than usual. This was another of Doug’s favorite things, the subject of an e-mail rhapsody that Nora been unable to expunge from her memory:
Your BJs are amazing!!! Four fucking stars! Best I ever had. I love the way u go down on me so slow and sexy and lick me with your magic tongue and I love how much u love it too. What was it u said—better than an ice cream cone? I gotta stop now—I’m gonna cum just thinking about your hot little mouth. Love, kisses, and ice cream,
D.
    Best I ever had. That was the line that had killed her, the one that had seemed like more of a betrayal than the actual sex. During the twelve years she and Doug had been together, she’d given him a lot of blowjobs, and he’d seemed happy enough about them at the time. Maybe even a little too happy, she’d come to think, and a little too entitled. She’d complained on a couple of occasions about the way he used to just shove her head down toward his crotch—no words, no tenderness, just a silent command—and he’d made a show of listening carefully, promising to be more considerate in the future. And he always was, for a little while, until he wasn’t anymore. It reached the point, near the end, where the whole act got poisoned for her, and she could no longer tell if she was doing it because she wanted to or because he expected it. Apparently Kylie was a much better sport.
    “I wanted to call you,” she was saying, “but then I just, I don’t know, after everything that happened—”
    She stopped in midstream, her eyes widening as she spotted Karen moving toward them with belligerent urgency, big sister to the rescue. She stepped protectively in front of Nora, getting right in Kylie’s face.
    “What is wrong with you?” she demanded, her voice stoked with indignation. “Are you crazy?”
    “It’s okay,” Nora muttered, laying a restraining hand on her sister’s arm.
    “No, it’s not okay,” Karen said, never taking her eyes off Kylie. “I’m just amazed that you have the nerve to show your face around here. After what you did…”
    Kylie leaned to one side, trying to reestablish eye contact with Nora.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I better go.”
    “Good idea,” Karen told her. “You never should have come here in the first place.”
    Nora stood beside her sister and