Robin Constantine: The Promise of Amazing

The person in question spun around and flashed a dazzling, white-toothed grin that made me want to fix my French knot. He was younger than the rest of them, with dark, jagged hair that fell into his eyes. I held up the cocktail franks to him, softening my smile and praying he wouldn’t ask any questions, since his appearance had completely short-circuited my brain.

“Sweet. Watch this,” he said, grabbing at least five dogs.

He tilted back his head, threw one of the hot dogs high in the air, and caught it in his mouth to the applause of the surrounding group. While chewing he kept his eyes on me, maybe wondering why I wasn’t cheering along with the rest of them. I should have left, but there was something about the way he oozed confidence while acting so asinine that fascinated me. He was a complete tool, but I bet no one ever accused him of being too quiet.

For his next trick, he threw two weenies in the air at once and successfully caught them in his mouth, to the delight of his rapt audience. This time, when he brought down his chin, he wasn’t grinning. The rest of the hot dogs fell from his hand, and he gestured frantically toward his neck.

No one in the group thought he was choking for real. The brown-suit man pounded his fist against a nearby table and chanted, “Gray. Gray. Gray.” Gray’s face blossomed into a bright shade of red, and drool spilled out of the corner of his mouth. My first thought was that if he would go to those lengths for a joke, he must be a real asshole. I was about to leave when I saw the animal-like panic in his eyes.

I dropped my tray and wrapped my arms around him from behind. The words fist, thumb in , right above the navel came out from the recesses of my brain, and I squeezed upward several times to no avail. Someone yelled for help. There was desperate movement around me, but I continued pushing my fist into Gray’s abdomen until I felt his body release. Just as the band finished playing “The Girl from Ipanema,” a gooey mass tumbled out of his mouth and landed with a splat on the cocktail table in front of him. Someone groaned. Gray gripped the table, head down, and coughed. Sound. A good sign. My arms fell from around his waist, and I stepped back.

His navy-blue jacket stretched taut across his back with each breath. Brown-suit guy put a glass of water in front of him, but Gray waved it off. He stood up straight and turned toward me, mouth dropped open like he had something to say.

His dark brown eyes held mine for a second. Open. Honest. Longing . As if the hot-dog-tossing tool was just some mask he’d put on for the party. A wave of recognition coursed through me. Did I know him? No. I’d never seen him before . . . but . . . I took a step toward him.

He blinked and lurched forward.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Then he hurled all over my black Reeboks.

REGURGITATING ON SOMEONE’S SHOES IS NOT the best way to make a first impression.

Especially after that someone saved your life.

I wiped my mouth along the sleeve of my suit jacket, eyes zeroing in on her black sneakers and the puddle of upchuck around them. The noise of the room was smothered by the ba-bum, ba-bum of my heartbeat in my head—a jagged zigzag of pain. The Weenie Girl was a statue of calm shock, mouth slightly open, brows knit, as her eyes went from the pool of vomit on the floor to my face.

I was breathing, and it was a miracle.

“Grayson?”

Hands were on me. Voices urged me to sit. A chair slid underneath me, and I flopped down onto it. All the while my eyes remained on hers. She brushed some stray hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. The distance between us closed, and it was just . . . her. And me. Calm in the chaos. The hair tumbled across her face again. My fingers ached to sweep it away. I wanted to say something, but for once words wouldn’t come. Then Pop blocked her from view.

“Grayson, are you all right?”

They all thought I’d been joking. So, okay, pretending to choke would have been some smart-ass spectacle I might have pulled, but I doubt I could have been so convincing.

He clapped his hands in front of my face.

“What, Pop?” I croaked. His weathered brow creased as he tugged me to standing.

“You need some air,” he said, gripping my forearm. We knifed through the crowd made up of the extended Barrett family, always ready for a party. I craned my neck, searching over the sea of animated faces for the Weenie Girl, but she was gone.

Pop led me through glass doors into the dark lobby. The doors glided to a close, muffling the band’s campy rendition of “I Get a Kick out of You.” He took me to a quiet corner, right next to a shiny suit of armor, which was so out of the ordinary, it made the whole episode more surreal. My head throbbed.

“Grayson,” he said.

“Pop, I’m fff—” I began, but got distracted by the rise and fall of party noise as the doors to the ballroom opened again. Weenie Girl . But no, it was my stepmother, Tiffany, sauntering over holding a martini glass filled with bright blue liquid.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, I’m fine,” I said.

“It’s not nothin’,” Pop said. “He almost choked to death.”

She let out a high-pitched squeak and placed her martini glass on the stone mantelpiece.

“Grayson Matthew, are you okay?” she asked, one hand running through my hair, the other on my cheek, as she gave me a once-over. Tiff liked to use my middle name for emphasis when something significant happened. I’d heard it a lot in anger after I got tossed out of St. Gabe’s last spring. This soft version, almost a whisper, was something new, and I felt myself falling into it.

“I’m fantastic,” I said, shrugging her off. “Can’t we just go back in?”

“Gray, you’re loopy. I’d feel better if you got checked out. We can hit the ER and be back before they cut the cake,” Pop said.

Tiff ruffled. “Let me get my coat and say some good-byes.”

“Tiffany, no. You stay. Mingle,” Pop said.

She put her hand to her chest and sighed. “Are you sure?”

“Yep. Gray and I will be filling out paperwork and fannin’ our balls at the ER. Nothin’ we can’t handle.”

I stifled a laugh and winced, my throat still raw.

“Really, Blake, do you have to be so crude?” Tiff asked.

“C’mon, you love me,” he said, pulling her in for a kiss so intense, I felt like a perv for witnessing. When your father gets more action than you do, it’s all sorts of wrong. Like natural selection gone awry.

They were rubbing noses as a woman in a dark suit walked up to us. She tucked a strand of short blond hair behind her ear, folded her arms, and waited uncomfortably until Pop and Tiff broke apart.

“Are you the boy who choked?”

The Boy Who Choked . Pretty much summed up my seventeenth year.

“Yes,” I answered.

She turned to Make-Out Master Blake Barrett. “I can call the paramedics if you want. I’m—”

“No, that won’t be necessary. We’re going to the emergency room,” Pop answered, cutting her off. Her eyes widened, and she tucked her hair behind her ear again. There was something vaguely familiar . . .

“You have a daughter,” I said.

“Grayson, are you okay?” Pop asked.

“She works here,” I continued, ignoring him.

“Yes. Wren. Do you know her?”

“She saved my life.” The phrase sounded strange, dramatic as it hung in the air.

“Really? I was downstairs checking on another event. The minute I heard I came up. I’m still not quite sure what happened.”

Pop gave her the no-nonsense “he choked on a hot dog, and your daughter did the Heimlich” version, making it sound less epic than it felt. He left out that he’d been at the bar at the time and that my uncles had watched like a panicked Greek chorus while a complete stranger took control of the situation.