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Show 27 "I think it's free. I can check." He stood up and buttoned his jacket and went over to the refreshment table, where Miss Cekada was helping the girls pour punch. Miss Cekada was wearing a bright red dress that carefully matched her lipstick. She blinked when she saw him. "That's a combination that will knock your eye out, Lorin," she said. The girl standing next to him turned to look. They disagreed all the time in class about open and closed spaces, and she had allowed once that he was just a little smarter with her than he needed to be, but they usually agreed about color relationships, so he was fairly sure she got the joke. He took two paper cups containing ice and green punch, holding his elbows steady so as not to spill any, and started back to the folding chairs. From a distance Donna looked thin and angry sitting by herself in her white formal. Her shoulders, he thought, were a little too bony to be uncovered. She glanced up and took the cup he handed her and said something he couldn't hear because of the music. He knew there was no point in trying to talk while the music was this loud, so he unbuttoned his jacket and sat down and sipped his punch and watched the faceted ball that hung from the ceiling rotate, sending a shower of elongated spots of red and orange and green and violet light in jerky ripples across walls and moving faces and backs. He was especially interested in the effect of the colored spots moving across the members of the band. It was like seeing them through water, with bright poisonous microbes riding the currents over their bodies. Lorin knew the drummer and the trombone player, and one of the saxophone players looked familiar. Their pink wooden music stands had "Rhythm Kings" painted in black script across the front and sequins glued to the black paint. The players wore red dinner jackets with black lapels, and the pianist wore |