Chapter 654

Stephen sparked up the joint he had picked up earlier, took a couple drags, and passed it to me. I hit it hard and held the smoke for a long while, until Stephen was releasing a cloud of his own from his last hit. The purple haze began to take over our little area in the center of the covered patio. The party surrounding us had a casual intimacy about it. Everyone seemed to know one another. They talked easily. There were couples. There were singles. There was a lot of casual touching. The Mardi Gras masks helped conceal identities, but only to a limited extent. A visible dent had been made in the mountain of cocaine. Jess, Melanie, and Juliet had disappeared inside.

Then, through the fog of smoke, two females appeared. I recognized both instantly despite the masks covering their eyes. They were, arguably, the best actresses of their respective generations. One had a majestic mane of reddish-auburn hair. She was just on the other side of fifty now, but you would never have kno