"I noticed you," the girl said. "And I said to myself, I said: 'What can a person as grim as all that be doing at a Social as gay as all this?' So I stopped you to see if I could find out." Dodd licked his lips. "I don't know," he said. "I thought maybe I'd meet somebody. I just thought I'd like to come." "Well," the girl said, "you've met somebody. And now what?" Dodd found some words, not many but enough. "I haven't met you yet," he said in what he hoped was a bright tone. "What's your name?" The girl smiled, and Dodd saw for the first time that she hadn't been smiling before. Her face, in repose, was light enough and to spare; when she smiled, he wanted smoked glasses. "Very well," she said. "My name is Fredericks. Norma Fredericks. And yours is--" "Dodd," he said. "John Dodd. They call me Johnny." "All right, John," she said. "You haven't been to many Socials, have you? Because I'd have seen you--I'm at every one I can find time for. You'd be surprised how many that is. Or maybe you wouldn't." There was no answer to the last half of that, so Dodd backtracked, feeling a shocking relief that she hadn't been to the party at which he and the other girl (whose name he could very suddenly no longer remember) had made fools of themselves. He gave her an answer to the first half of her question. "I haven't been to many Socials, no," he said. "I--" He shrugged and felt mountainous next to her. "I stay by myself, mostly," he said. "And now you want to meet people," Norma said. "All right, Johnny Dodd--you're going to meet people!" She took him by the arm and half-led, half-dragged him to the door of the party room. Inside, the noise was like a blast of heat, and Dodd stepped involuntarily back. "Now, that's no way to be," Norma said cheerfully, and piloted him somehow inside, past a screaming crew of men and women with disposable glasses in their hands, past an oblivious couple, two couples, four, seven--past mountains and masses of color and noise and drink and singing horribly off-key, not bothersome at all, loud and raucous and somehow, Dodd thought wildly, entirely fitting. This was Norma's element, he told himself, and allowed her to escort him to a far corner of the room, where she sat him down in a chair, said: "Don't go away, don't move," and disappeared.