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the wall. Behind the counter itself, the wall was covered with shelves of liquor and glasses, and each shelf was edged with a neon tube, which provided a rainbow effect that was reflected throughout the room by the mirrors that covered the wall behind the shelves and the bar itself. The bar, by now, was covered with bottles, and several of the kids were happily filling glasses with various kinds of liquor.
    “Want something?” Bob asked, eyeing the array.
    Kate hesitated, then shrugged. “Why not? Is there any gin?”
    Bob poured them each a tumbler, added a little ginger ale, and handed one of the glasses to Kate, then turned to ask Alex and Lisa what they wanted. But while he’d been mixing the drinks, Alex and Lisa had disappeared. “Hey—where’d they go?”
    Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. Come on, let’s dance.” She finished her drink and pulled Bob out onto the floor, but when the record ended, both she and Bob scanned the crowd, looking for Alex and Lisa.
    “You think they got mad ’cause we had a drink?” Kate finally asked.
    “Who cares? It’s not as if we need a ride home or anything. Forget about them.”
    “No! Come on.”
    They found Alex and Lisa in the courtyard, staring up at the stars. “Hey,” Bob yelled, holding up his glass, “aren’t you two gonna join the party?”
    “We weren’t going to drink, remember?” Alex asked, staring at the glass. “We were going out for hamburgers.”
    “Who wants hamburgers when you can drink?” Bob replied. He reached down and pulled a bottle of beer out of a tub of ice and thrust it into Alex’s hands. Alex looked at it for a moment, then glanced at Lisa, who frowned and shook her head. Alex hesitated, then defiantly twisted the cap loose and took a swig.
    Lisa glared accusingly at him. “Alex!”
    “I didn’t even want to come to this party,” Alex told her, his voice taking on a defensive edge. “But since we’re here, we might as well enjoy it.”
    “But we said—”
    “I know what we said. And I said I wasn’t going to any parties, either. But I’m here. Why shouldn’t I do what everybody else is doing?” Deliberately he tipped the beer bottle up and chugalugged it, then reached for another. Lisa’s eyes narrowed angrily, but before she could say anything else, Carolyn Evans’s voice suddenly rose over the din of the party as she came out of the front door with her arms full of towels.
    “Who wants to go in the pool?”
    There was a momentary silence, then someone replied that no one had suits. “Who needs suits?” Carolyn squealed. “Let’s go skinny-dipping!” Suddenly she reached behind her, pulled down the zipper of her dress, and let it drop to the patio. Stripping off her panties and strapless bra, she dived into the pool, swam underwater for a few strokes, then broke the surface. “Come on,” she yelled. “It’s great!”
    There was a moment of hesitation, then two more kids stripped and plunged into the water. Three more followed, and suddenly the patio was filling up with discardedclothes and the pool with naked teenagers. Once more, Alex glanced at Lisa.
    “No!” she said, reading his eyes. “We were only coming for a few minutes, and we weren’t going to drink. And we’re certainly not going into the pool.”
    “Chicken,” Alex teased, shrugging out of his dinner jacket. Then he drained the second beer, put the bottle down, and began untying his shoelaces.
    “Alex, don’t,” Lisa begged. “Please?”
    “Aw, come on. What’s the big deal? Haven’t you ever skinny-dipped before?”
    “It’s not a big deal,” Lisa argued. “I just don’t think we ought to do it. I think we ought to go home.”
    “Well, I think we ought to go swimming,” Alex crowed. He stripped off his pants and shirt. “I didn’t think we ought to come here, but I came, didn’t I? Well, now I think we ought to go skinny-dipping, and I think you ought to go along with it.” Peeling off his Jockey shorts, he plunged