THREE:"Yes, and you kin count on me to assist," chimed in Shorty, who had come up. "I won't let you play lone hand long, Deacon, for I'm gittin' chirpier every day. If I could only fill up good and full once more on hardtack and pork, or some sich luxuries, I'd be as good as new agin.""And now you want to meet people," Norma said. "All right, Johnny Doddyou'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, sevenpast 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.
