Listen to the first chapter of Xochitl Gonzalez’s forthcoming novel, Anita de Monte Laughs Last. If it weren’t for what happened later, everyone would have forgotten that night entirely. It wasn’t like the ’70s, you know? Nights when you never knew what could happen, what to expect. No, by 1985, the parties in New York were all the same. One night, one party, bleeding into the next. Nothing specific or momentous enough to press itself into your memory. The guests, the conversations, the taste of the fucking wine on your lips, all more or less the same. Especially Tilly’s parties. Formulaic, interchangeable. Some felt that’s what made them work, but me? It depressed me—that impossible distinction of the passage of time. The drinks were always set in her claustrophobic galley kitchen. To force intimacy. The food (what little there was—WASPs hate feeding people) was set atop the piano in the center of her massive loft. The poor, young artists hovering while it lasted. The music just loud enough to soften silences, but too muted to …