The Party - by Jacqueline Ostrowicki

The people arrived. By the hundreds it seemed, although of course there were only fifteen people total and the multiplying was only the result of her inherently drunk-with-dread state of mind. She loathed it, the clomping and hugging and gasping over the elaborately set table, the pouring of drinks and the dispersing of the masses into discernable clumps, varied by their common interests. She helped stir the peach fizzy schnapps drink with listless vigor. Something to do, ah yes. Stay awake, look polite, laugh at all the right times. Save the yawning for private, snatched moments when most normal people would be snatching kisses. However, you cannot kiss and yawn at the same time, and since yawning is far less socially acceptable, it must be hidden.

The trick was to look intrigued, which allowed the mind to wander to faraway places unattainable during daylight, uninterrupted hours. Galleries of unexplored thoughts, moments. Such as what happened to the mysterious boy with the carefully gelled shock of brown hair, the artist who never told her where he was going, and one day just disappeared off the face of the earth? He was lost in another galaxy, she supposed. What would she say if she saw him again? Quite probably the same types of things she was saying to these people here, exclaiming about nonsense while casting an eye about for a graceful escape.

The guests played a game, after a while, a guessing type of game in which one person rolled the dice to select a letter. The players would then fill out a card of lists with words beginning with that letter. It was a game that lent itself to cheating and a bit of a stretch, and you could tell so much about people by the words they chose. An object in a refrigerator, beginning with an M….would it be mustard or mascarpone? Would an item that was thrown away, starting with the letter G, be garbage or goggles?

It was on the “F” roll that she noticed him. Droopy eyes; eager, wide smile; almost handsome but too earnest. He chose odd words; it attracted her attention. He wasn’t an intellectual; although nicely dressed, he seemed rather earthy. She’d seen him pull up in a Jaguar, which appeared very out of character. She could imagine him as a woodland guide, dressed in polar fleece and staring earnestly at the stars.

They went about the circle, shouting out their words. Things found in the ocean, that was the turn. Fish, said a curly haired brunette, and fungi was offered up by a slight, pretty girl with straight, swingy hair. It came round to him, and he said boisterously, farmer. A squeal of protest went up from the group. There are no farmers in the ocean! For that matter, anything could be found in the ocean if one dropped it in. Fans, for instance, or flat tires. He looked calmly at everyone. “Of course,” he said. “Those would all be correct answers. Because you can find anything in an ocean. It doesn’t have to be there naturally. It only has to be there.”

She thought about correct answers. Of course, there were never any. Every answer was correct, to some degree and to somebody. By the same token, every person was somewhat justified in what they did. Where they went. How they felt. The boy in another galaxy. Each guest. And herself. She stood from the shouting circle and removed herself, quietly, to her own silent room.

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