There is a woman with plastic claws attached to her fingers who everyone wants to talk to. When she talks to them, their faces change and their bodies relax and her arms wave faster.
All parties are work, but this one is for work, which is worse, so all of the fun is pretend.
I am standing by the bathroom, not because I have to go to the bathroom, but because it makes me seem like I might have to use the bathroom, and therefore makes sense that I am alone, staring. Anyway, I’m standing, sipping my club soda that is meant to look like a drink so no one asks me why I’m not drinking. No. I’m not pregnant.
Finger-claws is wearing a bright blue dress that hugs her body. She is talking to a woman who has paint on her face, and she laughs as though she just heard what Face-paint said.
I read an article in a science magazine. Ok, it was not a magazine; it was a web page made to look like a magazine that said there is a reason some people have magnetic personalities.
I was curious because I was wondering whether I could somehow get one.
Finger-claws is looking directly into Face-paint’s eyes. Directly into them. Like she wants to start a fight, but she doesn’t want to start a fight, she is smiling. But I see only the corners of her mouth smiling and not the rest of her face.
I read the article, but I do not remember what it said. What does Science know anyway.
Finger-claws is laughing, but I caught a glint in her eye that she didn’t mean to glint. I am so good at catching glints.
Someone bumps into me as they come out of the bathroom, and I say ‘I’m sorry,’ and they look at me but do not say ‘it’s ok’.
I decide I should talk to someone. Who should I talk to. Finger-claws is moving her body away from Face-paint toward a group of people, and Face-paint just moves to the bar and is smiling with her mouth.
I could not hear what Face-paint was saying, but I could tell it was not interesting by the way her face was still while she talked. If I talk to her, I will just stare at her and let her talk about her elderly cat or her brother-in-law’s colonoscopy for 45 minutes until her drink is finally empty and her throat is parched from talking, and my neck will hurt from nodding and my face will hurt from making the face that says this is interesting when it is not interesting, and I will not hear her because I will be thinking of excuses to get away. I will not talk to Face-paint.
There is a man in the corner and his shoes are shiny. He is alone, but he is looking at his phone and pushing on it with hands that look angry.
There is a woman at the bar. She is short and small, and so she is not scary, and she is making laughing sounds with the bartender who is handing her a glass of something pink.
I have a plan. I will walk up to her, and as she turns from the bar before she finds someone to talk to, I will say ‘hello’. No, I will say Hi. Hi is better. She will say Hi back and we will talk.
But she is already turning away from the bar and is walking toward a group of women who are moving their heads back and forth, and I have not started moving and I have not said Hi. Maybe Howdy is better. Is Howdy better?
I am still standing here. Ok, she is talking to other people now. No one is looking. I sip my drink and look at it as though it is very delicious, as though it is not just water, maybe it is something very good and very interesting and I have just discovered something new and unexpected about it. I make a face.
My face is clay. Now there is a lady coming toward me. I know the woman, I think, but what is the woman’s name. She is walking directly toward me and I am thinking and thinking and I don’t remember her name. I am moving my lips into a smile, I am putting a glint in my eye, and I am shifting my weight so I look casual, and she is walking toward me and her face is making a smile but it is a smaller smile than the smile she had before she started walking toward me.
And the woman gets closer, and her eyes look into my eyes and I look at her ear and she says, “Are you waiting for the bathroom?” and I say it, I finally say it, is it time to say it, I’m going to say it — “Howdy, lady.”
****
Thank you, Jessica Stillman, whose title I stole but whose article I didn’t read until I finished mine. She knows why some people are magnetic. I know that I am not.
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