Gandhi's Guide to Getting By

chapter eight

Jen's new place is a studio apartment which means bed, clothes rack, table, two chairs, and three foot kitchen all crammed in a space a little bigger than Bibs' walk-in closet. It has a window with an "urban view" (the landlady's eloquent description) of a parking lot. Right now there's a sheet covering the window, what Jen calls a "temporary shade". "Isn't it ace" she screams over the music she has blaring. Ace? Since when does Jen use the word ace? She doesn't wait for me to answer. She has a beer in one hand and a bottle of gin in the other. Some cool-looking guy in jeans and a white t-shirt gives her a peck on the cheek and takes the bottle of gin from her. Jen tosees me a smile and makes her way through the swarm of people crowded like sardines for her housewarming/welcome Bluey party.

At least the neighbors have said yes to her using the corridor, otherwise three quarters of the people here would be standing outside the building, waiting to get in. There's us, minus Stella who's living the highlife at SWAN'S, some mutual friends we've acquired over the years, the neighbors (or so they say), the stragglers who have figured out all they have to say is "neighbor" if anyone asks who they are, and a whole group of people who are either from work or the gym Jen joined a few weeks ago. I look around to see whether I can find Anne, Kate, Shelby, anyone who looks familiar. I'm not good with small talk and I'm definitely not good at the meeting-new-people thing. Besides, I'm convinced the woman I just met, the one wearing a dress and a pair of shoes identical to the ones Jen bought last week, is a clepto who just walked in and helped herself to Jen's clothes rack.

I spot Kate. She and some guy have somehow managed to squeeze themselves onto the two foot kitchen counter. Kate's on his lap, her arms wrapped around him, her face lost in his, his hands somewhere in her shirt. "Excuse me," someone behind me says. Before I can excuse him or anyone else, I've got someone else pushing me to the right, then someone pushing me to the left, this party getting more crowded by the minute. I try to make my way to the corridor, but I suddenly find myself stuck in a corner, surrounded by three guys in suits who are in the midst of some existentialist inebriated argument about whether any of us are really here at the moment. "What about you?" one of them says, "Do you think you're here." I tell them I don't exist. "In other words, feel free to see me as a figment of your imagination. Now, if you could just make a little bit of space so my non-existant self can get through--" Great, someone's shoved one of the confused-about-his-existence guys right on top of me. I shove him off. "Hey," he says, "For someone who doesn't exist, you sure push hard."

"Here Sheila, let me get you out of this mess," a voice says. One second later and I'm swept off my feet and hurled over someone's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Of all the undignified-- I can't even finish the sentence I'm in such shock. Scream. Isn't there some rule about screaming when you're in trouble? Something about releasing the adrenaline-- "You put me down right now, do you hear me?" I scream. There's no point. The music is too loud and no one seems to be paying attention to anyone but themselves and whoever they're with. I spot Shelby who's taking a picture of herself and her new best friend, some girl I've never seen before. Shelby spots me and gives me a wave before putting her arm around her new best friend and taking another picture. I try kicking whoever had picked me up, but he's got a firm grip on my legs. I try punching their back, but it's so crowded I can hardly move my arms.

You would think there'd be a thousand alarms going off in my head. You would think I'd be yelling at someone to call 9-1-1, but - how stupid to choose a dress when I should have worn jeans -is the foremost thought in my mind and oh my God, I just remembered I'm wearing the one pair of hot pink thongs I own because all my sensible underwear was dirty. I make a silent vow to God that from now on I will handwash my sensible underwear nightly provided no one here can see my slut underwear. This is what my relationship with God has succumbed to - bartering less slovenly behaviour for the invisibility of my ass.