The Holiday Party, Part 1.
No one was dancing, and I was furious about it.
No one was dancing.
I looked around the large conference room that the operations team transformed into a function space. I couldn’t believe people were just talking and eating.
It reminded me of the wedding Randal and I attended where dancing wasn’t allowed because it took place in the basement of a Baptist church. Everyone at the wedding stood around awkwardly once dinner was over, like we were in Footloose. The couple divorced six months later.
This is a holiday party, for Christ’s sake. Where’s the merriment? There was great music, an open bar, and plenty of energy-supplying food. I remembered getting drunk, dancing, singing karaoke, and doing a photo scavenger hunt with my comrades from an old job. But that old job was at a sales company where I worked alongside people who oddly lived for ringing a bell, not at one of the oldest law firms in the country.
A bartender placed a ginger ale in front of me on a table covered with navy blue linen. “Thank you,” I said. I couldn’t get drunk anymore because my body couldn’t tolerate it, which just made me more aware of everything. Luckily, it also made it less likely that I’d embarrass myself at my husband’s office holiday party. He was overdue for a promotion.
During the day, this conference room hosted bigwigs from the legal world, along with politicians, bestselling novelists, and notorious celebrities in a bind. Several narrow windows pieced together the perfect view of Boston Harbor. The firm was tussling with a realtor over whether or not it would renew its lease here, but it was all show and mirrors because that view.
They wouldn’t give it up. No one else in this area of the city had that view because this building existed before most of this side of the city existed. It used to be nothingness built on a landfill with wharfs where my ancestors once laid fish on ice. The wharfs were later abandoned and replaced with overpriced real estate. Rent was now $4,000 a month. The firm got in at the ground level for space here and this area of the city sprouted up around them. Now, it reached a level of over-development that didn’t make sense. The lack of planning and character was akin to looking at Legos belonging to a child who either lost or didn’t care about the set’s plans.
Maybe you hate it here because you used to work down the street, I chided myself. I took the same street to get to Randal’s company that I took every day to get to work four years ago. Crossing the bridge to reach the district was a lemon on my wound. I was one of few folks at my old company who didn’t attend an Ivy League and was never going to fit in there. My boss had no interest in developing me and played Mean Girls when I asked what I thought were reasonable questions. The day she fired me, I walked back down that street, passed my company’s CEO who looked away from me in shame because he personally signed my departure paperwork, and considered throwing myself in front of a train because they had me convinced it was all my fault.
Now, I stood a block away from that place wearing a ruffly green cocktail dress, red lipstick, a green rhinestone headband that sparkled under the lights, black boots, and Santa hat earrings at the law firm’s holiday party. I’m a princess. This year, I did something I never do: wore the same dress as last year. We were recently forced to repair everything in our humble abode and launched a GoFundMe after our car shit the bed, on top of everything else. I had to stick with the same dress. I knew nobody would notice or care, and Randal’s boss Imani would compliment me no matter what, but I always liked to wear something new and different.
We sat down with some of my husband’s coworkers and exchanged greetings while wondering where Victor, Nick, Lizzie, and Imani were after some desperate searching. Please, send people who make us feel like real people. We couldn’t see them anywhere, so we sat across from a partner and the overpaid middle manager who doesn’t do much and more importantly, doesn’t shut up about cycling.
“Wait… that’s Ben?” I whispered to Randal.
“Yes,” he said.
“That Ben? The one who cycles?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
I looked up at Ben. When his annoying love of cycling was mentioned to me, I envisioned a svelte 35-year-old, 6’0” Norwegian-American cyclist with long blonde hair that ended at the bottom of his helmet. Before me sat a 50-year-old man who was fit but not solid, definitely not Norwegian, definitely bald, unattractive, but kind. He offered to get up and grab drinks for everyone. He kissed ass. This was why he was hired.
Then I looked at Ben’s wife, Cindy. Her skin was perfect. Too perfect. It glowed. I’m always jealous of people with perfect skin because I still get acne, even after a round of Accutane and turning 40. I was furious. What the fuck does she use? Maybe she could afford to get facials every week and the best skincare products out there. She was pretty, but in an approachable way. Her short brown hair was neatly curled and put off to one side, and she was 10-15 years younger than Ben.
Randal moved his head toward me and put a hand up, ready to whisper. “That’s his second wife. The ‘fun’ one.”
“The fun one?” I whispered back.
“First wives are too complicated,” Randal said. I chuckled.
“You’d know,” I said.
Cindy addressed one of the partners’ wives. “I said to Ben, I’m so glad I don’t have to buy a gown for the party!” She laughed. “Everyone here is dressed down, it’s great!”
I looked at my husband, willing him to stand up and say, “Well, I guess we should get something to eat,” but he didn’t yet.
Ben pointed to Randal and I. “Cindy, they live right near where we used to park our bikes to ride into the city!” Here we go.
“What area?” She asked. “I can’t remember which spot!”
“The one by the prison,” he said.
By the prison. It was close to other things. By the dispensary. By the gas station with the Dunkin Donuts. By the city park. By River Street. Anything.
“Ohhhh I remember that, yes!” Cindy exclaimed. “We used to ride 20 miles from there into Boston to get to work every day.” It was preposterous.
“I used to drive into the city, but it’s so crazy now! The traffic makes it slower getting in, and then there’s no place to park,” Ben added. It wasn’t preposterous.
The cycling talk then veered into other recreational activities.
“Do you two go downhill skiing?” Cindy smiled wide at us in expectation. When have I ever been able to afford to ski? Oh wait, she just wants to talk about which mountains she and Ben have been to, I got it.
“No, too nerve-wracking for me!” I exclaimed, like it was a preference. “I like hiking, though!” Cheap, cheap hiking. Glorious, glorious, walking in the fucking woods and not needing much outside of hiking boots, bug spray, and water.
Cindy looked delighted. “Oh! Where do you like to hike?”
I was ready. “Carlisle has a bunch of great trails. That’s where Great Brook Farm State Park is…”
“We’ve cycled there!” Ben piped up. “It’s beautiful!”
Good choice, I thought to myself.
“I also love Concord,” I said.
“Have you done the Minuteman Trail?” Ben asked.
“Yes, I love it! But I can see where that would be more fun to cycle,” I admitted, remembering how I almost passed out from dehydration there as a rookie hiker.
Randal turned to me. “Well, I guess we should get something to eat,” he said.
“Great thinking!” I exclaimed. We smiled at everyone and rose.
I’ve always approached free dinners at nice places and parties like I was food insecure, even though outside of a colonoscopy I’ve always had food in my belly. How lucky am I, I reflected. Randal couldn’t say the same.
I looked over the food options: appetizers, pasta plates made to order, two carving stations with prime rib roast and roasted chicken, sushi, candy, coffee, and desserts. First, I grabbed a full plate of jumbo shrimp and loaded up on cocktail sauce. It was next to an ice sculpture with oysters. No oysters. Fuck oysters. Prime rib roast, yes! Gobs and gobs of potatoes. Roasted asparagus. I’d do pasta if I weren’t gluten free. Spicy tuna and avocado rolls. I’ll hit the candy dispensers later. Macaroons? Don’t mind if I do. Mini cheese cakes? Don’t mind if I do. Vanilla ice cream? Don’t mind if I do. Chocolate favors? Don’t mind if I do! Then I’d return for seconds and thirds, mostly to load up on more mashed potatoes.
This was the reason why one of my favorite jobs was working as a hotel banquet server when I was eighteen years old. It wasn’t complicated, it paid really well, and you got to witness family drama and drunk stupidity firsthand. On the other hand, you were constantly surrounded by joy and it was lovely. But the best part was that at the end of the night, after weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, showers, and anniversary parties, we took off our black vests and bow ties and ate like medieval kings and queens around a table by the kitchen. Then we’d smoke cigarettes by the dumpster.
Leading up to that feast, I looked both ways and treated myself to champagne toast glasses that I just removed from tables undisturbed, delighting in the strawberries placed on their rims. I could have gotten fired for that, but why let it go to waste? One night, I danced with a wedding guest because he asked. He was shy and his friends challenged him to do it. We danced as his friends took photos with disposable cameras placed on the tables, and I live on in their family photo albums.
“Mama, you can’t do that!” My hotel supervisor said. She was 5’0’’, had gray curls, and did that job for way too long. She called everyone Mama, and we all called her Mama in return.
“But why, Mama?” I asked. “It doesn’t hurt anything.”
“People will think you aren’t working, Mama!” she exclaimed.
“Okay, Mama,’ I said. “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” No promises.
Back at the firm, we returned to our table and I was chomping so much that I didn’t have time to speak, thankfully. I ate until my stomach hurt and my cocktail dress felt tighter. I never binge like this except when the food is this good and this free. Now, I needed a ginger ale to wash it down.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Randal, as he pleasantly chatted with the woman who’s his biggest pain in the ass at work.
The bartender, in vest and bow tie, handed me a ginger ale and I walked toward one of the large windows looking onto the harbor. The DJ played something fun, a cha-cha number. I looked around, excited.
No one was dancing.
What the fuck is with these people, I thought. Dinner is over!
I turned back around and leaned against the window with my left arm extended upward and sipped the ginger ale in my right hand. I peered onto the water. A lit up boat cruise carrying another office holiday party glided across the water. It was pretty. I could hear music in the distance, but couldn’t discern what song it was. Were they dancing?
Then I looked beyond the boat, across the harbor, and tried to make out the old shipyard where my dad used to work. I remembered him saying how much he loved working by the sea every day, and how he hoped his ashes would be delivered to the Atlantic from that location. He wore a hard hat with the company logo and an Auburn Carhartt jacket my mother deemed, “The Duck” due to its ability to repel water. It was before all these nice buildings were here.
I began dancing in place. One-two-cha-cha-cha, three-four-cha-cha-cha, five-six-cha-cha-cha, seven-eight-cha-cha-cha.
Look at me now. I’m in a nice dress, considered one of them, binge eating free food until my stomach is ready to explode, drinking their free drinks, looking down at people on the street and the water. I wondered if someone on that boat cruise was looking up at me, trying to speculate upon what I might be thinking, and did they know I was just as curious about them? I saw them down there, and for whatever reason, I knew what it was like to see me from their perspective.
Would you dance with me? I wondered.
To be continued.