‘Cool,’ he says, very clearly looking over my shoulder for someone better.
My heart is pounding. What happens now? Do we keep talking? Owen walks out of the kitchen and into the lounge room.
I follow him, and hover in the background. There’s a free chair in the far corner, and I sit in it and smile at people, trying to catch someone’s eye, trying to see an opening to say something. There’s none, in part because the chair has been pushed off to the side and wedged half behind a shelf, so I’m out of eyeline of the people chatting on the other chairs and couches.
I pull out my phone and pretend I am texting someone. I google ‘top ten tips for talking to people at parties’ and scroll through suggestions about introducing myself with a firm-but-not-too-firm handshake (I don’t know much, but this party really does not seem like the kind of party where you would shake hands with someone), asking engaging questions (it does not explain how to know if a question is engaging or not), and smiling and laughing when appropriate (which sends me into a spiral: Maybe I’ve never smiled or laughed at an appropriate time in my entire life and I just didn’t realise until this moment).
My phone battery drops to 30% and I reluctantly put it away. I have to keep it for emergency moments only now. Or maybe I can find a charger in the house. That could be a conversation opener, if I can figure out who Benny is and then ask him if I could borrow a charger, and then maybe we keep talking and I ask a bunch of really engaging questions and we hit it off. Maybe Benny and I will fall in love.
I walk back into the kitchen. Someone has spilled Coke all over the bench, so I grab a cloth and clean it up. I throw a few empty beer bottles in the bin and I’m contemplating the dirty dishes when Alex walks in.
‘Are you cleaning? Why are you cleaning?’ He’s laughing.
‘Just wiping up a spill,’ I say.
He stops laughing. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t have to stay here, you know.’ Alex sits on the bench I just wiped, and I try not to be annoyed by this.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Parties aren’t your thing.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘You did.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Yeah, you did. About six months ago. You said you can’t stand parties and you hate most people.’
That definitely sounds like something I would say. I mean, it’s kind of true, but it’s also a great line for someone who is looking for an excuse not to leave her house. It’s such a relief when every internet quiz I do says I’m an introvert, like I’ve been given written permission to avoid everyone and everything. You don’t have to try now because you’re an introvert, is what I take it to mean.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I say.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I love parties now. And people.’ I’m using my most upbeat tone.
‘What brought on this turnaround?’
‘I’m trying to be more open-minded. It’s my New Year’s resolution,’ I say. This is a lie. My real New Year’s resolutions are to learn how to do my own eyeliner, read one hundred books, and fix all my issues (emotional, physical, mental) before I start uni.
‘But it’s not New Year’s Eve for another four days,’ he says, smiling and making what I think my ‘top ten tips for talking to people at parties’ article would call ‘warm eye contact’.
‘I’m starting early,’ I say, trying to maintain the eye contact, which is difficult because my heart is racing.
‘Smart,’ he says.
Alex stops smiling, and his eyes go to someone behind me. I turn, and see that it’s Vanessa Nguyen, his ex. She went to my school, a year ahead of me. Now she studies fine arts at the Victorian College of the Arts and she has a nose piercing and a tattoo of a bird on her wrist and she’s cooler than I can ever dream of being. She and Alex were on-and-off again all through high school.
‘Hey, Ness,’ Alex says, and his face is all tight and tense. He’s still in love with her, I assume.
‘Hi, Vanessa,’ I say, because I am trying to show Alex that I don’t hate people.
‘Hi,’ she says to me with a hint of uncertainty. I can tell she vaguely recognises me but has no idea who I am.
‘How are you?’ Vanessa says to Alex.
I should leave, so they can have their awkward conversation in private, but I have nowhere to go and, also, I was here first.
‘I’m good, how are you?’
‘Busy. You know.’
‘Yeah. Are you still working at that bar?’
‘Nah, I quit.’
‘I’m glad. That manager was sleazy.’
‘He was the worst. How do you two know each other?’
It takes me several seconds to realise Vanessa is referring to Alex and me. It’s such an odd question—as if Alex and I are here together, as if how I know Alex matters at all.
I laugh nervously.
‘Natalie is friends with Zach. You would have seen her at my house,’ Alex says.
‘Oh yeah, I thought you looked familiar.’
I don’t know what to say to that—I want to point out that we also went to school together—but I stick with my trademark move and say nothing.
‘Well, I’ve got to go say hi to Jacqui. I’ll talk to you later,’ Vanessa says, and she touches his arm and then walks off.
Alex sighs after she’s out of earshot.
I hitch myself up onto the kitchen bench beside him. ‘Are you two still friends?’ I ask.
‘Not really. Or, yes, we are but in a weird way,’ he says.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘About what?’
‘Seeing her makes you sad.’
‘No, it doesn’t. I’m not sad. I’m…’ But he doesn’t finish the sentence. I raise my eyebrows.
He folds his arms as if he’s not going to say anything, then says, ‘Fine, seeing her makes me feel a teeny, tiny bit sad.’
‘That sucks.’
‘But it’s not like I still want to be with her. I don’t. I just… I don’t know. It’s weird.’
Alex is jiggling his leg and I reach out and put my hand on his knee to stop him. Only after I remove my hand from his leg does it occur to me that I’ve never touched him before. I’m suddenly self-conscious about the intimate gesture.
He looks at me, as if he’s thinking the same thing about us never having touched before.
‘Zach does that leg jiggling too. It drives me nuts,’ I say, suddenly filled with the need to explain.
‘Must be genetic,’ Alex says, smiling now.
‘Or he learned it from you.’
‘That’s scary. To think of all the things he might have learned from me.’
‘What’s the best thing about having three brothers?’ I ask, partly because it seems like an engaging question, but also because I am paranoid about the things I might have missed out on not having siblings. Like, could there have been a whole other Natalie, a better Natalie, who would have existed if she’d had a cool older sibling to show her the way in life, or a younger sibling who looked up to her.
Alex makes a face at my question.