the party

two strangers have an unrealistic imaginary conversation

12:46 AM AT A PARTY (IMAGINARY). YOU’RE DRINKING BEER AND LIGHTING A CIGARETTE ON THE PORCH ALONE (BY CHOICE SITTING ON THE STEPS BUT PEOPLE AROUND YOU). IT’S LIKE A COCA COLA COMMERCIAL (THE COLORS; RED AND TRANSLUCENT TEAL AND HARDWOOD). THE SHADOWS ARE DARK AND THE LIGHT IS YELLOW. 

ATTN READER: THE SCENE IS SET FOR THE CONVERSATION WHICH HAS AND WILL NEVER HAPPEN, WITH SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT EXIST. 

There’s a girl walking down the steps past you. Her legs are skinny. She turns her chin into her shoulder to pry at you with avid eyes.

“Oh,” she says, and then she sits next to you, smelling of weed and a warm body.

“Evening,” you say, your hat dropping over your brow when you nod to her in acknowledgement.

“You again,” she says, wonderment found in her tone of voice. “You’re looking especially lovely, aren’t you?”

“Thanks.” You suck on the cigarette and the smoke climbs into your scalp. “Excuse me, but have we met?”

“Oh, not from your perspective. You can call me Raymond. Jerry. Er, William. You know. A sir. A gentleman. Whatever you’d like.” Her lips are pinching into a suppressed smile; her eyes are lazy but bright with a slow anxious energy, probing you greedily, and you’re confused by their blatant hunger. “I’ve seen you before. I’ve always wanted to speak with you.”

“What do you mean?” You shift a little to look at her closer, tasting the cigarette on the roof of your mouth, your tongue rolling about thoughtfully. Maybe you’ll recognize her. 

“I saw you, lots of times. So many. I already said that. Anyways. My god, your hair. The thing is, I wanted to ask you, how does it feel? You know, to be the sort- to be the sort of person that turns people inside out?”

“Dude, who the hell are you?” You let out a scoff of a laugh, maybe a bit fearful, or maybe a bit disgusted. “And what are you talking about?”

“I told you. What was it? William. You can call me Willie. People often do.” 

“OK. Somehow I doubt that. You’re creeping me out. Are you a stalker or something?”

“No,” she says indignantly. “How presumptuous of you. It’s all by chance that I’ve seen you so clearly and so often. I only want to speak with you, just this once, because I’m sure you’ve no interest in me. I would only be a hindrance in your everyday life, what with my wordiness and my blandness and my nothingness.”

“Get on with it, then. You’re being weird.”

“With what? Oh, right. I have a speech prepared. First, I was wondering why you’re sitting out here all alone. Surely your friends are missing you. Your boyfriend.”

“Just wanted to enjoy this cigarette. I’ll be back in soon. What concern is it of yours, Willie?” You raise your eyebrows at her.

She giggles and shakes her head. “None, I suppose. Just a question. An inquiry into your state of mind.”

“I can’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Just being polite,” she says, smiling only slightly faltering.

“Why do you have a speech prepared?”

“Well, I can’t recall if I’ve said so already, but I’ve always wanted to speak with you. Let’s see if I can bring it to mind and say it all like I’ve been rehearsing in my daydreams.”

You grimace. “Let’s get this over with, shall we? I’ll hear you out. Then I’m going back inside, and you’d better not follow me.”

“So rude. I understand why, but I hope you’ll be receptive to what I have to say.”

“I will if you quit stalling.”

Those indolent greedy eyes have glossed over, unfocused, gone somewhere else, turned into reflecting pools. She looks starry, feverish, like a thing in heat, stiffened with the potency of an idea. “You’re idyllic, painted, a good cup of coffee. The right size; not too big or small, well-proportioned, clear lines, clothes that look right. You’ve got white teeth, the shape of your lips and your smile… and all of you ambiguous enough to evoke redundant curious stolen glances that turn to enthrallment. So many things at once that you look like one whole, like the fullest, brightest thing alive. You make me shrink, just the sight of you. All of you a frame, perfectly molded from each shape to the next, made to accessorize. A doll I’d admire in my child hand, staring dumbly and imagining I was inside of you instead of me. You’re a daydream, a wet dream. I want to be you. I want to be with you. And only because of how I have seen you. And you’ve never had any idea, you’ve never even known who I am, never known I existed in the first place, and how I dream of you.” 

You only stare at her, watching her lost in her bizarre fervor. “You’re crazy, aren’t you?”

“Yes! Thank you!” 

“You are.”

“Thank you, really.”

“You’re welcome. Exactly which substances have you been mixing?”

“A lady never tells. Or a gentleman, rather. Since I am Sir Willie, after all.”

“Sure you are.”

“You really are lovely.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

“No, just being honest.”

“Those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“I’d say they are.”

You flick some ash onto the steps, and shrug. “You claim you’re not a stalker. You sure sound like one.”

“You’re misunderstanding. That’s not how it is.”

“How is it then?”

She opens her mouth and closes it again.

You sigh, smoke pluming through the night air and fading fast. “I’d love to hear an explanation, really, but my friends are waiting. Like you said, they’re missing me.”

“And your boyfriend.”

“Yes, and my boyfriend. Don’t follow me.”

She doesn’t say anything. 

You haven’t moved.

She still doesn’t say anything, but she’s looking at you like she means something by it.

“What do you want from me?” You’re exasperated by her and your own foolish curiosity.

“I just… I guess I just hoped you would listen.” Her shoulders fold inward, her frame curling like a dried-out leaf.

“Why me?”

“I just think you would listen. I pictured it. I thought that maybe you would be interested to know that somewhere out there you’ve never met, someone--me--thinks of you every day, and that you would want to hear why.”

You cannot deny it. Nor can you really confirm it. You’re stuck there considering it, at a standstill. Four beers deep, in fairness. You just look at her, mouth slack a bit with the confusion, forehead wrinkled and temples tensed in thought. “You don’t want to speak to me. You just want to speak at me, like some perverted sort of confessional.”

“I guess you’re right.” She looks the sort of girl who cries easily. The sort of annoying, weak-willed girl who wants to seem different from the rest, “not like the other girls,” paints her fingernails black and wears doc martens. Her makeup is pretty s**t, but it’s come off from sweat and absentminded face-rubbing. Her ever-overbearing eyes are wide and bloodshot and depressingly desperate for you to concede.

You just look at her. “Go on,” you tell her, and you’re not sure why.

The way she breathes--like a mezzo-soprano, poised, preparing her body for the impact of her own voice. “I saw you, passenger side of a pickup truck, with one of your friends. Saw your hair catch fire in the afternoon sun, you a darling flower taking in the sun like a spotlight--and I thought you were just like an angel. The first time was in the afternoon on Halloween walking past, just a glimpse. A handful of times afterward, waiting in lines, looking at your phone, eating a sandwich. One time you stood near me, throwing out your garbage. You didn’t even see me staring. That sort of thing.”

“What do you mean, you saw me? Do I know you? We go to school together?”

She shakes her head, looking worried and guilty and for some reason amused.

The corners of your lips twist uncomfortably. “Are you following me?”

“No. I just see you. It’s not on purpose. Well, it is, but not like that. I don’t mean to see you. I just look for you, everywhere I go.”

“Why?”

She starts pulling at the hem of her skirt, trying to soothe herself. “Every time you rattle me. I come to feel uncomfortable in my own skin at the sight of you. Wanting something more but it’s impossible. But for some reason, I look. Like I want it, like I want this awful feeling that I am shrunken up and worthless in your light.”

“Do you have feelings for me? Do you want me? I don’t understand.”

“Listen, I don’t want you, not really. I do, so terribly, but it’ll die out, and one day I won’t look for you anymore, and I won’t see you either.” She is reaching for the cigarette in your hand almost imperceptibly, obvious in her wanting, the opposite of nonchalant. Then she lifts her eyes from the orange glowing tip dripping ash on the pavement to your face, and she brings herself to continue. “I would never be able to reconcile you with me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know. I know. I’m not assuming you would ever want me. I know what I am compared to you. I know you can see it. You must know I’m lesser.” Her face falls, and the arm outstretched falls limply back to her lap, and her voice gets quieter, pulled as if it’s gone deeper inside her, muffled and mute and weighed down. “I can’t want you, not like this, not in the way I’ve created. I couldn’t go on like that, bowing at the altar, bending my spine like a weary old twig, snapping under someone else’s clamor to find the door in the pitch dark once they’re spent.”

“Why me? I’m just like any other person. Why are you obsessed with me?”

“You’re so beautiful,” she says, and it seems to make her so miserable. Her face has crumpled up. Maybe she will cry. “You’re beautiful and everyone who meets you likes you and you must know it. With a smile like that, no one could ever dislike you. You must be responsible and good and friendly and kind, someone people want to be around, someone who goes out often and always knows what to say and do so everyone is having fun.”

You hope she doesn’t cry. It would be too weird. You just want to be away from her; perhaps you are becoming disgusted and alarmed by her. Instead you offer her the cigarette.

She takes it, and is starting to smile, and you regret it a little, but she draws it in eagerly, eyelashes fluttering, savoring the inhale. Then it flits out of her mouth in little spurts, and she goes back to prying you open with her unabashed staring. 

“You don’t know me at all.”

“I don’t. That’s why you’re so lovely, isn’t it?”

“You don’t see me.”

“No one does. That’s not really the point, I don’t think.” She frowns.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She seems amused by your indignance. “No one ever really sees you, silly. People only see themselves. That’s just the way it is.”

You are becoming annoyed with her amusement, her unpredictable reactions, her presence, her ashing the cigarette onto her big boots. “That doesn’t matter. You can’t just assume all of these things about me when we’ve never even spoken. It’s irrational.”

“If I’m crazy, you’re crazy for sitting here with me, for listening at all. Don’t get upset!”

You’re starting to get up to leave, and she latches onto you with one hand locked around your wrist. 

“Please,” she begs, shiny-eyed and earnest and desperate, “please just sit with me awhile longer. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Stop touching me,” you tell her, but not so loud that anyone will pay you any mind; you’re worried she’s going to draw attention. 

She releases you, and looks up at you plaintively, looking so pitiful and small. “Please,” she entreats you, “I know this is weird. We just have mutual friends, is all. People in common. I expected we’d meet like this one day. It’s not that weird. Just listen. Please.”

You sit back down, even though it still is weird. She passes back the cigarette, a small grateful smile flickering when she meets your eyes, but flickering away in self-doubt at the sight of your expression. Solemn, she begins again. “I admit, you are more of a concept than a person to me. An idea attached to an idolized body. It can’t just be me, though, can it? Is it that I’m the only one willing to admit it, or am I the only one who sees it this way?”

“You’re saying everyone views me as ‘an idea attached to an idolized body’? Yeah, I’d say you’re alone in that.”

“No, I’m not! You’re not understanding. People are all concepts. To you I am a concept. Right? Likely not a pleasant one, but a concept nonetheless, because you cannot fully conceptualize the depth of my experience, and will only ever interact with my surface. What is under the skin--it is not witnessed, no matter how hard we try to see, we will only ever be encountering ourselves in the pursuit of someone else’s innards.”

“Under your skin, I’d say there’s not much to look at,” you say dryly.

“Oh, certainly,” she agrees, almost breathlessly eager. “All tumbleweeds and dirt blowing in a halfhearted sigh of a breeze. Nothing worth a second glance.”

Your beer is almost empty. You shake your head, huffing a bit.

She watches you drink it with trancelike interest. “Up close I still can’t find a thing wrong with you. I wonder if I should kiss you, except that it would cause me such excitement that I’d likely faint dead away, and you’d likely become nauseous.”

“Don’t even think of it.”

“I wasn’t, not really. I haven’t earned it. Not that I ever will, of course. The point is, how do I get rid of you?”

You do become visibly alarmed at this wording. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I think of you constantly. How do I make it stop?”

“Listen, just because you secretly jack off to ‘the idea of me’ does not make me, a complete stranger, responsible for helping you figure out how to get over the thing you have built me up to be.”

“You’re grumpier than I expected. But again, I don’t know what to expect. You could be anything. It hardly matters. I just need to get out the words. That’s quite presumptuous of you, also--to assume I’m jacking off to you...do you want to know if it’s true or not, or will it upset you?”

“What’s so funny about this to you?” You’re frustrated. You don’t know what questions to ask, or if it matters.

She shakes her head, that stupid tight-lipped smile breaking to show teeth yellow in the lamplight. “You don’t know anything about me, either. You just don’t know the half of it. This is so pointless, and yet I can’t stop myself from trying to make you understand.”

“I see. That’s not very funny.”

“It’s...ironic, maybe. You just don’t know how ironic it is, for me to be obsessed with you.”

“You’re right, I don’t. I don’t even understand why you’ve chosen me.”

“Don’t act humble. You know why. It’s because you’re lovely. You’ve got a sun inside you that shines through your skin. I’ve wondered if you’re selfish, a traitor, the backstabbing sort with a winning smile. Obviously I’ve no way of knowing. Maybe you can enlighten me.”

You’re nonplussed, so you just take the last sip of your beer and crush it in your hand. “It’s none of your business what sort of person I am. We aren’t anything to each other.”

“You’re right. I don’t mean too much by it. I’m just a bit drunk. And high, of course. You’re not what I want--you’re more. You’re less. I have what I want, really. You’re just the greener grass, the other side of it, a reminder of my inadequacy. An impossible dream.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I have a lover,” she says, by way of explanation. “Not that you would care either way. But you see, I love him very much. Despite all I have said, I don’t want you like that, not really. Like I’ve said, you’re only an idea.”

“I thought everyone was an idea.”

“Yes, but the important part is recognizing that. For him I can see past it. I can try to remember that my own feelings make reality illusory. He is tangible. That is the beauty of him.”

“You don’t love me.”

“If I was an idiot I’d say I did. I don’t.”

“That’s a relief.”

She beams. “I know. So we’ve established I don’t harbor feelings for you, at least none of circumstance. None that have anything to do with you as a real person.”

“So why do you want to talk to me so badly, if all of this has nothing to do with me?”

She frowns again. “I suppose...fascination. I… feel compelled.”

“Sex?”

Her head jerks up in surprise. When she recognizes that you’re joking her cheeks and mouth melt into a subdued laugh. “No, not sex. I already told you, I can’t reconcile you with me.”

“The idea of me with the reality of you.”

“And the other way around, and to infinity. Because of what you are to me, I cannot want you. And because I cannot want you, I want you, secretly, terribly, all the more.”

“So do you want me, or don’t you?”

“Chickens and eggs, darling, chickens and eggs,” she says, seeming to think this is very clever and funny. “Schroedingers cats. Catch twenty-twos.”

“You’re a bit of an idiot.”

“I’m not,” she insists. “You just can’t see how it looks from over here.”

You give her back the cigarette and tell her to finish it off.

She obliges. After a few long, thoughtful drags she crushes the butt under her big boot. “No, it’s not a sexual compulsion. Not really. Maybe a bit. I’m not sure. You make me feel many things at once, and it’s about as fun and simplistic as taking a s**t on painkillers.”

“Well. Push.”

She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t seem really upset. “I won’t have sex with you. I have morals.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I just told you I already have a lover.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, necessarily.”

“It does to me.”

You shrug. “They say girls don’t count.”

She starts giggling a bit, looking pleased and also a bit coy. “That’s just because they aren’t people.”

“No, they’re concepts. Isn’t that right?”

She straightens up, and takes on a ridiculously authoritative tone. “Oh, yes. Women are definitely in the conceptual realm. Womanhood was an urban legend first circulated by men for centuries until it became the truth. Men seem to forget women exist outside of their own consumption.”

“Sure. Why not benefit from it?” You know she’s known all along that you’re only embarrassing her, or more so letting her embarrass herself.

She flushes. “You don’t mean it. You’re making fun of me. And more importantly, I’d like to be the sort of person who keeps promises.”

“The sort of person who’s boring.”

“Fair enough.” She’s looking weary.

You feel guilty, but you’re not sure why. “Sorry.”

“It’s just,” she says, looking a bit different--angry. Frustrated. “It’s just that. I’m certain he dreams of you, too.”

“Is that what this is? You’re looking for a third? Your methods are a bit bizarre, even for a swinger.”

Becoming agitated, her tone sours. “No. I’m just trying to make you see.”

“See what? ‘See you’? You said yourself. It’s impossible.”

“Not me. You. You must know how I have seen you. Not seen you-seen you, but how I myself have cast myself upon you. This bizarre and painful window you have granted me. I have to tell you. Do you understand?”

“Not really, but I don’t think it matters by now.”

“You can take everything from me. Void everything that I understand to be true. You are my superior. I am your understudy. My own lover would gladly crawl into the shade of your shadow. He would watch the sun move through your hair with awe. I know I am a hypocrite for hating this of him.”

“Would he, now?”

“I suspect it. Nothing more. A part of me believes that he wouldn’t gamble what he has with me. He’s very devoted. But another part of me believes that you are just the sort that people would leave people like me for. That is, above my rank. That is, beautiful and good.”

“You must realize this is insane.”

“Yes.”

“All of it. Involving me in your relationship this way. Involving me in your relationship with yourself this way. It’s illogical. It’s unfounded. It’s bizarre.”

“Yes.”

“And of your lover--you sit with me, adulating me, telling me how you don’t want me so much that you want me so much, but even still you know where your loyalties lie. You’re a hypocrite, and delusional too. You’re the traitor. Would you blame him? Even worse, would you expect this moronic betrayal of him?”

“No, no,” she says, and begins to cry. “He is good. He is wonderful. I disrespect him when I question his loyalties, no matter if he gives me good reason or not. It’s me that’s rotten. You’re right. It’s me that’s disloyal, I’m the one who betrays.”

“Don’t cry,” you say wearily. “I didn’t mean to… that wasn’t my intention.”

She looks fit to climb into your lap, but only stares at her hands where they fold with white knuckles across her lap. “Of course. I am only thinking of myself. Don’t bother with me.”

“Maybe I should go,” you say, and she doesn’t try to stop you this time. But you sit back down despite yourself. “Listen,” you say, mouth dry and sour from the cigarettes and beer; “you can’t measure yourself against others. It doesn’t work like that.”

“I’m aware,” she sniffles haughtily.

“I’m not this metric of success or worth or anything. I’m just a human being.”

“Not to me.”

“Well, f**k you.”

She is sufficiently surprised into another bout of giggles. “F**k you too.”

You laugh until it turns into hiccups.

She is thrilled at the sight of it, until she remembers to be upset with herself.  “Before you go,” she says, and stops.

“Yes?” you say, sounding a bit weary yourself.

“I’ll be candid. Straightforward.” She sucks in a huge breath, and seems to lose willpower, holding it in silently with her muscles tying in knots under her skin.

“Alright then,” you say, trying to be encouraging. To get it over with.

“The reason… Why I’m so aware of you. I was with her. Right before you.”

“With her… who?”

“Her. Your ex now, I suppose. Our ex.”

“Laura?”

“Yeah.”

Quite a few things begin to make a bit more sense, in that moment, even after that fifth beer.

“I don’t know how much she told you about me.” She is, after all, a bit of an idiot.

“It doesn’t matter,” you remind her. Compulsively. It startles you.

“We weren’t serious. Not to her, anyway. Just sleeping together, I mean. It doesn’t matter. She was pretty s**t anyways. I’ve moved on. But you.” She shakes her head. “I don’t even think about her anymore. Well--that’s not true. Sometimes I miss the way she used to smell. But it doesn’t matter, not really. Really.”

“Yeah.” You are once again desperately hoping she won’t start crying, because it would be weird.

“Sorry. This is really weird. I was lying earlier. When I, you know. Said it wasn’t.” She’s not crying, but looks quite vacant. Lights out. You almost miss her passionate nonsensical declarations.

You’re not sure what it is you’re supposed to say. “That’s alright.” 

She makes a hollow little smile. “She liked you better.”

You sigh, feeling like a headache. “That doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t qualify that anyone is better or worse than anyone else.”

“We both know that’s horseshit. I bet everyone likes you better.”

“Than you?”

She looks solemn, but almost gentle, almost ardent. “Than anyone.”

“Let it go. Her affections didn’t mean anything. They aren’t a metric either. That’s where it started, right?”

“It’s more than that,” she says softly. “I guess I can’t explain it as well as I thought. I tried my best.”

“It really doesn’t mean anything,” you try again, not really understanding the words and their necessity. When did you start to talk as if to appease her? At what point had you bent to what you imagined as her will? When had you begun to care? Did you care? When had you tricked yourself into believing you could try to give her what you thought she needed?

“I know,” she says, and you can’t tell if she’s lying. “But still. It was you.”

You just frown a bit, feeling dumb and slow from the beer, and sort of like falling asleep and forgetting.

“Sometimes, I wonder if you could be the one to care for me. To really know what I need, and to give it to me. I love the one I have now, but sometimes I feel like we have trouble understanding each other. I don’t know if he could ever understand how I feel, and what I need. He does well, but.”

You cut her off. “No one will ever give you exactly what you need. They can’t know unless you tell them.”

“Sometimes, if you tell them, it doesn’t seem like it’s worth anything. It doesn’t feel as good as it would if they could just know.”

“You only have to tell them once. Then all the times after that, they’ll know.”

“That’s besides the point.”

“You only think I could give you those things because you don’t even believe I’m human. The me that exists to you isn’t me. You’ve said so already. The me that exists to you is just you.”

She just looks at her shoes. She does this sad smile that makes her look ugly. She shakes her head. After a moment she speaks again. “What is it about you?”

“It’s not me. It’s nothing to do with me.”

“It is. I’m sure of it.”

You shake your head this time. You wish you had another beer.

“Maybe if it hadn’t been you, I wouldn’t have minded as much.”

You smirk, feeling some sort of rush. Now you are amused. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s true.”

She looks tired now. Sober. But she smiles. “I guess you wouldn’t understand.”

You smile too, despite yourself, without sarcasm, watching your shoelaces. “Yeah. I guess I wouldn’t.”