(translated from Portuguese)“I only wear black.”
“Oh, really.”
“Yeah.”
A lesbian bottle blonde and the brunette swallowing all her sprightly friend’s words were equally interesting: “The last time I went to New York it was great, but, y’know, I go all the time.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
Besides the host, the one warm soul we ran into was on his way out with a friend—headed to another party across town. He left promising us a phone call so that we might join him. We waited for his signal. When it came we immediately escaped with our dignity before the get-together revealed the slightest hint of winding down. Until that point, we still feigned a continued but quickly tiring interest for eccentrically reupholstered furniture and framed movie posters. As we said our farewells to the host and waved goodbye to the antique light fixtures, The Artists were doing a makeshift fashion show. They discovered the suitcase of a drag queen vacationing out of town and began rustling around in his/her accoutrements like a trail of undernourished ghost ants spreading the plastic folds of a newfound vulnerable hard candy.
A taxicab out of Cracklandia sped us to a well-to-do neighborhood of large houses, large cars and large electric fences. Headed toward the house of party number two, we were surprised to see our contact man taking flight. “Too heterosexual in there,” he half-warned, half-rationalized before descending on his next locale. We went in.
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| This advertisement features disco and Chandon: both alluded to in the corresponding post. |
Chandon bottles were haughtily plunged into an oversized ice bucket at the top of the stairs. Filling empty flutes, we entered the backyard where a buffet table still offered snacks, a highly situated bar with a male and female bartender offered cocktails, and up a small flight of stairs, a room in the house transformed into a dance floor with its own DJ for the evening. Seventies disco played. Of course it did.
Vodka once again returned to our glasses, replacing the momentary champagne respite. Here, anonymity reigned. Many people navigating through tight spaces made it difficult to stand out or figure whom to talk to, as there were no introductions, no eyes met in recognition. We were free to be met or remain intriguingly mysterious (i.e. friendless) and without the glare of The Artists. Who here in the luxurious moon-made shadows of the rich would contest our belonging?
Then—a flashback to middle school: these glossy girls all knew each other. Their tall, expensive boys all knew each other as well, only now they weren’t girls and boys, they were adults—married or engaged adults with companies and licenses in their names. Now as then they owned the world or at least their tightly designed portion of it. Here they were twenty years later, rollicking up the stairs to a private bathroom to do their drugs out of plain sight, dancing to music that devolved from the Studio 54 era to modern pop and eventually to the post-ironic expressions of the favela’s sadder places these guests would never have to visit. No parents could be out of town for twenty years, but the house echoed with the gratification of teenagers having gotten away with a large and undiscovered crime. Fixtures remained intact, windows stayed unbroken, but one nearly expected to see any of these women of means needing her hair cut from the tight grip of a closed door, like the rich and hopelessly insensitive supporting female character in Sixteen Candles.
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| Caroline Mulford (played by Haviland Morris) of Sixteen Candles. |
As it turned out this party was with purpose, held in honor of the hostess’ birthday (quite beyond those previously referenced sixteen years of age). The only alert to the occasion were the purple glittered sugar cookies in the shapes of stars, each in its own cellophane bag. Plated late into the morning, the desert replaced the Chandon at the top of the stairs. We took one for posterity, and descended into the warm living room to call a car home.
By the fireplace, a life-size ceramic Dalmatian sat uncharacteristically still. The walls of the room had a quality like an adobe hut, with little oblong spheres cut into certain sections to form shelves where trinkets stood with the modesty of a Swarovski crystal display case. A dark wood slab ceiling endowed the space with a contradictory natural air. Large tapestries and gaudy photos completed the look. The room had a circular construction, with all of its angles rounded and leaning in—a claustrophobic effect. Jus then a squeal popped from the dance floor. Another woman ran in her stocking feet past us and up the stairs in desperation. We placed a call and panicked when we asked for our address. Cell phones were sought for GPS answers, but it became very clear at that moment we were at a bat mitzvah after-party on Tatooine. No cars could come to get us here. No way back to reality from this nouveau riche underground on the barren desert planet. We had traveled too far from our own system. And although it was obvious the natives were generally disinterested in our presence, we too, shared little cause for concern during the brief visit. Until now.
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| Tatooine |
Moments later, the satellite signal revamped, our technology returned (we couldn’t possibly unearth the address from a partygoer—the risk was too high), the precise location was found; we supplied the coordinates to the car company. The dispatcher responded a confirmation, allotting us exactly seven to eleven minutes for our return shuttle to appear. Descending back into the winter evening, a white Fiat taxi slowed across the street. While this was not the Millennium Falcon, it was just as well because this time we were not in dire need of a quick getaway, just a vessel to supply us with a soft re-entry into our own microcosms.
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