One night a dozen or so friends gathered to celebrate a birthday. We were at Jaguar Shoes for a few hours and this year there were no ice throwing incidents, and (as far as I know) no sketchy hookups – mostly because the ratio of North American to British was skewed toward people who have passports in this nation.
Though someone did confide that they’d once had sex in the toilet at one of my parties; c’mon, people! Toilet sex is nasty in a bad way!
Later my glamorous and gorgeous literary agent aka Susan turned up and informed me that she has given up chastising me about work. I laughed and apologized for not earning her more money, before pointing out that my stuff is destined to remain forever underground. Lucky she likes me as a person, eh? Other agents would drop my contrary self but she just sighs and strokes my hair.
The bar was a crush of Shoreditch hipsters packed in so tight we took up a defensive position against one wall, where I was extremely pleased to catch up with Xtina. She is one of the only people I know who can listen to me rattle on about creepy medical procedures without being at all fazed – a rare and immeasurably valuable trait. Plus she is hilarious, hugely talented, and has the best hair ever. What more could you ask for in a friend?
Most of the group vanished around midnight, when D’s smoking hot Not Girlfriend (the “not” qualifier before girlfriend is his preferred description, emphasized with waving arms) showed up. There is a whole rash of this going around in my social world lately, and I remain puzzled.
If you sleep with a person, spend all of your spare time with a person, and (in this case) live with a person, surely there is a word to describe the connection?
With the teenagers it makes sense, since their lives are so confusing: I’m sure they have no relative clue of what they are doing. With this guy, not so much, except maybe insofar as he doesn’t want me to tell whoever he is hitting on that he has a girlfriend. This is not especially well reasoned, since I will then refer to her as That Girl You Are Fucking.
Susan and I were highly amused to watch as the Not Girlfriend flirted with Byron, while the Not Boyfriend lurked about looking distressed.
The presence of the girl clearly inhibited D’s normal routine of trawling the crowd, but with her attention distracted by My Actual Husband, he had nothing better to do except once again attempt to talk to me about literature. This never goes well.
Later Byron claimed that he had not been flirting, and Susan and I shrieked with laughter. I replied At least you acted better than last year!
Byron asked What happened last year?
Susan replied You picked me up and rocked me and sang a lullaby!
Byron was astonished, but yes, it is true – yet another reason why other agents would steer clear of my company: I exert no control over the antics of the mad scientists. In fact, I find them amusing.
The evening mutated once again and I found myself dragged through the vomit-steaked streets of the city to one club after another, where, mysterious and surprising above all things, to go dancing.