I’m a great guest. For one, I will appreciate all your deep cleaning. The baseboards you scrubbed, the silverware you polished to a high gleam, the corners you awkwardly maneuvered the Swiffer into, to sweep the last crumbs and bits of cat hair out of sight. I, too, have stood in a room that no guest is supposed to enter and worried what someone who mistakenly stumbles in looking for the bathroom is going to think about me because there’s dust on the back of the TV.
Speaking of the bathroom, I will notice that you wiped all the toothpaste flecks off the mirror and ran a wet washcloth across the scale you hide under the radiator, and I’ll appreciate that your toothbrushes are in a new toothbrush holder you ran out to buy three hours before the party. I will see your Anthropologie shower curtain and think, Damn, she’s fancy enough to get her shower curtains at Anthropologie? Your Aesop hand soap won’t be lost on me, either.
When I squeeze past the couple having an under-their-breath fight in the kitchen, I promise to note the recently purchased fruits on the counter and register not only that you are getting your fibre but that your fibre is organic and in an earth-conscious compostable bag. And, yes, I’m clocking your tulips in an actual vase, and the loaf of crusty bakery bread you bought to trick people into thinking you prefer to bake your own sourdough. If you do, that’s cool, but I bet you actually don’t!
I’m so fun. I’ll talk to everybody. I’ll charm your mom, telling her that she looks hot in fuchsia and joking that she should adopt me. And, when your dad corners me to talk about sports, I’ll win him over, because I’ve seen enough of Skip Bayless to fake my way through a convincing conversation about Ezekiel Elliott’s rushing yards last season. Your dad will suggest that we go to a football game together, an invitation I will dodge until one of us dies.
I will try all your weird party foods and won’t hide any of them in your plants. I’m gonna sample that gritty-looking breadstick even though I know that it’s going to shatter into sharp dust down the front of my nice party shirt the second my teeth make contact. The too hot dip? I’m trying that. The guacamole that’s gone gray? I’ll have some of that, too. I will take just enough of each proffered food item that you won’t feel like you’ve wasted four hundred dollars on people who just want to clean out your booze cabinet.
And I will bring good shit. I have a serious lack of confidence and am always trying to prove that I have taste and like nice things. So I’m gonna go to the fancy store and ask the wine lady to recommend something in the thirty-dollar range, then I’m gonna sidle over to the cheese counter and get one of those logs of goat cheese that has blueberry goo in it and a couple of pricey boxes of sturdy-looking crackers absolutely covered in nuts and seeds.
If you invite me to your party, I will arrive early enough that you won’t panic about no one showing up. My clothes will be ugly, allowing you to shine. I will be wearing some sort of shapeless Grim Reaper-style garment that will easily fade into the background of every picture. “Who is that fat ghost?” your friends will ask as they swipe through the photos you posted to prove that you know people and like to have a good time. Then they’ll swipe to you in your sequinned dress and sigh in contentment, immediately forgetting about me.
And if you need someone to play tunes? I can do that! I know how to create a chill and sexy vibe, if that’s what you’re into, but I am also familiar with other vibes, and I pay for Spotify Premium. (I don’t remember what credit card or e-mail address it’s attached to, so I will never be free of it.) I can play fast songs for dancing or slow songs for smooching or oldies for old people, and I’m the kind of freak who will put twenty-seven hours’ worth of songs on a playlist, so if your party happens to go for an entire day you won’t have to listen to the same song twice.
If it’s more of a passive-aggressive storytelling-competition party, I’ll be great at that, too. I have so many good stories! I’m a delight to interact with, I promise. I won’t say weird, off-putting, or challenging shit to casual acquaintances of yours, threatening to make your future relationships with them awkward as hell. I have a deep reservoir of jokes and funny anecdotes that’ll thaw even the chilliest of the co-workers you invited just to be nice. And I know how to land a fucking punch line!
You also won’t have to worry about me posting all your business online. That’s right, you’re never gonna log on to be confronted by the ten worst pictures of you and/or your apartment you’ve ever seen in your entire life, posted by me, without even the decency to apply a flattering filter. If my phone is out, it’ll be because I’m trying to find a meme to show someone so I won’t be that person trying to explain a visual medium, not because I am taking pictures of all your stuff which I plan to post at three in the morning.
I also can keep your cat company if you need me to? I mean, if Carli is getting stressed out in the darkened bedroom you stashed her in, I would not at all mind creeping in and petting her for many hours, until the party is over and you’ve forgotten I’m even there, which sounds strange in theory but will come in handy when you find out that I don’t mind helping clean up! I love a party aftermath, even if it means collecting stacks of little plates covered in globs of unidentifiable gunk and half-eaten celery sticks with their little unruly celery hairs.
So, I can come, right? You’re gonna text me the address and your favorite brand of tequila? I need to be invited more than anything I’ve ever needed in my life. Because, trust me, I really am great at a party. Especially since I won’t show up. ♦
This is drawn from “Quietly Hostile.”
