Dinner With Joneses *Morbid blog post touch typed with idle fingers. ‘’I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone’’ (Lord Byron) I’m often quite good at avoiding social gatherings, but having exhausted most of my myriad list of dead relatives, #life threatening illnesses and lost voicemails, I fear my acquaintances are suspecting that something is amiss. Which is why I was obligated to have dinner with the Joneses (that’s not their real names). As I exited the stench of the London underground, I made my way through the streets of almost middleclass concrete suburbia. Not too smartly dressed, I begrudgingly put one foot in front of the other as I tried to weave through a group of stiletto wearing asos girls and their sartorially challenged dates for the evening. I ended up stuck in the middle of them, walking awkwardly as their movements carried me down the street. They glanced at me and then down at the reasonably priced bottle of wine I was holding. They knew what I was. I was one of the ubiquitous Friday men who usually walk this street on their way to dinner parties. I lit a cigarette and exhaled a plume of smoke, my rudeness creating enough of a gap in bodies for me to escape. At Paul and Abigail’s door (my hosts for the evening) I finished my smoke, stubbed it out in one of their adorable pot plants and knocked once and was immediately let in by Paul who greeted me with practiced informality. He had taken to calling me ‘’bro’’. It annoyed me. But I shook his limp hand and nodded. I walked through the hallway of politeness leaving a cacophony of greetings and ‘’nice to see yous’’. My footsteps against the vinyl floors disguised by some sort of instrumental background music, I walked through the big open plan room and headed straight for the kitchen. Abigail was dumping something green into a colander. I leaned over a mess of herbs and kissed her on each cheek. I hadn’t seen Abigail in over a year. She’d certainly changed. Her once long, golden hair was short and a washed out yellow, her porcelain skin was now sallow and she seemed to have picked up this habit of blinking rapidly every time she finished a sentence. She was still attractive, just not as beautiful. The remnants of her beauty still glimmered somewhere in her blue marble eyes as it threatened to leave her at any moment. She took me in as I did her. I stood amused for a while, wiping her foundation off of my lips as she berated me and poked me with a wooden spoon. When she was done we talked for a while about nothing important. She first told me that Paul had recently been promoted and seeing that this didn’t impress me she grabbed my bottle of wine and we took turns to drink out of the bottle and bitch about our current situations. Her grievances were mainly about Ms Thomas (her son’s maths teacher), the fat collecting at her arms, Paul’s sleepwalking and how terrible the fifty shades film was. My grievances with everything else seemed somehow less important as I reached the bottom of the bottle. A timer began beeping and as Abigail stumbled towards it, I was told to take my seat at the table. I walked over to the table slowly, scrutinising this evenings guests. Other than Paul and Abigail, I’d never met them. There were three others already seated. A pink, greasy skinned portly man with an interesting hairstyle I myself sported when I was 12, an equally pink woman with unfashionable black curls sat caked in makeup next to him and opposite them sat a slim, pixie faced blonde girl sporting an expression of boredom. They all looked up at me as I walked over, I stared back enough to make them uncomfortable and sat down. Introductions were made but names were forgotten. The two pink people were married as were Paul and Abigail and the pixie faced girl to my right was a trainee solicitor who went by a Russian sounding name… Slutlana? I forgot. Paul tried to pull me into the conversation. They were discussing something political. I was already bored and ravenous so I ignored him and reached for some bread on the table. Pixie face mumbled something unintelligible, I ignored her until I noticed she was fiddling with a pack of mentos sweets under the table. I leaned over and conspiratorially asked, ‘’Can I have one of those?’’ She glanced across the table and then looked back at me speaking over the sound of crashing pans in the kitchen with an accent that was a mix of English and what I thought was Russian she said, ‘’I’ll give you candy if you answer questions.’’ ‘’Sounds like too much bother.’’ I said and turned away. She grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back around. ‘’You want candy or no?’’ ‘’I’ll need one in good faith.’’ Manicured fingers slipped a single sugary orb into my hand. I tossed it into my mouth and putting my elbow on the table I rested my chin in my palm and gave her my attention. She started, ‘’How do you know Paul and Abi?’’ ‘’I went to uni with Abigail, I’ve known her for years. How do you know our hosts?’’ ‘’I’ve never seen you before. I know Abi and Paul from friends, I’ve known them for a few years.’’ She said, slipping more compressed sugar into my hand. We went back and forth like that for a while. Trading insults and compliments when she’d run out of sweets. I surmised that she was mostly Ukranian, she worked a lot, she disliked her father and adored her mother, she was sweet in that way most optimistic twenty somethings are before the city devours their souls and leaves them jaded. After what seemed like hours, Abigail showed up at the table. My hunger already satiated from the bread and my illicit under the table trade with pixie, I accepted the plate that Abigail placed in front of me with silent acquiescence. Pixie nudged my shoulder and tilted her head up towards where Paul was sitting. It had escaped my notice but it appeared that since my short exchange of words and sweets with pixie, Paul had become quite drunk. His face had become flushed and beads of sweat ran down his face all the way over his chin and down his neck where it formed semicircles on the collar of his shirt. I laughed out loud breaking the silence that had started when Abigail sat down. Abigail glared at me and then blinked rapidly. If her beauty was unsure earlier, it had left her now. Her cheeks grew very red, very quickly, either from anger or embarrassment. I suspected it was the former because she started to mutter obscenities at Paul under her breath. The pink man tried to alleviate the awkwardness, he gestured to me with his glass. "Kash, what is it you do?" "Not very much." I said, forking through the salmon and pastry on my plate. I felt nauseous. Abigail noticed. She glared at me. "Not hungry Kash?" She asked. I was about to say I'd turned vegan, when Paul butted in. "He filled up... Bread... And stuff." He said proudly. Well... If he was going to throw me under the bus, I was going to take him with me. "Paul's drunk." I said. That shut everyone up. The atmosphere grew tense. The pink man's face grew brighter. Displaying his benevolence, he tried to calm the situation. "We had a few drinks. My fault." He said. I smiled at him. 50 shades of pink was growing on me. I imagined that despite having just met, he'd give me a great eulogy. His efforts, however, were in vain. Abigail began muttering in loud whispers as she grimaced at her husband. It was uncomfortable to watch. I had to avert my eyes, I tried to look at anything but them. I glanced over at pixie, she was staring at her lap. Then I looked over at Mr's Pink, she winked at me awkwardly... Gross. My eyes finally focused on a shiny silver box sat on a shelf at one end of the room. I recognised it as the cigarette dispenser I'd gifted Paul and Abigail when they married. It was different now, one of the tiny handles had broken off, the lid was missing and instead of cigarettes, it held takeaway menus. It's appearance had changed as much as it's owners. My rumination was abruptly ended with the sound of metal clattering on china. Our hosts were arguing unashamedly now. Pixie reached out to me and we sat holding hands under the table like two small children hoping their parents would stop arguing. I stared at our hosts. I wondered if this was my fate. Would I be sat at the other end of the table in five or ten years? "I should be so lucky" I thought. More likely, I'd end up like the cigarette dispenser, battered and broken and shaped into something different. I'm not really a hugger but I felt something between sympathy and empathy for her. I stood up, walked over to her and pushed her matted fringe out of her face. "I think I'll go now." I said. She smiled a sad smile. I waved awkwardly at pixie. Flipped off Phil and left, grabbing my cigarette dispenser on the way out. "I'm taking this."