"Um." he said
"Yes?"
"Can you tell me what he thought of
the story?"
"Oh of course! Yes, he loved it. He
thought the concept was precious and that it was very well executed. He
actually thought it had the ability to make people cry, can you imagine that?
Your wriitng causing tears to flow? It would be incredible."
"Yeah.. it would."
"But he's not the right agent for
it."
Menelaus saw the little red balloon of his
hopes that had been floating away suddenly pop and come to earth as if
punctured by a dart. "Oh. Right. SO I need to keep sending it around till
someone else likes it?" He pictured six months of posting letters. Well,
he figured everyone else had to do it...
"Actually it might not be as hard as
that. He knows someone who works for the New Yorker who could help get it
placed in there."
"What, really? Wow! That's a really
big deal."
"Well obviously, retard." She
smiled, "Sorry, I don't mean to be so politically incorrect. But yes, it'd
be incredible for you. You couldn't hope for wider exposure to a more literate
audience. Of course, it does mean the cultural elite in New York will rip you
to shreds if they think you weren't worthy of being published. Or of being part
of their little club. Or just because you weren't part of their club to begin
with. Yes, in general prepare to be ripped to shreds." She smiled
"Well, ok, how do I prepare for that?
An umbrella?"
She looked at him curiously, "You're
an interesting person, aren't you? I guess I could already tell that from the
chat room. Anyway, the good thing about being published in the New Yorker,
assuming it all works out for you, is that noone dares criticising anything
that is in there openly if they are part of that circle. They will need to
discredit you through other works. The fact you don't have any yet is actually
kind of a godsend."
"That's really interesting, thank
you."
"Don't mention it. Expect a call from
my agent to tell you the full details of everything. And Menelaus?"
"Yes?"
"Can you go get me drink please
sweety?" She held out her empty martini glass to him and gave him a little
courtsey when he took it. He smiled and walked back to the table and grabbed
her a drink and one for himself. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. He
walked back to where she was and handed her the drink. "Thank you, I'll
talk to you later!" She said and turned back to her friend, a quite short
brunette girl, that she was talking to. The brunette shot him a look that could
spear a cow to the side of a barn so he sidled away. How could someone so short
contain so much venom? He thought to himself. He went back over to the food
table and saw little cocktail sandwiches. For some reason it made his heart
jump with happiness but he had an idea it was just a delayed reaction to
something else.
--
The mime watched as Okran demonstrated yet
another stranglehold to him, this time on the shoulder height antique flower
vase that was standing in the corner. He nodded his approval while trying to
work out how to escape the conversation. While he knew that it would be an easy
way to 'play out' the night, he wasn't sure Kusa would actually stay in
conversation with this guy for so long. Surely any human on earth would be
finding this tedious and creepy by now? He certainly did. He pretended to
recognise someone across the room "OH hey, oh look Okram it was great
talking to you. I'll talk to you later on, alright. Just need to go talk to
them over there."
"Yeah. Yeah, no problem buddy."
Okram righted himself and took his arms from around the flowerpot which somehow
managed to look relieved. "Talk to you later. No problem. " He patted
the mime on the back in a way that made the mime wonder if there hadn't been a
poison needle hidden between his fingers. No dizziness, no purple spots, he
seemed to be ok. He nodded to Okram one last time and started to drift over to
where the blonde with the jeans and the tshirt seemed to be holding court. She
seemed slightly familiar but at the same time there was something a little off
about her. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. He studied her closer, from
top to bottom. Plastic flower hair tie, non-descript tshirt with something
about writing on it, jeans, red converse canvas shoes. This must be Calliope.
Now, why was it so easy to pick her? Who really wore their personality on their
sleeve, so to speak? He looked down at himself and thought, well, Kusa is right
now. But that's because people like seeing a stereotyped image of what they are
imagining when they meet someone. It makes them feel comfortable. It helps to
dress it up a little, because people are by nature superficial (though he went
in the opposite direction with his weight gain, but he made sure to add a
little joviality to still keep himself likable) but basically. Hmm. And
speaking of superficial, Calliope was quite pretty. The tshirt hung in what
could almost be called a 'sexy' way. In some ways the way she was standing
suggested a ballroom dress instead of jeans and a tshirt. Was this another...
NO he thought it would be too strange to even think such a think. Calliope must
just be a really special person. If that actually was who he thought it was. He
walked right up to her. She was with a little brunette who was practically a
midget.
"Hey there" he said, interrupting
their conversation. The little brunette turned and focussed on him a gaze that
could burn a hole through a lead wall. He gave her his best "happy
dwarf" grin, "Hey there! Are you having a good time?"
"Well I was but.."
"Oh, what happened." He pretended
to look up at Calliope for the first time, "Oh hey! Calliope, right?"
She raised an eyebrow, "Yes, that's
right. Everyone seems to recognise me tonight."
"You're hard to miss I guess. What
you're wearing..."
"Suits my personality. Yes. I could
say the same thing about you... Kusa?"
"You've got me in one." He said.
He noticed out of the corner of his eye, much closer to the ground, the
brunette looking from one of them to the other in a rage and then walking off
in a huff. "I'll talk to YOU later Calliope" she said as she went.
"OK, goodbye!" Calliope called after her.
"So what leads you to hold a crazy
shin dig like this one?" He asked
"What leads you to use a word like
shindig?"
"Just nerves I guess" he said and
laughed nervously to emphasise the point. Don't be too cocky! He yelled at
himself in his head. There was still every possibility that she wasn't an
operative. Even if she was, it wasn't his purpose to root her out. Unless of
course it was... though then he likely would just be expected ot include it in
his report.
"Do you like the party?" She
asked
"It's really nice." he said,
"I love the martinis. I notice they're a proper dirty martini, that's hard
to get nowadays."
"It's easy in a hotel like this."
"Is that right? I should come to a
hotel like this more often! And the cocktail sandwiches, are they standard here
too?"
"Well, they do have cocktail in the
name"
"Ah, thats a good point."
He looked directly at Calliope. She seemed
to be looking at him slightly with contempt, which he would expect with the way
he currently looked, with also with a sort of curiousness. He thought he would
throw something random out there. He looked around the room and saw the guy he
had talked to when he first arrived at the party. M. Or Menelaus, because
everyone knew his real name. Not a good idea in these chat rooms, in his
experience but then, it was this guy's life. Had a really sexy girlfriend and
yet was just flirting with Calliope here. She seemed to be encouraging flirting
though. Not in a slutty way, this seemed to be a way for her to get the people
she was talking to to open up more, to bleed them dry. To gather information.
That's what was piquing his interest. Although everything he read in the chat
logs told him that she considered herself a bit of a psychoanalyst... but that
wasn't it. He had seem these amateur analysts at work before. They would wait
till someone had said five, maybe six sentences and then throw in, "Oh you
have Freud's decapilitery monkey. That's a common thing. I bet you thought of
your teddy bear as a sexual object from ten onwards too, didn't you? Don't lie,
there's nothing to be ashamed of unless you acted on it... did you act on it?
Is that why you won't tell us? See now you look like you want to escape, you're
not saying anything. It's almost like you have stunted social skills. Have you
ever been diagnosed with autism? I think you should go get yourself diagnosed
with autism." This Calliope though, the one here, at the party, seemed to
actually be good about getting her information out and being quiet about it,
not drawing attention to herself aside from her denim ballgown illusion.
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