Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood [110]
She couldn’t stay there any longer. She pushed herself off the bed and into the hallway, where she found herself crouching over the telephone and dialing a number. There was ringing, then a click. She held her breath.
“Hullo?” said a sullen voice.
“Duncan?” she said tentatively. “It’s me.”
“Oh.” There was a pause.
“Duncan, could you come to a party tonight? At Peter’s place? I know it’s late to ask you, but …”
“Well, we’re supposed to be going to a brain-picking graduate English party,” he said. “The whole family.”
“Well, maybe you could come on later. And you could even bring them with you.”
“Well, I don’t know.…”
“Please, Duncan, I don’t really know anybody there, I need you to come,” she said with an intensity which was unfamiliar to her.
“No you don’t,” he said. “But maybe we’ll come though. This other thing sounds pretty dull, all they ever do is talk about their Orals, and it would be sort of a kick to see what you’re getting married to.”
“Oh thank you,” she said gratefully, and gave him directions.
When she had put down the phone she felt a lot better. So that was the answer, then: to make sure there were people at the party who really knew her. That would keep everything in the right perspective, she would be able to cope.… She dialled another number.
She spent half an hour on the phone; by that time she had rounded up a sufficient number of people. Clara and Joe were coming if they could get a babysitter, that made five counting the other three; and the three office virgins. After their initial hesitations, caused she supposed by the lateness of the invitation, she had hooked the three firmly by saying that she hadn’t asked them before because she thought it was going to be mostly married people, but that several unescorted bachelors were coming, and could they do her the favour of coming along too? Things got so dull for single men at couple-parties, she had added. That made eight altogether. As an afterthought she had asked Ainsley – it would be good for her to get out – and she accepted, surprisingly: it wasn’t her kind of party.
Although she considered it in passing, Marian did not think it would be a wise move to ask Leonard Slank.
Now she was all right she could begin to dress. She oozed herself into the new girdle she had got to go with the dress, noting that she hadn’t really lost much weight: she had been eating a lot of noodles. She hadn’t intended to buy one at all, but the saleslady who was selling her the dress and who was thoroughly corseted herself said that she ought to, and produced an appropriate model with satin panelling and a bow of ribbon at the front. “Of course you’re very thin dear, you don’t really need one, but still that is a close-fitting dress and you wouldn’t want it to be obvious that you haven’t got one on, would you?” She had lifted her pencilled brows. At that time it had seemed like a moral issue. “No, of course not,” Marian had said hastily, “I’ll take it.”
When she had slithered into her red dress, she found she couldn’t reach behind far enough to do up the zipper. She knocked on Ainsley’s door. “Do up my zipper, please?” she asked.
Ainsley was in her slip. She had begun to put on her makeup, but thus far only one of her eyes had acquired its outline of black and her eyebrows hadn’t appeared at all, which made her face look unbalanced. After she had done up Marian’s zipper and the little hook at the top, she stood back and examined her critically. “That’s a good dress,” she said, “but what are you going to wear with it?”
“With it?”
“Yes, it’s very dramatic; you need some good heavy earrings or something to set it off. Have you got any?”
“I don’t know,” said Marian.