Up & Out - Ariella Papa [81]
Now, the movie isn’t going to start for another four and a half hours at least, when the sun goes down. By the time it does there will not be an available inch of grass and there will be people in chairs and standing en masse around the periphery of Bryant Park. However, these early birds get very pissy if you slightly encroach on their territory. I can tolerate some dirty looks, because vengeance will be mine when their friends don’t show up. I try to take up as little space as possible with my sheet. I’m not sure how many people I should expect, but hopefully we will all be able to fit on the full sheet I brought. I let my feet hang over the sheet onto the grass.
I start reading my trashy novel, looking up occasionally as people pass. My cell phone rings and it’s Kathy.
“Hey where are you?” I ask, standing up to scan the park for her.
“To the left of the screen.” I spot her blond hair.
“Okay, you see the guy with the red Happy Birthday balloons?” I watch her turn and spot the balloons. I start waving.
“Oh,” she says. She almost starts to skip. “I see you.”
She makes her way over to my sheet. She is wearing a great big pair of dark sunglasses, perhaps to cover her red eyes. We kiss hello. Luckily, she brought water. We spread out on the sheet and talk about nothing serious.
“Your biceps look great,” I say. I know she’s been working them to look good in her strapless dress.
“Thanks.” I tell her about the party I went to with Beth, but I don’t talk about how weird it was between Beth and Jordan.
“How is Tommy?”
“Cool,” I say. “The same.”
She raises her eyebrows over her sunglasses, but thankfully, passes no judgment. My cell rings and it’s Janice. She and Jen are on the side of the park, trying to find us. I wave and they spot us. (What did we do before cell phones?)
I make introductions and Janice tells me John is coming later. It’s only six-thirty, but the park is filling up with people out of work.
“People are so snotty,” Janice says, recounting all the dirty looks and comments they got as they walked through.
“It’s going to suck when we have to pee,” Jen says. There are public bathrooms on the corners of the park, but getting there is going to be tough. I’m certain to be there soon, though, because everyone brought six-packs and we’ve started drinking.
I think the sun affects how fast you get drunk and I’m starting to feel a bit tipsy. I can tell that my friends are as well. Janice and Kathy are laughing really loud together.
“I got to go pee,” I say.
“Surprise,” says Kathy, obviously recovered enough from her afternoon’s trauma to ridicule me to my former colleagues. “Her bladder is the size of a pea.”
“So I guess you won’t be coming,” I say as everyone giggles. I make my way through the sea of blankets and sourpusses, no longer caring where I step.
There is a long line for the bathrooms and I can’t wait. I’m not going to make it. I go into Bryant Park Grill. I head right downstairs to the bathrooms, ignoring the hostess calling after me. Relief, at last! As I wash my hands and reapply my lip gloss, I notice how red my cheeks have gotten from either alcohol or sun, or both. They almost match my glasses.
I thank the scowling hostess. I don’t care about her attitude; the crowd of bitter moviegoers has made me resilient. The summer sky is getting purple and the chairs and tables on the periphery of the grassy square are filling.
Again, I’m weaving through the crowd, relishing the fact that a lot of those early birds have been dissed by their friends and are now stuck fighting to keep people off their blankets. As it gets later, people are definitely encroaching on space. I hear someone say “hey!” I’m set to ignore it as usual, but I hear my name. I look up and see Sarah from Programming.
“Oh, hey, what’s up?” She introduces me to a few of her former sorority sisters.