c'mon," he said, a little too loudly. "It's a party."
I looked for the door. This was dreadful. You'd think that if you took a ritzy loft overlooking the
Hudson, added a professional sound system, a ton of drink, and a load of people, you'd have a
great shindig on your hands.
But something wasn't working. And I blamed Kent, the guy throwing the party. He was a
jocklike banker and the place was overrun with hordes of his Identi-Kit pals and the thing about
these guys was they didn't need anything to boost their confidence, they were bad enough au
naturel without adding cocaine to the mix.
Everyone looked florid and somehow desperate, as if the crucial thing was to be having a good
time.
"I'm Drew Holmes." The man swung the bag of coke at me again. "Try it, it's great, you'll love
it."
This was the third guy who'd offered me coke and it was kind of cute really, like they'd just
discovered drugs.
"The eighties will never die," I said. "No, thank you. Really."
"Too wild for you, huh?"
"That's right, too wild."
I looked around for Jacqui. This was all her fault--she worked with Kent's brother. But all I saw
were lots of shouty meatheads with saucerlike pupils, and trashy-looking girls, necking vodka
straight from the bottle. I discovered afterward that Kent had put the word out that he wanted
people to bring along the kind of girls who were six months away from rehab, who were in their
final, promiscuous crash-and-burn.
But even before I'd known that, I'd known he was a creep.
"Tell me about yourself, Morticia." Drew Holmes was still at my side. "What do you do?"
I didn't even hide my sigh. Here we go again. This party was lousy with incessant bloody
networkers, but--at their request, I might add--I'd already explained my job to two other guys
and neither of them had listened to a word, they were just waiting for me to shut up so they could
monologue about themselves and how great they were. Cocaine really kills the art of
conversation.
"I test-drive orthopedic shoes."
"Well!" Deep breath before he launched into it. "I'm with blah bank, blah, blah...tons of
money...I, me, myself, being fabulous, blah, promotion, blah, bonus, workhardplayhard, me,
mine, belonging to me, my expensive apartment, my expensive car, my expensive vacations, my
expensive skis, me, me, me, me, MEEEEE..."
Just then a canap�--it was going very fast but I believe it was a miniburger--caught him on the
side of the head, and while his eyes bulged with rage as he sought the perpetrator, I slipped away.
I decided I was leaving. Why had I come in the first place? Well, why does anyone go to the
party of someone they didn't know? To meet men of course. And funnily enough, whatever the
hell was going on with the planets, for the previous couple of weeks, I'd been overrun with men.
I'd never experienced anything like it in my life.
Myself and Jacqui had gone to the eight-minute speed dating that Nita at Roger Coaster's office
had told me about and I'd got three matches; a handsome, interesting architect; a red-haired
baker from Queens who wasn't a looker but was very nice; and a young, cute bartender who said
words like dude and shibby. Each had submitted a request for a date and I'd agreed to all three.
But before you start thinking that (a) I'm a three-timing slut (and it's actually four because I
haven't told you yet about the blind date that my lovely Korean colleague, Teenie, had set up for
me), or (b) that the whole thing was a recipe for disaster--that I was bound to be caught and end
up with no one, let me explain the rules of Dating in New York City, especially the whole
exclusive/nonexclusive end of things. What I was currently doing was Dating Nonexclusively--a
perfectly acceptable state of affairs.
How it is in Ireland is, people just drift into relationships. You start by going for a couple of
drinks, then on another night you might go to a film, then you run into each other at a party given
by a mutual friend, and at some stage you
I looked for the door. This was dreadful. You'd think that if you took a ritzy loft overlooking the
Hudson, added a professional sound system, a ton of drink, and a load of people, you'd have a
great shindig on your hands.
But something wasn't working. And I blamed Kent, the guy throwing the party. He was a
jocklike banker and the place was overrun with hordes of his Identi-Kit pals and the thing about
these guys was they didn't need anything to boost their confidence, they were bad enough au
naturel without adding cocaine to the mix.
Everyone looked florid and somehow desperate, as if the crucial thing was to be having a good
time.
"I'm Drew Holmes." The man swung the bag of coke at me again. "Try it, it's great, you'll love
it."
This was the third guy who'd offered me coke and it was kind of cute really, like they'd just
discovered drugs.
"The eighties will never die," I said. "No, thank you. Really."
"Too wild for you, huh?"
"That's right, too wild."
I looked around for Jacqui. This was all her fault--she worked with Kent's brother. But all I saw
were lots of shouty meatheads with saucerlike pupils, and trashy-looking girls, necking vodka
straight from the bottle. I discovered afterward that Kent had put the word out that he wanted
people to bring along the kind of girls who were six months away from rehab, who were in their
final, promiscuous crash-and-burn.
But even before I'd known that, I'd known he was a creep.
"Tell me about yourself, Morticia." Drew Holmes was still at my side. "What do you do?"
I didn't even hide my sigh. Here we go again. This party was lousy with incessant bloody
networkers, but--at their request, I might add--I'd already explained my job to two other guys
and neither of them had listened to a word, they were just waiting for me to shut up so they could
monologue about themselves and how great they were. Cocaine really kills the art of
conversation.
"I test-drive orthopedic shoes."
"Well!" Deep breath before he launched into it. "I'm with blah bank, blah, blah...tons of
money...I, me, myself, being fabulous, blah, promotion, blah, bonus, workhardplayhard, me,
mine, belonging to me, my expensive apartment, my expensive car, my expensive vacations, my
expensive skis, me, me, me, me, MEEEEE..."
Just then a canap�--it was going very fast but I believe it was a miniburger--caught him on the
side of the head, and while his eyes bulged with rage as he sought the perpetrator, I slipped away.
I decided I was leaving. Why had I come in the first place? Well, why does anyone go to the
party of someone they didn't know? To meet men of course. And funnily enough, whatever the
hell was going on with the planets, for the previous couple of weeks, I'd been overrun with men.
I'd never experienced anything like it in my life.
Myself and Jacqui had gone to the eight-minute speed dating that Nita at Roger Coaster's office
had told me about and I'd got three matches; a handsome, interesting architect; a red-haired
baker from Queens who wasn't a looker but was very nice; and a young, cute bartender who said
words like dude and shibby. Each had submitted a request for a date and I'd agreed to all three.
But before you start thinking that (a) I'm a three-timing slut (and it's actually four because I
haven't told you yet about the blind date that my lovely Korean colleague, Teenie, had set up for
me), or (b) that the whole thing was a recipe for disaster--that I was bound to be caught and end
up with no one, let me explain the rules of Dating in New York City, especially the whole
exclusive/nonexclusive end of things. What I was currently doing was Dating Nonexclusively--a
perfectly acceptable state of affairs.
How it is in Ireland is, people just drift into relationships. You start by going for a couple of
drinks, then on another night you might go to a film, then you run into each other at a party given
by a mutual friend, and at some stage you
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