It was my classmate’s birthday a couple weeks ago. She invited the whole class. It was very cordial of her, as I probably wouldn’t have done that. I prefer not to mix social groups. When I was thirteen, I was the first one to have a birthday party during the first year of high school. Which means everyone was all pimply, entering puberty and no one knew each other. Everyone avoided eye-contact, we watched Scary movie 2 on DVD and ate ketchup potato chips. We played a game of hide-and-go-seek, and a sad attempt at spin-the-bottle. A year later everyone from my birthday joined band class, became best friends and I cut my hair short and wore t-shirts that said “high school drop-out” while never skipping a class. It was since that tragic event, I refrained from hosting parties and introducing people to each other ever since.
So, the night of my classmates 30th birthday, I wasn’t feeling very well.
That was a lie.
I was lazy and didn’t feel like leaving my bed. This always happens to me right before I have to be at a social engagement I committed myself to. This is why I’m a flake. Also, I see my classmates all day, every day, so the motivation to see them again was quite low because I would see them again in 8 hours.
After receiving a couple phone calls, I was on a 45-minute bus ride to the birthday dinner.
The birthday girl has a name. It’s Francesca. She’s a short Italian girl with bangs, grandmotherly hands, and extremely readable eyes. She also says that the secret to her ass is swimming. Every morning, she walks into class and greets me with a warm hug and kiss on the cheek. She’s also a hand-talker with many of her sentences end with the phrase, “it’s impossible”. For example, Francesca was supposed to come to a dinner with my class. She said that it was impossible for her to come because she already had plans. Two hours later, she shows up.
So, I arrived at the birthday dinner. Of course, my whole class was there because they’re good people and they also like food. I came an hour late, without a gift and wore an ill-fitted bra.
Sitting across from me was Yolande, from Cameroon, to my left was Margherita, from Italy and on my right was Julia, from Poland.
My girl, Yolande, doesn’t speak English well but every so often she’ll impress me with a couple strong sentences. Like when she told me I had a mental illness in front of our guest lecturer who was one of the most internationally well-known forensic psychologists. Or, when we were on the way to prison, she also told me that I should date a black man. She’s also always 45 minutes late to everything.
Margherita is one of my favorite Italians. She was a former bellydancer who decided to study psychology. Every time she laughs she says, “I’m dying”. She has yet to actually die from laughing. She also can never remember where she parks her car, so she invests, at least, ten minutes a day trying to find it.
Then we have Julia, the vegetarian Pole who loves Gianduja flavored ice cream. Julia likes to make fun of the fact that I’m constantly eating. Last time I went out with her, she got drunk at the club and started to do traditional polish dancing. She almost peed her pants once when I told our teacher to stop wearing sweater vests.
As the night progressed, the conversation got more personal. Margherita had told me that the following day she had a funeral to attend. I asked politely who had died, she said it was her best friend’s grandmother. I usually stop the conversation there, because I never know what to say about people I don’t know who died. But Margherita continued, so I listened.
“Yes, I am so sad because she was the grandmother of my best friend and when I was little I would go to her house for lunch and she would make me a plate of nipples”.
I nodded sincerely and said, “that’s so sad”.
“Oh god. Don’t fucking laugh, don’t you fucking laugh Natasha,” I aggressively thought to myself while maintaining a concerned face.
I cleared my throat. I thought that perhaps I misheard since there was some tragic Italian music playing in the background. Margherita’s face was far so sad to make a joke.
“What did she make you?”
“Nipples”
“You mean,” as I took an extended breath “meatballs?”
“Nipples, you know, they’re like –”
“I think you mean meatballs.”
“Nipples, like a plate of nipples”
I paused momentarily, while maintaining my concerned look and envisioned an old Italian woman with a scarf around her head, mumbling Italian to herself while carrying a plate of nipples to a table of hungry children.
“I really think you mean meatballs.”
“Ah, okay, then yes, meatballs.” She said, with her head tilted slightly down and her facial expression remaining genuinely sad.
It was too late. My eyes were flowing with water and I tried to put my fingers over my mouth to make it look like I was in deep thought about death.
I spent the next ten minutes laughing beside Margherita.
I then retold the story to half of the table, while laughing. Only the Julia, the Polak laughed with me.
thelonelyserb 