Page 132 of Hello Stranger

And that’s where they stuck me.

At the art gallery equivalent of a restaurant’s sucker table.

Worst of all, the spot was hard to get to, but because of the U-shaped layout of the gallery, it was easy to see. Everybody entering the building could get a full view of my indefensibly tragic situation.

So any and all humiliations to come would be on full display.

And there were plenty of humiliations to come.

Starting with the fact that no one was there.

Oh, people were there—at the show. The show itself was packed. Just—no one came to my shadowy, mildewy, forgotten corner.

I stood courageously next to my portrait, under the cold, damp, blowing air of that drippy vent, feeling as exposed as a hermit crab out of its shell—as I watched the entire gallery milling with eager art patrons.

Everywhere—except where I was.

No one came up to me and said hello. No one talked to me at all. Only a few freakish outliers even glanced at my portrait, which was clearly, easily, the big loser of the night from minute one. I scanned people’s outfits and hair and gaits for identifying clues, but I did not recognize one person.

The artist closest to me, layout-wise, was a guy named Bradley Winterbottom, who’d done a portrait of a child on the beach. He had at least twenty people gathered in his area—chatting companionably about the composition, delighting over the way he’d captured that late-afternoon sunlight, swooning over the sweetness of the child’s face.

I mean, nothing against Bradley Winterbottom, but I really hated that guy right then.

He had more admirers than he deserved.

I, in contrast, had zero.

I didn’t even need admirers. I would’ve been happy for someone to talk to. A person who needed directions, say. A lost hiker.

But no luck. It was just me. Alone.

Nothing to do but panic over life-altering decisions about where to rest my hands. They were too posed and awkward at my sides, but they felt hostile if I crossed them over my chest, and they had too much judgy-mom energy if I rested them on my hips. I just kept shifting them around. Was behind the back too goofy? Was clasped at the pelvis too meek? Was clenched into fists of misery too… honest?

Nothing worked. Every few seconds I tried a new pose. Like an animatronic scarecrow.

To no avail.

I had no idea where to look, either. Looking at the floor would makeme seem ashamed. Looking at other people would make me seem needy. Looking at my own portrait on the wall would make me seem like I was fully, heartily giving up on my dreams in real time.

Which I was, by the way.

There is nothing—nothing—more socially awkward than standing alone in a crowd waiting for someone, anyone, to come and join you.

I cursed Sue for getting kidnapped. And for eloping. And for every Angry Canadian she’d tossed back.

Then I felt guilty and took it back.

I cursed Joe instead. For everything.

Then I felt guilty about that, too.

Then I toyed with cursing myself… before deciding I was cursed enough, already.

THE WHOLE EXPERIENCEwas wall-to-wall agony. There were no two ways about it.

I finally set my phone’s timer for elevenP.M.—the moment when the show technically ended, according to the invitation—so that I could stride out, or possibly sprint, the very second I was done.

Only two hours and forty-five minutes left to endure.

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