The Dinner Party
November 2015
Vivienne
Stepping out of the taxi, Vivienne squints at the dark street for any sign of the restaurant.
“I can’t seem to find it…” she says, but her voice is lost in the roar of the engine as the taxi speeds off.
“Idiot,” Vivienne mutters. She glances at the loose change in her gloved palm and drops it into her handbag. She has never agreed with tipping taxi drivers, anyhow, especially those who talk incessantly about their kids.
Light rain is falling, the sort that soaks you before you even feel it, and Vivienne’s dry hair is prone to frizzing at the mere mention of moisture. Searching her bag for an umbrella, she groans when she realizes she’s left it in the taxi. Then her hand lands on the invitation. She doesn’t need to read the gold words again.
Serendipity’s, thirteen Salvation Road…
This isn’t quite what she pictured. The street reeks of disappointment, every building a failed enterprise someone invested their hopes in. A trendy cupcake café, a retro clothing boutique, a themed bar…all with weather-beaten For Sale signs attached. A young woman pushing a buggy bows her head against the rain and marches by, nearly knocking into Vivienne. An elderly man moves slowly on the other side of the road, leaning heavily on his cane, scowling at the pavement. Vivienne thinks better of asking either of them for directions and searches for numbers on the worn-out storefronts. Building 7, 9, 11…but then the road ends.
A waste of time.She pulls her mobile from her bag to ring another taxi. A few more minutes in this rain, and her makeup will landslide down her face, sending her hair into a panic and fleeing in the other direction. If she hurries, she can still make the 6:28 p.m. train home, and her feet could be happily nestled in her sheepskin slippers withPoiroton the telly.
“Looking for Serendipity’s?” A soft voice seems to slide straight into her ear, making her jump, her Clarks heels echoing on the wet pavement.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the man says as Vivienne spins toward him.Perhapsboyis closer to the truth, she thinks as she takes him in. His eyes are magnified as he peers through rain-streaked glasses, giving the impression of a baby owl. His long hair is sodden and hangs in ropes down to the collar of his denim jacket. In fact, his whole body seems to have been dragged down with the rain. A drowned baby owl.
Then she catches sight of her own reflection in the boy’s glasses.Crepey skin, frizz-ball hair, a down-turned mouth. This boy might be unappealing, but at least he still has youth on his side. As she marches well past middle age, Vivienne feels herself becoming more invisible. She wouldn’t be surprised to look in a mirror one day soon and find no reflection at all. Anger flares, fighting her rising hopelessness.
“Yes,” Vivienne snaps. “Why?”
“I-I’m looking for it too,” he says, his voice barely more than a whisper; then she notices he’s clutching a familiar envelope. The thick black card and expensive lettering… It had looked so different from any other mail she’d received, yet a week earlier, she’d chucked it straight into the bin.
“Some naff PR event,” she’d muttered to her colleague Cat, rolling her eyes. “Cheap wine, beige canapés, and a presentation about a new air freshener.”
But Cat had already retrieved the invitation from the bin and was scrutinizing the lettering.
“Looks like it could be a posh dinner party,” she’d said, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow. “If you don’t want it, do you mind if I go? Bit short on cash this month…”
“It’s addressed to the deputy editor,notthe junior writer,” Vivienne had snapped, snatching back the invitation.
Cat had turned away, blinking at her screen. Vivienne knows what the girls in the office see her as—a nasty old spinster with no life—but she has more talent in her little finger than most of them have in their whole fake-tanned, gym-sculpted bodies. Some days she could happily strangle the lot of them.
When Vivienne had started out at the magazine as a wide-eyedtwenty-three-year-old, she’d been one of only two women in the place. Through sheer hard work, she’d eventually made it to deputy editor, but then she’d gotten stuck. Vivienne became part of the furniture while the house around her had been renovated. Suddenly, the work-experience girls were lecturing her on Facebook and Instagram. One of them—with skin so flawless Vivienne could hardly bear to look at her—had even offered to read through her copy to give it a “younger vibe.” Let’s just say,shedidn’t last long.
During her time in the deputy role, the publisher had introduced five different (always male and always younger) editors to do the top job.
Last week, the latest incarnation, a thirty-eight-year-old former teen magazine editor named Damian with a bald spot that shone through his spiky hair and a very loose grip on the basic rules of grammar, had asked for “a quick conflab” in his office. Vivienne had been shaken to hear that magazine sales had dropped further in the last six months and there was real risk of closure. The editor himself had seemed unfazed as he pasted on his most sympathetic expression while glancing at his watch. Perhaps he was already in receipt of another job offer. Vivienne could only imagine having the kind of bulletproof confidence that requires no evidentiary talent to sustain it.
Back at her desk, she’d picked up the envelope again, turning the thick card over in her hands. Her name was spelled out in the intricate gold writing, but it didn’t say who was holding the dinner, and there wasn’t even an email address to RSVP. For the next two days, it stayed propped up behind her keyboard, and hereyes regularly drifted toward the ornate lettering.
That morning, as she pulled on her reliable black shift dress from M&S, she saw those letters again in her mind’s eye. Dragging a hairbrush through her graying hair, she frowned at her aging reflection, lifted her chin to see two loose folds of skin starting to form underneath.Jowls.What an utterly depressing word. She mouthed it at the mirror, and the folds wobbled as if in acknowledgment.Aging is a privilege denied to many, she told herself, then turned away from her reflection. Picking up her handbag, she wondered about the other dinner party guests. Perhaps she could make some new contacts who might come in handy if the magazine did close, or maybe there would be a mature male journalist on the lookout for an intelligent, like-minded partner. Over a nice glass of wine, she’d astonish him with the news that today was, in fact, her sixtieth birthday. “You don’t look a day over forty-five!” he’d gush. Well, fifty-five, maybe…
Now, watching this man-boy wipe his nose with his grubby denim jacket sleeve, Vivienne wonders if she’s made a mistake in coming tonight. She assumed it was a PR event for senior journalists, but he didn’t look the part at all. Vivienne wonders what would have prompted the dinner party host to invite them both along. She looks down the street, considers making her excuses.
“I’m Tristan, freelance computer programmer,” he says, offering a weightless excuse for a handshake.
“Vivienne, magazine editor,” she snaps back, no need to mention thedeputybit. “I’m off for home now; looks like the place doesn’t even exist…”
“You’re a magazine editor? Wow, that’s a cool job.” He beams at her.
“Well, it has its moments,” she says, a smile of her own pulling at the corners of her mouth. She looks down at Tristan’s trainers, which have Velcro straps (surely he’s learned to tie his shoelaces by now?) and are a dishwater gray thanks to the rain. His socks must be soaked through too.
