I'll Never Finish This Book

THIRTEEN

December 4:

We made it back to the hotel just in time for the after-party. Eli decided we would skip all the "boring church stuff," as he put it, and attend the after-party where all the food and dancing would be taking place. There wasn't much objection on my part because all my experiences with weddings were bad. One year, I spilled tomato juice on my dress. I didn't even like tomato juice, and I only hated it more after that. Another time, I was close to catching the bouquet, but my aunt was stepping on my dress. It tore as I got ready to jump. My hatred for dresses also increased after that. The last wedding I attended was for one of the cashiers at our local grocery store. We weren't close, but it didn't seem like he had that many guests to begin with. The way he always bagged the eggs with the orange juice was probably the reason for that.

At that wedding, everyone felt the need to ask me why I didn't have a boyfriend and how great all their sons were. I refused to attend any more weddings after that, but Eli managed to convince me somehow. The two of us were able to slip into the hotel ballroom without any issues. Eli greeted everyone as if he had known them his entire life, and everyone else did the same.

I enjoyed watching them as they pretended to know who Eli was as they shared stories, or delusions, from the past about him. That was something about people that baffled me; they would rather go through the effort of pretending they knew someone than to just admit they had no idea who they were talking to.

I made more of an effort to be nice to the people I came across. Growing up, I was taught that first impressions were everything and that I had to be kind to every stranger I came across, so that impression of me would stick with them. The problem was, I always got too caught up being kind to strangers that I always forgot to be kind to all the people I was already close to. I assumed they'd just accept me no matter what I said to them, but I needed to remind myself to be kinder to those I was close to. I needed to be softer to them because I knew there would come the point when they'd grow tired.

There was an open buffet with frequently changing options. For classy people, they sure didn't eat like it. They couldn't form a single line and piled their plates with more food than they were going to eat. Although I was hungry, I remained seated while Eli and the five other people on our table went up to get food. There was too much shoving taking place than I could've handled.

It was difficult to see anything around me from the room's light blue lighting, and I could barely make out Eli walking back to the table, holding a stack of plates.

"If only you had a third arm," I called out as he set down each plate and took a seat.

"I told myself I'd only get a few things, but I was having a hard time deciding what to get, so I just got a bit of everything. I also didn't wanna make a second trip, so here you have it. Dig in."

The plates were piled high with objects that held no resemblance to any food I had seen before, and that made me nervous. I was unsure of which utensils I had to use or where to place the cloth napkin. I never understood the idea behind a cloth napkin. I couldn't use it to wipe my mouth because it would become covered in stains. If its only purpose was to keep food from falling into my lap, what good would it do if my lap was clean, but my mouth was a mess? I also wanted to know why every fancy place used them. If they were so fancy, why couldn't they buy regular napkins that people could use?

"Why aren't you eating?" Eli asked, pushing me away from my thoughts.

"I was going on an internal rant about these cloth napkins."

He laughed. "Aren't they just the worst?"

"If I tell you why I'm not eating, do you promise not to laugh at me?"