|
Fea watched Nienna, wishing she was as comfortable mingling at parties. She was quite sure that all present, if they were paying any attention to it at all, had noticed by now that she, Fea, stayed very close to the people she was already comfortable with, shyly avoiding interaction with anybody that might require that which was, in mingling circles, referred to as 'small talk.'
She eyed Kent, wondering how he came to be here, and how his first game would define him to others.
She looked at Nog, not so much intimidated as uncertain. If she could think of something to say, surely she would go say it, but without a set topic in mind, she didn't like to approach someone.
She could imagine it now:
She would walk up to Nog, who was talking to Boro, and they would both pause their completely brilliant and engrossing discussion about mature important things, and they would look at her, and wait for her to reveal why she was interrupting them, and she would try to think of the reason why she had thought it might be a good idea to stand up and cross the room and bother these nice people who were really too good to be talking to someone like her anyway-
-and then she would mumble, "Hello."
And they would very accomodatingly forgive her for being useless and awkward, and they would say, "Hello" back, and then...
Then all would fall to silence, and Fea would feel her throat constrict, and she'd know that any words she could think of - and all of the words would be really vapid anyway - would come out in a choked squeek, and then-
-and then everybody would know once and for all that she's actually quite terrible at group social events.
Thinking all these thoughts in the space of about a second, Fea positioned herself cooly in the booth she had claimed for herself, legs stretched out casually across the seat. Next to her she had a gimlet. She was, she'd learned, the kind of woman that can drink a gimlet unselfconsciously, for all that she had to add a bit of sugar to it to make it go down more gently. She had, however, only had a sip. She was quite afraid, to be honest, that actually consuming the entire drink would lubricate her inability to function just enough that she might actually get up and talk to strangers.
STRANGER DANGER her mom's voice shrieked in her imagination.
Fea kept herself from huddling shyly, and postured her body confidently, but still, deep inside, shivered like a little kid whose mom was inexplicably late to picking her up from school (with bullies closing in as the clock ticked), and watched Nog hurry off in search of his daughter.
|