Chapter 24 - section 24

[25 August, Friday]

It's the day of the party.

Since diving back into the zone of social media, responding to her graduate friends and paying more attention to event notifications, Georgia has lined up a few weekends' worth of raucousness for herself. It'll be just like the old days again: undergraduates in every corner, bottles smashed, insanely loud music, people from all corners of the earth turning up whenever they feel like it, trashing places that aren't theirs, and who would even care? Not the host, if they're anything worth calling themselves a host. Georgia can already feel herself sliding, maybe even regressing, back into that same sense of freedom, that some hingelessness you only really had as an undergrad with nothing to lose but """study time""".

'Ruby,' she pleads, 'come along. It'll be fun! You haven't been anywhere for ages, come on-'

'Okay, okay.' Ruby packs clothes into a laundry basket. 'Fine.'

'Sooooo... coming with me then?'

Without looking directly at Georgia; 'I've got work in two hours. But, um, I finish at eight thirty? So I can rock up some time after. I guess.'

'Awesome.' Georgia laughs, then pirouettes away before Ruby can ask exactly why she's inviting her along, and not the other two.


*

[7:54 pm]

A taxi pulls up to a curb in the afternoon. Already tipsy top-tapsy, Georgia stumbles out with a certain Molly Caduceus and Vikky McDaugh - two graduate friends she'd caught up with a couple hours earlier for pre-drinks. Molly and Vikky take her under the arms and help her stand straight, all three in obscene giggles. Georgia merrily hands the taxi driver cash while Molly and Vikky skip ahead towards the tenement building. 'Hello!' Vikky drunkenly calls up to far-above windows, 'There are paaaarty or something here?'

The taxi pulls away from the curb. Georgia turns and smooths down her outfit which, by the way, has been failing her in small but consistent ways all day. For starters, her skyblue high waisted jeans are constantly needing to be shifted around. She can feel her thong slipping a little up her crack now and then. And past that, the sleeveless collared croptop she's wearing under the denim shortjacket is giving her discomfort around the upper waist. And if she doesn't keep an eye on it, she can find it creeping dangerously close to her waistband which could expose a gap of upper-waist skin. But it's okay; nothing's happened so far.



*


[9:13 pm]

It's dark, and almost warm outside for an August night. Ascending the stairwell, Ruby steps past chicks laced around dudes making out over rails already, and from the open door of Room 204 comes the orchestra of life being lived to the end mile. She walks through the door into a spacious apartment half-lit with warm lamps and packed with heads. A loud mess of all types: behind the door a few neonazis in street regalia agreeing about things; a few dozen generic looking guys shouting about the future of the petroleum industry; outlandish hipsters nodding their heads to music not even four feet away from the neonazis; tradies still in yellow and orange hi-vis shirts chugging beers just for something to do; girls straight out of hair salons in skin-tight dresses sitting with, what-the-f@ck?, I.T. technicians of all people; people on the dole being talked at by a few of the wealthy-looking in smooth clothes and white wine; and what the hell? Over there, she spots who else but Beatrice Toffin, M.P., the youngest member of Federal Parliament at the sweet age of twenty-one; past her, the entire five-body team comprising a local band called "Negative Mile" has one girl each listening to them talk about "art, you know, man, is the way".

Ruby pushes her way in, swiping a slice of pizza from a table riddled with food, eating it as if she's forgotten lunch today. The host, Lucio Bean "The Gracious", stands by a window pointing out at city lights. Over there, out on the balcony, is Milliana Polisaki, daughter of Roger Polisaki, richest man in town, owner of Polisaki & Hal Inc. What sort of party has Georgia brought her to? It's not exclusively rich, nor is it some drug-den - here we witness a working example of a motley party, where anyone from anywhere comes together to defy apparent social rank.

'Ey-ho!' Georgia's voice and face comes weaving through bodies towards her, two other faces tagging along behind. Ruby takes a moment to conjure names for the faces: ... Molly and ... Vikky.

Georgia straight away makes it clear she's tipsy. Who cares about introductions? After all, it's time to test her plan.

Sure enough, ten minutes later a drink is in Ruby's hand. Then another, and another. Half an hour later she's feeling light in the head and laughing at silly things - her own clumsiness, mostly (she's already knocked someone's bottle over). Within the next hour, Georgia and Ruby are talking to complete strangers. And there it is: Georgia has successfully gotten Ruby drunk. But here's the thing: it's not just Ruby. Both of them are juiced, lost at opposite ends of the party from each other - Georgia unsubtly gossiping behind other's backs to a tall guy nobody introduced her to, Ruby rocking arm-in-arm with some chick laughing as they look over the edge of the balcony just to get dizzy.

As drunks do, they forget what they're doing and float on, towards whatever distraction happens. On her way to get another drink, Ruby crosses Georgia who thought it would be a good idea to pay yet another visit to the food table. She grabs Ruby's arm and yells over the blaring music, 'Have some of these!', forcing her hand into dish of pizza pops. Ruby falls for it.

'Yoink!' Ruby snatches one, takes another while she's at it, then sputters drunkenly and goes, 'Why not!', proceeding to greedily clutch a handful of them and drift off with a blank intoxicated stare.

Now, sure, Georgia is just about tanked. But she's remarkable at holding onto her plotting capabilities until the utmost point of black-out. The problem is that, thanks to alcohol and general Good Times ((TM)), her mind gets sucked into whatever plan she's holding, and soon it becomes all she'll live to see. Glancing at the food table again, she sees chips, mini burgers, dim sims, kebabs, sausages, pies, quiche, cupcakes, brownies of both sorts, chicken wings. For a moment she vanishes. Then she appears out of thin air to Ruby, who has for some reason decided to stand right next to the deafening speaker. Tugging Ruby's arm, she yells over the noise, barely audible, 'Brought You A Present!' She holds up a napkin full of mini pies. Having only just scoffed down the pizza rolls, Ruby's eyes swell regardless. She takes the food-laden napkin in one hand, clutching her bottle in the other. Job done, Georgia leaves her to it. Ruby doesn't even blink as Georgia blatantly pisses off - Ruby is too absorbed in the food in her hand, attention sucked into it like a vortex and unable to escape.

No matter her drunk Georgia gets, she can't seem to put the plan out of her mind. Can't seem to relax. Yet again, she visits the food table where she crams six muffins onto a small plastic plate. Popping a fourth in her own mouth, stumbles around over cups and bottles to find Ruby. Who is currently listening to some incredulous story told by a guy in a leather jacket beside the kitchen bench. Georgia slides the plate of muffins towards Ruby and darts away before she's noticed. Ruby's eyes almost explode, and she just takes the muffins without saying a word even though they could have dropped out of the sky for all she knows.

About ten minutes later, Georgia finds Ruby running her mouth off at the very same guy, and slides towards her a plate full of chicken wings. At this point, the guy in the leather jacket is taking incredulous, half amused glances at Georgia as she fades into the crowd once again.