Gandhi's Guide to Getting By

chapter two

This is what a "Stella" party at Frank's condo looks like: A whole bunch of people we either know or don't know hanging out. Thanks to Frank, Stella landed a great job at one of the biggest advertising firms in New York. She meets I don't know how many new people a day, plus she has this way of making you feel like you've known her forever even if you've just met her. I've seen her introduce herself to people, then two minutes later say something like, Hey, feel like coming to a get together this Friday? It makes you wonder how many serial killers and escaped convicts are here tonight.

Anne and I are the quiet ones. We've been the quiet ones since Middle school. We're the ones usually sitting on the couch in the living room while Kate does whatever with whatever guy she happens to be into at the moment and Jen disappears with Matt (at least she did when she and Matt were still together) while Shelby takes a bunch of selfies. Stella keeps busy by running around straightening pillows and cleaning up spills because Rosetta, Frank's housekeeper, has warned her about any extra cleaning.

"Think of it as the Domino effect," she's told Stella, "I walk into any kind of extra mess and I quit. If I quit, the beautiful imbecile your horny father is living with is going to be upset. If beautiful imbecile is upset, then your horny father is going to be angry."

This is exactly how she talks to Stella and Hannah. Really, you have to hear it to believe it. She's been that way ever since she started working for Frank and Aunt Grace. When Frank left Aunt Grace, Rosetta had only one question: Which of the two of you is going to pay more? Frank won. Besides, Rosetta was almost as sick of suburban life as Frank was. Apparently, there's a "suppressed urbanite living inside" of her, or so she said to Stella. Suppressed urbanite or not, I don't understand how she can be so forward. Stella thinks it's because Frank is too scared of Rosetta to say anything. "She's told us she knows people," Stella once told me. "Who?" I asked. Stella shrugged. "I don't know, people. Plus she can really weild a knife."

Kate takes care of the booze. She charges everyone ten bucks and then she arranges for everyone to bring something with them so she doesn't ever actually end up buying anything. She pockets the money. No one complains because Kate's been doing this for so long, we think getting ripped off by one of your bf's is normal.

Only once did Kate have to actually spend what we gave her thanks to a surprising lack of booze to steal from our collective homes. It was back in Senior school when we were still stealing booze from the people who loved us the most. Kate arranged for Anne and some others to meet her in front of The Hole - the unofficial you-don't-need-an-i.d.-to-buy-booze store - so they could help carry the booze back to whosever house the party was being held at. Just Anne's luck that her aunt should walk by at that exact moment.

"Anne?" her aunt asked.

"No," Anne answered.

"Listen, Missy--" Anne's aunt never got to finish her sentence because Anne was already halfway down the block.

"You can run, but you can't hide," her aunt yelled after her as she pulled out her cell, clicked a picture of Anne's back, then placed a phone call to Mrs. Chung, Anne's mother.

Anne ran all the way home and told her mother, who already knew thanks to the aunt forwarding her the picture, then following up with a phone call. Mrs. Chung called Kate's mother. Kate, in turn, denied ever being there. She called Anne a liar. She even tried to say it was me who was there, not her. She and I sort of look alike. We both have the same chestnut brown hair and we're about the same height and what was the aunt going to say except that she saw Anne standing in front of the hole with a white girl and all white girls looked alike as far as she was concerned. If the aunt had bothered to look a little more closely, she would have seen that I am not stick thin like Kate and my eyes are brown, not blue.