"These heels are killing me!"
"You should have worn sandals with comfortable cotton socks like me!"
I held onto the hem of my knee-lengths, beige skirt to move my foot forward to show them off. They were great for hiking, which made them good for walking in NYC. The soles are comfortable, and their open nature keeps the feet from getting sweaty. It's simply the rational choice.
I looked at Natiya's sleek, skinny, shiny black heels. They were so steep that her foot revealed strong arch. Her toes were pointed at a sharp right angle to give that artificial look of glamorous balls. The paper-thin straps must have been cutting her. The heel was so skinny that she must have been wobbling. And then there were her endless legs. Not only was she a foot taller than me, but her tight, black dress barely ended beneath her butt cheeks. Whenever she sat down, she had to strategically throw a napkin over her lap to cover the sight of her underwear. (It was black lace. I had seen it on the cab ride here. With her knees high and four of us girls pressed into the back, she was clumsily exposed.)
She gave me a bedazzled look that told me that she was going to ignore my fashion advice. So far, my advice had been ignored. I had told the girls that the back room had a buffet with vegetarian biryani. Columbia had reluctantly adjusted the food options for the many Indian students. With my plate full to skip as many student meals as possible the next day, I was eating by the forkful. It wasn't the best but as a student, I had to find ways to save money. Food was definitely a major expense. The other girls were sporting skinny cocktail glasses. A flashy graduate student from London had injected the latest mixology trends into the bar offerings. They were sipping on a green bikini zombie, a purple sex devil, and Natiya had the most bizarre drink, a white, creamy thing called coochie juice.
Of course, I had warned the girls about the danger of drinking on an empty stomach. They'd get drunk too fast and act out of control. Natiya had smoky, dark eyes painted with her makeup. She was staring right at a grad student in a black suit with blue tie. Her index finger with a long purple finger nail was moving a blob of white cream side to side on her mouth. The terrible urge overcame me to wipe it off her mouth. How can someone be so inefficient wiping the mouth? All the while, she kept staring at the guy. When she finally got the blob in, she stuck her finger so dip, it was like she was trying to move the blub directly to her throat. I rolled my eyes, not because of what she did but of how predictable the guy was. He got up and asked her for a dance.
To be honest, the guy was a mix of flash and flop. He had his hair slicked back to look like a movie star. His suit was padded so heavily that he looked like a football star. At the same time, he looked like an out of place grad student. His eyes showed way too much white like he was a scared deer in the forest. His posture was bendy and twisty, slouching every way like he had never physically trained. It was funny watching him. You could dream and imagine him to be this handsome star and you could squint to see the reality and see an awkward, clueless young guy. Natiya saw probably the latter, not because she is foolish, but because she wants life to be grand.
That's what I love about her. At the first day of Columbia, she had insisted that we all get matching outfits to celebrate the day. I hadn't even wanted to go to class because on the first day, the professors only read the syllabus anyway. I could have gotten a head on reading textbooks. But in a strange way, that day stuck in my memory because of all the silly jumping into the air and climbing statues that she made us do for the perfect Instagram photo.
When Natiya had walked onto the half empty dancefloor with her hand held high by the guy like they were in some Viennese royal ball, the room had taken notice. I had become used to the attention that Natiya draws. Guys were watching her out of the corner of her eyes. Gals were watching her as well. When she dropped something on the floor, often five people in our proximity would instantly bend forward to look at the floor. It was the same here. I saw women tapping their partners to invite them to dance. The dancefloor filled with people, energy, laughter, and limbs flashing moves.
The guy tried to park his hand on her butt, but she instantly moved the hand back to her shoulder blade. At the same time, she pressed her pushed up cleavage against his chest. His eyes glinted down to look at the two perfectly round balls with her rich, softly brown skin pressing together. Every move he made, she abruptly blocked, but she kept out of control offering to him. She wrapped her legs around his thigh. She accidently kissed him on the cheek to whisper something in his ear. She was such an out of control mess all over him, but when he went for a kiss, she pressed her index finger firmly against his lips. That was her dance to drive the guys wild, get maximum flirtation without the risk of action. He probably would get dumped on the heap of discarded guys soon, simply a toy instrument for her to show off so that she could allure a better guy to cut into the dance and take her away.
Standing by myself, I could take in the elegant surroundings. Columbia had rented the banquet room at the Met 5th Avenue, a museum with some of the world's best art treasures. Giant baroque paintings covered the fifteen feet high walls. The frames were massively hand carved opulences. The oil colors of angels, chubby babies, rich and royal people had an immense richness. This was definitely not her barebones undergrad college in Bangalore that had drilled them to study hard and nothing else. One could easily tell the grad students as the young, goofy ones, the professors as the old, discussing ones, and the donors -- they were the ones who really dressed up to match the event. To them, this was an experience of society.
It never occurred to me that the approval of the thesis topic could be turned into a swanky event to raise millions in donations for the school. America was eye opening to an entirely different culture. They school had realized that the topic of the graduate theses would have bored the donors. So they came up with this idea of writing the thesis on a parchment paper sealing it with a big ribbon. The thesis advisors handed that roll over to their students with the dean behind for a perfect photo opp. Then they auctioned the opportunity for a drink and discussion of the thesis subject for donations. Natiya had waved her arms big to encourage the donors to raise the bid. A local tech entrepreneur won the auction for Natiya for $20K. When they met at a little cocktail table, he told her straight up, "You don't have to talk about your thesis. I know it's bad luck to talk about it before it's done."
This was my usual state at social parties. The girls had gone off enjoying themselves. I was the island floating around that they periodically came back to, reconnected, and then fluttered off like butterflies. I saw professor Bertrecht standing by himself under the baroque painting of a prince with a skinny sword and gold handle. His hair was gray and bushy. Hi suit was a size too small and ten years past its prime. The middle button had fallen off, but if you didn't look too closely, it did its job. If I talked to him about this multi-calculus economics problem that had been bothering me, I would be able to skip going to his office hour. So this gala evening wouldn't be a complete loss for my study progress.
He seemed happy enough to talk. His face was jolly, round. The bushy gray hair raise up like two swan wings curling up. Looking up at that (remember I'm short) was always a bit bizarre, like I had stepped into Narnia's closet and ended up in some fairy tale. Yet, he kept being distracted. He kept switching up variable cost and fixed cost in a way that a microeconomics 101 student should have known better. Then, his face distorted with a pleading look. "Can I introduce you to Mr. Smith? I'd really like to get his funding. And maybe if he meets one of my students, he's more inclined."
Oh boy, I thought to myself. Professor Bertrecht is trying to pimp me out like a hottie student, but some old people can't tell the difference between us twenty something. They don't know the hot ones from the not ones because youth is so distant to them that any youthful face looks the fountain of youth itself. But I was going to help science anyway I could. So I followed his lead in between the gaggles of people having cocktail discussions and wait staff in completely black uniforms pushing their way with plates of drinks in between.
