There was no music at cocktail parties in the late 20th century. That’s because we chatted so much.
We stood or sat, depending on the venue. In our apartment, there was much standing around, because furniture was sparse.
As the hostess, I kept an eye on cheating husbands. You have no idea how many of my friends had been shattered by their husbands’ affairs. Out of the corner of an eye, I noticed a husband flirting with my sensible married friend, A. She was handling it, but I pitied the man’s wife, a colleague who’d been devastated by his most recent affair. I briefly considered adopting Anna Pavlovna’s tactics in the first chapter in War and Peace. When young Pierre talks too long and earnestly to a celeb guest, she steers him away, saying, “You should meet the Abbé.”
The problem was, there was no Abbé at the party.
There were some local celebs. The almost-famous novelist looked uncomfortably hot and hairy in his singlet, but seemed to enjoy an argument about jazz with a hip but impoverished Civil Liberties lawyer. Then there was Polly, the editor of a poetry magazine which had a subscription of a mere 30 people. If you needed a quote on poetry, she was your woman, because she knew the local poets, had a Ph.D. in English, and had apparently memorized The Oxford Book of English Verse and The Oxford Book of American Verse. She said despairingly: “Nobody buys the magazine. I should only publish poets with friends.”
I murmured sympathetically. I understood the problem. Some of the best local poets would flunk the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test: they were essentially anti-social cavemen who drank too much and insulted people. Perhaps there were 10 charming poets who used the right fork – or any fork – at a dinner party.
Many of my friends were writers. We gossiped about how The New Yorker had written an encouraging note on a rejection letter, or how an editor at The Atlantic had rejected an article on Howards End, claiming that they had already published something similar. We won awards in the local market, though.
Suddenly my white-haired magazine editor friend – why did I know so many editors? – rushed over to tell me that So-and-So was the most interesting man she’d met in years. “Thank you for inviting me!”
I provided the necessary background. “I should tell you he’s married.”
She looked me in the eye and said, “At my age it doesn’t matter.”
Years later, when my hair turned white, I thought it did matter,
But at the party, there was hope for everybody. A gallery owner had a crush on me, and I liked him, and the gallery, but I was already taken! Thank God he was accompanied by a woman, probably a girlfriend, who stared with dagger eyes at me. Stare away: I was no threat!
So why was no one listening to music on the stereo? Well, in my experience, only the upper classes listen to music at parties, usually Gilbert and Sullivan, played on the piano by the host or hostess. The guests magically know all the lyrics and sing along. Did they go to Gilbert and Sullivan school?
I recommend that you have a beer and sing along with the chorus, or at least mouth the words.
