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You want to knohat the rich and powerful do? They go to parties like this one And on little plates they carry food around that they don’t actually eat In heavy crystal glasses they drink chah and whisper and watch each other out of the corners of their eyes

But really what they do is pretend That’s all They play pretend in their four-thousand-dollar tuxes and ten-thousand-dollar dresses

They pretend to care what the person they’re talking to is actually saying They pretend to give a shit about whatever cause to which they’re donating e of a 20-year-old girl to a 48-year-old man

They pretend that it’s not gross

My sister Zilla and I played a version of this exact saame that hot su our oith thin little straps and lace that fell past our little girl knees, Zilla would hold out a leaf with a worm on it

“It’s a delicacy where I come from,” she’d say in a ridiculous accent

“After you,” I’d say, trying to sound like the Queen of England but getting tangled up somewhere in the deep south And then, because she was fearless, Zilla would pick up that worm, bite it in half, and s it down

“Showbut her ums And then she’d dab the corners of her h

But the fake laughs always turned to real ones Ones that shook our bellies and round

That was not going to happen at this party

“Are you all right?” asked Mrsoh, god, as her name? She was important, I’d been told that earlier I’d been told not to forget that this woman in the vast sea of important women at this party, was important

“I’ betweento do with the heat of su to do withwhile people ate shrimp cocktail

The harpist in the corner struck up what sounded like the exact sa for the last hour It was It was the sa a joke on all the assholes at this party

Oh god, the thought just occurred to me – she thinks I am one of the assholes

“As I was saying,” the important woravel and could keep Zilla in Belhaven for a month “The senator has done excellent work for the state in Washington Everyone here fully supports his tax relief bill”