Predict

Will Cristina go to Kathy’s party?

It was an accident, a pure accident. The next day I stood by the door after algebra class, and couldn’t go through, too many students in my way and of course, I didn’t dare say “Excuse me.”

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Cristina, good!” It was Kathy. “Jeremy asked me to make sure you were coming.”

Jeremy? Who was that?

Soon I found myself walking to Kathy’s house with the rest of the class because I just wasn’t brave enough to say that I wasn’t going to the party.

Mistake, mistake, or so I thought during the first few minutes at Kathy’s party. We’d come in and gone straight to the finished basement of the house where there was an entertainment room. I guessed it was an entertainment room because it had a big screen TV and a CD player with speakers almost as tall as I was. I sat on a black leather recliner that a guy had moved to a corner so they could have space to dance.

Kathy came down with chips and salsa, put them on the table in front of me and began to dance with the guy who had moved the recliner. How would Jerry feel about this and where was he, anyway?

Everybody joined Kathy, dancing.

Nobody asked me to dance, thank God and nobody made me speak, thank God.

Critical Viewing: Plot What connection can you make between this image and the story?

State of My Heart, 2005, Elizabeth Rosen. Mixed media collage, collection of the artist, courtesy of Morgan Gaynin, New York.