I didn’t know her but had met her that day. Her name was Elvira, mocha skin, hair in stylish crop with blonde highlights at the long bangs, fabulous tangerine top that showed even more fabulous cleavage, skintight skirt that showed this baby had back, and she would have been shorter than me if she wasn’t wearing four-inch killer stiletto-heeled sandals. She came to the party with a cadre of beauties, all of whom I’d met in passing before at Ada’s milestone celebrate-me celebrations. A knockout blonde named Gwen, a tall, svelte, modelesque blonde named Tracy, and another modelesque, tall, svelte African American named Camille.

But I’d never met Elvira.

“How do you know Ada?” I asked and her eyes came to me.

“Don’t know the bitch and don’t wanna know a bitch who puts out bowls of peanuts, no honey roast, no salt, just motherfuckin’ peanuts with the motherfuckin’ skins still on them, and some corn chips for a party. Then she gives me a sliver of cake. Shit. What? Crazy,” she replied and I stared at her mainly because her answer was crazy. Honest, but crazy.

Then I asked, “You crashed a baby shower?”

“No. Got dragged here by Beanpole.” She jerked her head at the tall, svelte, modelesque Tracy. “She didn’t wanna come alone. Gwen and Cam didn’t wanna come at all. I’m seein’ now why. Trace has got a heart of gold but no capacity to get it when people walk all over her, even when they’re doin’ it in high heels. She talked us into it with promises of employee discounts at her store. She works at Neiman’s.”

“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled, thinking that would do it. There was a time in my life when I’d go to a really bad baby shower with the promise of an employee discount at Neiman’s. That time was over, though. As I had done frequently through the years, starting at around age six, I’d entered a new phase in my life. This one was one where Christian Louboutin didn’t factor, but Harley-Davidson did.

As I was thinking this, she suddenly and bizarrely announced, “Done with this shit. Let’s have cocktails.”

Before I could open my mouth, she shot up to standing, grabbed her enormous purse that clunked and clinked when she did, hefted it up on her shoulder, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out of the couch.

When she had me up, she declared loudly, “Smoke break!”

Everyone’s eyes came to us, some of them shocked, seeing as these days you could light up a doobie and no one would blink, but if you lit up a smoke, you courted being publicly stoned to death. But most of the eyes were envious and probably not because they smoked. Probably because they, like me and obviously Elvira, wanted to escape.

“Smoke break?” Ada asked, her face twisted in revulsion.