I was in deep shit.

It was 6 p.m., Friday afternoon. TCorp party would start in one and a half hours, and it would take me about half of that time just to get there. Yet here I was, still in my underwear, glowering at my open wardrobe—a wardrobe that held lots of jeans and t-shirts but was definitely lacking in stuff to wear at a "creative black tie" event.

My mother would have something creative to wear—she kept spending the little money she had on clothes. But being like my mother, living in junk and poverty, was nothing I aspired to.

Some of my jeans were creatively torn, but I doubted that they qualified as black tie.

The shit I had navigated myself into—by refusing to buy a dress for the event—was at least hip deep.

I dropped the knee-length, flower-print summer dress I held in my hand and pulled out a pair of black pants. I might wear them with my white blouse. But they were jeans, black jeans—that wouldn't do. They fell to the floor, joining the summer dress and some other garments I had abandoned there in an unorderly heap of despair.

For the thousandth time, my eyes fell on the two-piece suit my dad had gifted when I got my first job, the one at TCorp. A dark indigo jacket and a pencil skirt of the same color. I had worn the combination no more than once or twice, refusing to acknowledge the guilt-driven generosity of my ever-absent dad.

At least it was dark, and it was not jeans. That and my white blouse might work. Kind of. But this was a party, and the dress code was creative chic—it wasn't a business meeting.

But then, I didn't plan to impress anyone. I'd show myself at the event, eat some snacks, and flee the venue before everyone got plastered.

~~~

Stenson Event Hall was the cubistic equivalent of a European gothic cathedral. A towering structure of concrete and steel erected at the city's old port. They used to build ships in it, the big cruisers. But the shipyards had gone bankrupt years ago.

The building's front had three entrances—large doors standing wide open. TCorp's employees were queuing to pass the black-suited, wired, sunshaded bouncers guarding them. I kept looking for faces I knew, but I only saw fancy-and-creative-clad strangers.

The jacket of my two-piece suit was tight around my shoulders and kept reminding me that there was nothing fancy or creative about it, except, maybe, for the silver angel I had pinned to its lapel, upside-down—a falling angel, probably having lost its flight-worthiness when seeing me dressed like this.

To make things worse, I wore sensible shoes. Which meant that their heels were broad, flat, and not higher than half an inch. And they were black, not even matching the suit's indigo. There wasn't a single female here with her feet as close to the floor as me. A bottom-dweller I was.

I clenched my teeth and decided to buy some fashionable clothes and shoes the next day. But that didn't prevent everyone from staring at me.

Or was that just in my mind?

My heart was racing. The bouncers would stop me, at best thinking I was one of the waitresses.

I steered for what I believed to be the shortest queue to the right when I saw a group of familiar faces close to the end of the central one. IT support—three men and one girl. The nutty nerds, we called them. One of them, a heavyset red-bearded bear, guffawed at something the girl had said when his colleague, Lawrence, caught my eye. He smiled and lifted a hand to greet me.

Lawrence Liang was the only person of that group I knew by name. Friendly, patient, he was the one IT supporter not instinctively blaming the user for everything that went wrong on a computer.

I smiled back at him and joined the end of the queue they were in. Lawrence and his people were several bodies deep ahead, yet he left his post and made his way back to me.

"Hello Anne," he said. As usual, a wad of his black, tousled hair rested on the right side of his dark-rimmed glasses. "How are you?" He wore a yellow jacket, a red tie, a green shirt and blue pants.

"Fine, thanks." I replied. "Same as yesterday." He had been to our office the day before, replacing Sandra's keyboard. I was tempted to comment on his parrot color scheme—it was so 90s—but I bit my tongue.

"It's my brother's." He moved his hands along his jacket, obviously in response to my unabashed staring at his clothes. "I had no clue what creative black tie means, and he gave me this... rainbow costume." He shrugged, which made the oversized jacket move up and down like a yellow piston, and smiled as if trying to apologize. "When I look at all the elegant folks here, I feel like the victim of a practical joke."

I laughed. It was a relief not to be the only one freaked out about the dress code. "To be honest, coming here scared the shit out of me. That..." I tugged at the lapel of my jacket, "was the best my wardrobe came up with."

"But it looks fine." His nervous grin made him look like a schoolboy. "Not that I'm an expert in these matters, though."

"Neither am I." I hesitated, groping for something more to say. For some strange reason, I was tempted to ask him about his age. I was a lousy guesser of a man's age unless he was a Caucasian with a long, white beard—and Lawrence's parents were from Taiwan if I remembered correctly

"Anne!"

The shouter of my name—Sandra—was in the queue to my right. She waved at me.

I waved back. "Hey, see you inside." My voice had never been loud at the best of times, and I doubted that it carried over the hubbub.

She smiled at me and nodded.

She wore a long, black dress leaving her shoulders bare. A crimson scarf contrasted it, lending it the desired creative touch.

"Is she happy with her new keyboard?" Lawrence asked.

"Er..."

"Just joking, sorry."

I laughed. He seemed at least as awkward as I was.

"Your invitation?"

We had reached the bouncers. There were two of them, one to each side of the entrance, like a pair of dogs guarding the gate to hell. The one who had asked me for the invitation was a head taller and two arms broader than me, a looming Cerberus. My distorted mirror image in his glasses seemed to literally squirm as he scrutinized me.

My hands were sweaty as I produced the paper from the pocket of my jacket.

With a tiny nod, he waved me through. Relief unknotted my stomach.

The crowd flushed us into the building. Most of its interior formed a single, cavernous space built to house ocean liners, and it dwarfed the people milling within. Decorations, performers, tables carrying drinks and tidbits, food stands where chefs were grilling, cooking, and cutting, enormous wall screens showing abstract patterns and close-ups of people, and the flow of TCorp employees swamped the place with colors, noise, and motion.

Someone touched my arm, and I turned to face Sandra.

"You look... chic," she said.

I shrugged. "Thanks."

"Good evening, Sandra." Lawrence gave her a little bow. "How's your keyboard?"

"It's perfect, Lawrence." She bowed back at him, putting her hands together, Japanese style. "Thanks for asking. Will you join us?"

"Er..." He hesitated, looking at his colleagues who were closing in on a table loaded with drinks. "I've promised to look after those guys there."

"A pity," Sandra replied. "But please come and see us later, when your friends are fed and happy."

"Sure, I will. Sandra, Anne..." He smiled at me. "See you later."

"Yes, please," I said as he walked off towards his friends.

"He's a cute one," Sandra said, her gaze following him. "Don't you think so?"

I shrugged, trying to suppress a grin. "Yes, he's nice, even though he looks a bit like a parrot today."

She huffed. "An adorable parrot, no?"

Her scarf was surrounding her head like a pool of blood. It was time to change the topic. "You have a cool outfit."

"Thanks. As I said, it's the same one as last year, with one small addition." She fingered the scarf. "But, let's go find Camille." She took hold of my arm and led me towards the center of the hall.

The place was like a zoo populated by rare, exotic creatures. There were garishly dyed feathers, fake fur, glittering scales, silk morphed into petals, a quilt pressed into robe-duty, neon-colored boas, you name it.

And all these strangely clad beings were milling, chatting, snacking, drinking, politicking, and—most of all—watching each other.

Sandra squeezed my arm. "Look, there."

I followed her gaze.

A dark-suited Thierry Thorne was standing with a tall, short-haired blonde and a smaller woman with a long dress and wavy, black hair. I recognized the smaller one—she was Theresa, his sister.

Thierry was talking, and the tall one erupted into laughter. She held a hand to her mouth as waves of mirth shook her emaciated frame.

Faint peals of her laughter reached me over the background din and reminded me of a hyena.

Theresa stood unmoving, arms crossed, watching her bother and the hyena. Then she said something, and the three of them vanished behind a forest of potted bamboo.

I was relieved to see them disappear. These people were the predators of this jungle. I felt much safer with the other exotic creatures here, the herbivores. Such as the parrots. I should go and look for them. Yet still I caught myself eying the scenery for the predators to reappear, and I hated myself for it.