Chapter 8 8

"Do you need anything, miss?" I heard a voice behind me and turned towards the source. I saw a young man dressed as a waiter looking at me. He was probably the one who asked me. "A glass of water would be fine," I told him. He raised his eyebrows at this probably wondering why I wasn't having a drink at this party like the other people. "Are you okay?" He asked as he filled a glass with water. "Yeah. What time is it?" I asked. He looked at his wrist watch for a second and looked back up at me. "It's almost ten," He said and extended his hand towards me, holding the glass of water. I took it from him. "Do you know where Wilma could be?" I asked him, not sure whether he knew or not. "She must be somewhere here. It's her birthday and cake cutting is yet to take place in a few minutes so she must be somewhere around here. Is she your friend?" "No. She's my friend's friend. She's Olivia's friend, I mean." "Oh," He said shrugging. "I don't know who she is so I can't help you." "It's okay. I'll go search for her," I said, taking a sip of the cold water. I got up from the chair I was sitting on and turned around to leave, the glass of water still in my hand. As I turned around, I bumped into someone and the glass slipped from my hand. The water spilled on the person's dress. Thank God it wasn't alcohol. "I'm so sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to spill water on your dress," I said quickly as I watched the lady who had an annoyed expression plastered on her face staring down as she frantically tried to dry the water. Her gown was all wet. "What the hell." She muttered. She didn't look up at me and some of the waiters came up to us. They started cleaning the glass off the floor and I immediately felt guilty that they had to do that because of me. "I'm so sorry," I said again and this time the woman looked up slowly to glare at me. Her eyes met mine and for a second I saw so much anger in her eyes that I gulped. And then very soon her glare turned to a confused stare and her perfectly shaped eyebrows knit together. My face mirrored her expression and I was confused as to why she hadn't spit something insulting at me. Her expression finally changed and her eyes widened as if she had just seen a UFO land in front of her. Her mouth dropped. She looked so shocked. Her eyes roamed all around my face and from head to toe. "I'm really sorry I spoiled your dress." I said and quickly walked away from there. I knew I shouldn't have done that. I should have helped the poor lady but I was just so confused at her actions and I didn't want to get into any trouble. And the way she stared at me was creepy. I looked back and caught her staring at me with the same expression. I quickly disappeared in the crowd, escaping her surprised stare. Thank God she wasn't following me. I could have been in trouble if she demanded me to pay money for ruining her dress. I was actually kind of surprised that she didn't chase after me for spoiling her dress. She looked pretty pissed off when it happened but it completely changed once she looked at me. I looked at my reflection in the full length mirror adjacent to me and I wasn't looking scary, or anything that excessive that caused the lady to look so shocked and surprised at seeing me. Then why did she react like that? "Hello everyone!" An enthusiastic voice brought me out of my thoughts. I turned around to see a balding, old man who was probably in his 60's with a mic in his hand over the aisle. The crowd stopped talking and everyone's attention turned to him. "Today, is my darling daughter, Wilma's birthday and I am so happy and proud of her. She turns twenty two today," The crowd clapped at this. As their claps died down, the man continued. "She has grown from a cute baby to a kind child to a mature and beautiful adult!" At this time Wilma came over the aisle and gave a hug to her dad. "Thank you so much dad for everything! I love you so much." Olivia must be there somewhere around her. I pushed past people to reach there. The father-daughter duo continued their speech but I didn't pay attention to it. I was more concerned with finding a hopefully sober Olivia. But no matter how much I tried to find her, I wasn't able to. Finally fed up with searching for her without any success I flopped down on a chair and listened to the speech. How long was the speech going to be? I needed go confront Wilma about Olivia's whereabouts. After about ten minutes or so, Wilma finally cut the cake and people began dancing after that. Thankfully I was able to reach Wilma before she was roped into another conversation. I tapped her shoulder and she turned around. "Hey, Julia!" She shouted enthusiastically over the music. I smiled at her. "It's Julie." She gave me a sheepish smile. "Sorry, I'm terrible at remembering names. I used to call Olivia all sorts of funny names when I first met her. I would call her Olive, Olay or Oliver when I forgot her name. " "It's okay. Happy birthday Wilma." I said, smiling softly at her. "Oh, thank you!" She said as she once again gave me a deathly hug without warning. "Um...Do you happen to know where Olivia is?" I asked her, politely retracting from the hug. "She was here with me just now. I don't know where she went. Don't worry, she's probably peeing as that's what she does right after twenty shots of vodka." My eyes widened. "She got drunk?!" "Yeah!" She said, looking oblivious to my outburst. "Oh no! I'm going to kill her!" "Don't do it here. I don't want to bury a dead body on the eve of my birthday," She said and laughed. I smiled weakly at her. "I'm going to go find her." "Hey, how is the party?" It?sucks.?It was an instantaneous thought and I was relieved the words didn't escape my mouth. "It's really nice. I love it." I said, not meaning any of it. "That's good. You should come often to my parties. I would love to have you here." "Sure. I'll come."?Not.