A Girl called Rena

I didn't know how an uptight - but that's not how I knew her, it's just the things she says, the vibes she gives off - PhD woman like Rena could be so herself, relaxed and having the time of her life, until we followed her to some bars. It could have been the liquor talking, or acting like she was God's gift to the local nightspot scene but I have to admit when I'm wrong. Comparing her with the locals, who were mentally melting the ice in their drinks to water, is like watching colour TV as opposed to the wall behind it. She got me going there for a while but now I know another side of Rena, the disco princess.My narrow experience with discotheques and the so-called nightspot scene is that it is just a place to get drunk, get crazy and get someone to talk to you while everyone is looking on. Dex laughed at this and said that actually I was quite accurate. This disturbed me, his laughing; it's like he is almost envious of my ordinariness.

He got over it quickly, rather smoothly, without us talking about it. I kept to the sidelines, which meant the bar or some obscure seat at these places while I watched Rena, Dex and a hundred over young women and men get down. All the time,my pulse was racing and my heart thumped to the beat of the music.

"So," Rena jumped into the seat beside mine, drenched with sweat. Traces of her make-up mingled with her perspiration as did her perfume.

"Having fun yet?"

"Yeah, I think so...you?"

She gulped at her drink and turned around, resting her elbows on the edge of the table and looking outward, as I was, to the crowd. We searched the semi-darkness for Dex. When we eventually found him, two girls, both in their early twenties at the most, were giggling as the man shovelled his charm.

"Do you believe that?" Rena cried,
"My brother, the babe magnet.

I took my glass in my hand.
"Who would've thought?"

Just then a man in his thirties, I suspect, although he was thinning in the hair department came over to us. He was not overweight but had this clumsiness about him. He was wearing a satin but emphatic collared shirt with dark pants.The colour shined in the music, silkened with his sweat.

"So you wanna dance or what?"

"No thanks," Rena declined politely. "I'm taking a breather."She sighed loudly and, looking at her watch, shifted in her chair closer to me.I smiled, uncomfortably, at Rena first and then the person as he looked at me,hoping that he didn't think that I was with Rena. She's too old for me. And a little too smart.

The man edged closer to Rena. "So what're you drinking?"

"The night away," was her retort.The guy laughed. Actually, it was more like he brayed. And as he sucked more air in a recoil, he began to sound like a hyena. I wish I was kidding.

"You know," he recovered, wiping the beads on his forehead with his palm,sweeping what little of his hair back.
"You're funny. I like a funny girl."

"Good for you."

"That's right. I am good for you."
At this, Rena made vomit noises, laughing at me and then turning to him in a straight face.

"But really, could you leave now?"

"Well, you don't know what you're missing," he added, still hovering around.Rena tried to ignore him by making silly conversations with me. This added to the frustration of the balding man in the loud blue shirt. "After God created woman he atoned by creating beer," he complained, about to walk off.Rena was hardly even reacting.

"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."
That was pretty much how that night flew by.