In a corner, two figures reminisced on the steps they used to dance in their teenage days, as they bounced from side to side, now and then putting in the arm actions with feathery waves or strong air punches, whilst being caught in the net of bustling characters who occasionally dragged them further into the centre of the floor.
A couple of youths, clothed as if their mother had dressed them, or was at least still buying all of their wardrobe, sauntered up, trying to look as cool as possible during the girl's attempts to frame their faces for Madonna's "Vogue" dance. They were given disparaging looks by the pair, who continued to sexily stealth in tight black dresses and dangerous heels.
Unheard of rap songs, the type which were so bad they had faded to the back of the memories of those who recalled the 80s, clambered desparately to the top of the DJ's pile. Somehow this pimpley youth who was probably still in nappies at the time of the songs he was playing, had dug up this selection of music. The dancefloor began to clear, with only the paralytically drunk and deaf remaining with disjoint motions on the areana.
"Do you want a drink?" Joanna had to holler in her friend's ear. Natalie nodded. Speech was impossible and impractical above the raucous music and moans of dances departing like vampires in the morning light.
Dodging past the Siamese twin couples, attached by the lips, who lingered on the outskirts of the hall, Joanna and Natalie made their way through the crowds of exiting gangs of single sex friends, so far unlucky in attracting the glances of the opposite sex, but the night was still young, and there was plenty more lipstick and chronic chat up lines to be used. Quickly moving through the "Velvet Room", where moody, sultry music droned in the air, and people slobbed on cushioned sofas, smoking and some even sleeping as the lethargy drained their bodies of any further exertion for the night.
Down the long, wooden panel walled corridor, down the stairs, amongst the bustling crowd, some trying to escape from the building as quickly as possible to return to their tiny champus rooms for a night of drunken passion, or for a cup of cocoa, and others trying to reach the "Video Room", where the bar was still open and beer flowing and the music did't thump in your ears. It was a relaxing room, with more atmosphere and chat than the "Velvel Room", with a large screen pinned up against one wall, and other couples pinned up against any other wall space they could find to lean on. The two girls entered the room on a tidal wave of other students, their feet barely touching the ground as they flooded in and tried to grab a free table. On the screen, cult 80s films were being displayed. Tonight's was "Pretty in Pink", one of Natalie and Joanna's favourite films. Molly Ringwald dominated the projection. The words the actors were uttering so meaningfully could barely be heard above the din of the students ordering drinks, or yelling their "Hi"'s. Joanna took Blane, the leading man's role and anyone else who was speaking and Natalie played Andie, the leading lady. They both knew all the words by heart and recited them to one another now as they waited by the bar to be served.
"I'm really sorry for bumming out the night for you." Joanna started
"You didn't bum out anything, I had a great time." Andie's words rolled off Natalie's tongue.
"You liar"
"I was with you, I had a great time. If I was in a Turkish prison I'd have a great time with you."
"Ahhhhhhh." They both sighed pathetically in unison.
"Where are all these sympathetic, romantic men that the films keep on portraying?"
"They don't exist." Joanna declared as she grasped her drink from the alcohol drenched bar and lead the way through the crowd to a free table.
"Owwww!" Natalie exclaimed. Someone had brushed their lit cigarette against her shoulder. It stung like a wasp bite, until she pushed her ice cold glass up against the inflamed area. She looked up to give the handler of the cigarette a piece of her mind, but once at eye-level with her opposition, she found it impossible to move let alone hurl abuse at him. She miled coyly and found the pain had left her. She noticed Jaonne had found a table at the back of the room, so she hurried to be with her friend.
"He was cute."
"He just burnt you." Joanne observed as her friend wiped her wosund with her hand.
"It was an accident."
"Yeah sure. Are you OK?"
"I'm fine. See anyone decent yet?" Natalie looked around the room for a face that might catch her eye.
"Hey, look, there's that Jason guy you were after at Christmas time."
"Don't remind me," Natalie blushed. "He's too cute to be gay though. He does have a cute boyfriend as well. So not fair. Look at them, don't they look good together?"
The two men stood so close to each other, eveyone knew not to ask either of them if they wanted to dance. Their faces seemed to fit together like a jigsaw as they kissed one another. Just watching them sent tingles down Natalie's back. One in tight short sleeved black T-shirt and black jeans which wrapped his thin long legs. The other in smart stripped royal blue on sea blue on top of a pair of Levis which excentuated the muscles from his waist down.
"Jason just wans't my type." Natalie giggled.
"Usually when men don't want you, you say that they're gay. Well, in this case, you were right."
"Yep. Where are we in the film?"
"Does he have...strong lips?" Jonanne did Iona's words.
"How can you tell?"
"Did you feel it in your knees?"
"I felt it everywhere."
"Strong lips. I know I'm old enough to be his mother, but when the Duck laid that kiss on me last night, I swear my thighs just went up in flames! He must practice on melons or something."
Natalie giggled her resonant giggle that was her trade mark. It wasn't an actual giggle, it was more like a snortle, a bit of a chortle, snorted out of her nose. Joanna interupted her humourous moment with a more serious note and a far away look in her eye. Speaking as if she were talking to herself. But it was difficult to hear her above the raucus laughter and chatter around the room, so as Natalie strained to hear her friend, she just smiled as she always did and added in the occasional nod of her head or "Ah huh."
"I've never felt like that before, you know, with a guy. All the boys I went out with at University, none of them, like, had any effect on me, really. I mean, how many guys did I go out with? I must hold the University record. Do you remember that week I got off with 3 different guys on sequential nights?"
Natalie recognised the inflection in Joanna's voic to be that of a question and she nodded in agreement, but then let Joanna go into full flow.
"I guess it wan't until after I graduated and my parents started wanting to know if I'd met that special someone that I realised that I really hadn't found anyone out of all of those men I knew, none of them I'd ever want to spend my entre life with. A night maybe, a week if they were lucky or their statutory two months if I felt up to it. I mean, when I was little, I had the dreams about meeting the perfect man, having the perfect marriage, followed by the perfect life, with the house, the cars, the dogs and... I got to thinking that none of these things actually exist. Do you remember Jeremy?"
"The saxophonist in your flat in the second year?" Natalie had caught the end of that sentance and could reply.
"Yeah. Well, he was probably the closest I ever got to finding a great guy. We went out for dinner at the castle and he was really romantic, but I guess these things are not meant to last. I lost him to that skinny red head, what was her name?... Oh, Gemma, that's it. You must get bored of me going on about all this. I appologise, but I get to listen to all your stories too, so I guess we're quits. The other guys, I guess I was jsut trying to test myself, to see if it actually did get any better. It never did. But I guess I liked the attention. Or the race to dump them before I got dumped. It was all a game in those days."
"Do you remember, you knicked Belinda Maybury's boyfriend that night in Mike's Bar. Was that just because you could knid of thing, of did you actually want him? I never got what you saw in him."
"Oh, Tim? That was just to get my own back on Bel for spreading rumours about me and Justin Phillips. Do you remember that smeghead who was in the Rugby team. She reckoned I'd done the most disgusting pint with him in the privacy of my own room. I guess I could have told her to stop dumping her fantasies on me, but Tim was just so easy, and I just had to do it. I guess I was as much of a bitch as she was at the time. Do you know what happened to her?"
Natalie shrugged her shoulders.
"I remember she flunked out in the final year, cos she was finding it all too difficult. She was doing Hotel Management wasn't she? Well, that was the last I heard of her. We'll probably end up in a hotel one day and find that she's the manager, when we go to complain that there aren't enough towels in the rooms or something. Scary thought."
"Taling about hotels and towels," Natalie began, "Are you going to Wendy's wedding? I still haven't replied to my invite."
"I don't know yet. I should be free. IT's on the 15th July isn't it? Why don't we go? It'll be a laugh. I mean, we don't have to take anyone with us, even though it would look better, but I guess we could just turn up on our own. Did you see the way the invitations said 'Joanna + 1'?" Joanna drew inverted commas in the air as she said this.
"Yeah, I spotted that. I haven't spoken to Wendy since last Christmas. Who's the guy? She gets through blokes faster than I do. She can't have been seeing him long. She was with Ian Thomson last Summer."
"It was a Matthew someone or the other. I hadn't heard of him. Remember how she was always after Fraser Wilkinson? She was totally pathetic about him, always following him around Uni and stuff. I think he told her to piss off in the middle of the Unio after about a month of her trying to be attached to him. She was heartbrokent after that. I had to take the brunt of it all. I stayed up with her for three whole nights while she whinned and moaned and sobbed and sighed. I told her to give him up and move on with her life, but it obviously didn't have the right effect for about five months.
"Oh, I love this bit in the film." Natalie remarked. She'd had one eye on Joanna and one on the film throughout the conversation.
"I love Iona. I mean, if a woman who looked just like Iona came up top me, I'd definately go for her." Joanna whispered to her friend.
"Stop it...You were here for 15 minutes and you didn't tell me?...You lucky girl....A dreamy dress..."
"I love her voice." was Natalie's response.
"Isn't her hair great? It changes every scene."
"I envy you. I really envy you."
"Iona, you're going to OD on nostalgia."
"OK then, Blane or Stephe?" Joanne sugested.
"That's easy. Blane. Definately Blane. Steph is so slimey. He's always played slimey characters. What's his name? He's in Manequin, and he's a greaseball in that. Andrew McCarthy's so sweet. I've always had something about him."
"You're right. I would have gone for him too."
"Am I the only one who had fantasies about getting off with guys in barns and stables?"
"'Faid so." Joanna muttered.
"Ohh, this bit about parents being ogres. You really shouldn't meet Geff's parents. God, could there be any less conversation? Oh, and I starved to death that weekend. Never go out with someone who has 3 brothers. They scoff all the food before you can even polietly serve yourself."
"You know how films usually start on a high and then there's this plateau of depression. This is the bit. Doesn't Ducky look sweet? Don't you just want to hug him and squeeze him and call him George?" Joanna said.
"Isn't it weird how she and Ducky never get it together in the film, but they do in the book?" Natalie remarked.
"Yeah. She looks so much better with Ducky, and money shouldn't really matter. Should it?"
"Joanna, you are terrible you know."
"Ahhh, this bit's so sad when Blane doesn't call her."
"Don't fall in love, you just wont like it, it's very complicated." Natalie mouthed the words as Andie talked to her dog.
"Yeah, then the world falls apart. Ohh, I cried at this father-daughter speach whenI first saw it. Oh I mustn't get all teary now." Natalie said stiffly holding back her emotions.
"You're soppier than me. Dirty Dancing's the worst though - I was blubering when I saw it last week." Joanna confessed.
"Yeah. Don't you think the theme tune from Dirty Dancing is like the anthem of our generation?"
"Yes, it rules. Hope they play it later."
"They played it near the end last week, so they should." Natalie said hopefully.
"Isn't her car great?"
"Yeah what is it?"
"I have no idea, but when I grow up...properly, I want one."
"Joanna, you'll never grow up. Maturity is a long way off for both of us."
"So, what am I going to do with you? It's been at least three weeks since you've been out with anyone. Are you just having a relaxing time or are you on the hunt? I noticed your skirts are getting shorter when you've got those evening lectures. Anyone cute on your course?"
"Well, there's the lecturer. He's about fifty, balding and wears Jesus sandals. Do you think I'd be in with a chance with him?"
"I was being serious Nat."
"Okay, okay, you've got me. There is a guy called Andrew, he works, and does the course part time, so he comes in all suity and smelling georgiously of that new Calvin Klein aftershave. I'm going to snatch him to work with me on our next assignment, before Jennifer Payne gets her sniffy fingers into him. She gets everyone, you know. Well, you've never met her, but trust me she does. That's my story. Hey and you can talk about being on the shelf."
"Hey, at least I have some books on my shelf."
"But they're more leaflets than books you know. I saw the last person you fancied, and it didn't get very far. What's going on with you?"
"Hey, just cos I've given up on guys doesn't mean that it'll be easy finding someone to take home to meet my parents - God, could you picture the heart attack my parents would have if I brought home a girlfriend?"
"It's the end of the film already. That dress really isn't her is it? She looks really frumpy. But the Duck Man's shoes I dig."
"Aren't you glad that those merangy dresses have gone out of fashion? I remember wearing one of those to my high school ball. It was really wierd. I remember, my best friend at the time got off with my boyfriend, Stuart, and I ended up going home alone in tears. Aren't these things like, quintessential in life and really stick in your mind, but I guess it's character building."
"Did you ever go all wobbly and tingly when he whispers "I love you...Always" in her ear?
"Yeah, I guess I did. Don't know what I think about it now. I'll have to watch this again at home with a nice fried egg sandwich when I get home. The final kiss always got me."
"Ahhhhhh." They sighed simultaneously as the film drew up it's closing credits, and "Pretty in Pink" by the Psychadelic Furs sang in the background, with the two girls bouncing along with the tune.
"Do you want to head back to the dance room? I've cooled down a lot now. We can get back in time for the last few songs."
"Good plan" Natalie agreed. As she stood to leave she spotted a familiar face. "Ohh, Hi Stephanie. How's things?"
"Fine thanks. You going back up?"
"Yeah. Oh, Stephanie, this is Joanna, Joanna, Stephanie.
"I'll catch you up there, I need a drink badly." Stephanie stepped past the pair and strode up the the bar.
"What do you think of her?" Natalie whispered to Joanna.
"Great legs." was the reply, as her eyes followed the sway of Stephanie's body to the bar.
"Though you'd say that. She's on my IT module."
"Ohhhh."
"And unfortunately, she's completely straight."
"There you go, always bursting my bubble. Let's go up."
They started climbing the stairs back up to the thumping dance floor. Entering the hall, they found statues staggering under strobe lighting, as the silver glitter ball danced above their heads.
"It's at times like this that I'm glad you're still at Uni, otherwise I bet we'd never go out dancing like this." Joanna yelled over the waves of Adam Ant's "Prince Charming". After a rendition of the dance, crossing their arms in the air in the style of the video that they could remember from the first time round, along with the memories of their teenage crushes on the makeup smeared man who sang the song.
A final few bops to their favourites like Dexy's Midnight Runners' "Come on Eillen", where they had to jump out of the way of several moshing clusters. And a girly hug for Abba's "Thank you for the Music" and the dance was over.
They made their way back to the cloakroom to grab their coats through the gush of people surging to get their coats also. They joined the queue with their tickets in their hands.
"So, what do you want to watch with your fried egg sandwich." Natalie asked.
"Reality Bites, Wied Science, Say Anlything, Threesome or Singles?" Joanna suggested.
"I think we should stick to an Andrew McCarthy theme. How about Mannequin or Catholic Boys?"
"It's your turn to make the egg sarnies by the way. I made them last weekend."
"Alrighty, as long as I get to drool over Andrew McCarthy again."
