Word Count: 322
He was placed in a corner and told to sit still and not move. When he grew fidgety he looked around for his parents. He saw his mother, with a drink in her hand, talking with a man that Nathan thought looked familiar. His father’s deep booming laugh came around the corner into the living room where Nathan sat on a chair that was impossibly uncomfortable and stiff.
He was good for an hour, maybe a little bit longer, but he was hungry and tired and needed to use the bathroom. His mother was reaching for a fresh drink offered by the man who looked sort of like someone Nathan had seen somewhere before. Maybe at one of these parties, maybe at the grocery store, or no–he was somebody he saw at his dad’s company on Bring Your Child to Work Day. His father was nowhere in sight or within sound.
Nathan wound his way through the crowded rooms, trying hard to avoid bumping ladies’ behinds and the tight circles of adults laughing loudly and gesturing dangerously with their drinks clinking ice cubes. He found the bathroom off the main hall. He almost forgot to wash his hands but he remembered and closed the door though not all the way. He was wiping his hands on the tiny green towel when the man who worked with his father came in.
Something didn’t feel right. Even his dad didn’t walk in on him in the bathroom anymore. The man had shut the door behind him and that made Nathan uncomfortable. The man told Nathan he was a good boy, a handsome boy, that maybe sometime they could go play ball or go fishing.
Nathan got away. He couldn’t find his mother but saw his father with his arm around a woman who didn’t look familiar at all. Nathan was still hungry but he went back to the uncomfortable chair and sat down.
