‘Are you sure? I need to put down a deposit.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry I’ve got to get back to the table. Are you okay?’
‘It doesn’t really sound like you have time for me to answer that.’
‘I’m sorry. Promise we can chat properly when I see you, okay? Love you.’
‘Okay. Love you.’
When Rose returned to the dinner table, Luna was distributing pieces of paper and pens.
‘Right, three names everyone! And please for the love of God don’t put any bloody Harry Potter characters in there. That joke is very much over,’ she said.
‘Oh, come on, Lovegood. Give us a spell!’ shouted Paul, winking at Marco.
‘Fuck off, Paul,’ Luna snapped.
Of course, they were going to play the hat game. The games at Luna’s were hit and miss and often went on for hours, depending on the Oxbridge headcount. You couldn’t leave until they had finished; that was the rule. At one dinner party a few years ago, Rose fell asleep at the table. The games had been going on since 10 p.m. and they must have played at least four by midnight. When she woke up, she was told off by one of Luna’s family friends because she was supposed to be his partner for the T-shirt race, which was when you had to take a T-shirt out of the freezer and put it on as quickly as possible. He demanded a do-over with a new partner ‘for the sake of fairness’. Rose went home just as Luna started rummaging around the spare freezer for more T-shirts.
The hat game was fairly mild by comparison; Rose was relieved. You each had to choose three recognisable people, put all the names into a hat, and then go through as many as you could in forty-five seconds by describing them to your team. You could use any words and actions so long as you didn’t name the actual person. Once you’d been through all the names, you had to do it again in a second round, only this time you could only use one word to describe them. Then, for the third round, you could either act out the name, sort of like charades, or you could make a sound. By that point, though, everyone was generally too drunk to care. Once, someone put Luna’s mother in the hat. It was all going well until the sound round, when one of the guests described her by making sex noises. He was not invited back.
Rose usually tried to play it safe by putting cartoon characters as her names. Two of those and then someone completely inoffensive, like Tom Hanks. No one ever had anything controversial to say about Tom Hanks. Milo had never been a name in the hat before, at least not in any of the games she’d played at Luna’s, though Rose knew it was a possibility. Whether this was something she wanted or not, she couldn’t quite work out. She looked around the dining table, imagining everyone’s reactions if she told them about her night with Milo Jax. Luna would be jealous and probe her for information about his house, May would pretend not to care and probably say one of her mates had shagged him too, and Paul would probably respond by trying to sleep with Rose just so he could tell people that he had fucked the same person as a celebrity. Flouff would ask about his penis.
‘Right, everyone ready?’ cooed Luna, shaking the hat so that every little folded piece of paper was suitably jumbled.
‘Ready as we’ll ever be,’ replied Ben, topping up Rose’s water glass with white wine.
‘Thank you,’ she mouthed, smiling.
Inside the hat was the usual mix of world leaders (Trump), dictators (Stalin), celebrities (Katy Perry) and dinner party guests (Paul). Luna delivered a masterful impression of Daffy Duck, waddling around the dining room with her hands clasped together forming a beak in front of her face. Marco was surprisingly good at doing Naomi Campbell, strutting into the kitchen and then taking a tumble like she famously did in a Vivienne Westwood show, and Ben did a solid Tom Hanks, singing ‘You’ve Got a Friend in Me’ and later telling everyone that yes, he did sing a solo in his school play and no, he would not be taking any requests. Then it was Rose’s turn.
By this point, there were only a handful of names left. All the usual contenders had come and gone. Rose took the hat and started scrambling around.
‘Stand up, love!’ boomed Marco.
‘Don’t call her that,’ Luna shouted back. ‘You know her name is Rose, for fuck’s sake, Marco.’
Ignoring him, Rose stood up.
‘Kate Moss’ had been written on the first card in tiny neat writing. Rose hesitated for a moment while she decided how best to handle this. She pouted her lips and pretended to pose in front of a camera.
‘A model!’ shouted Ben. ‘Erm, ah fuck, I don’t know any models.’
‘You’re so full of shit, mate,’ muttered Paul.
‘Gisele!’ yelled Flouff.
Rose shook her head and continued scrunching her lips together so hard they started to ache.
‘Kendall! Hailey!’ Flouff tried again.
Rose bent down, put one finger on her right nostril and pretended to sniff from the table.
‘KATE MOSS!’ shouted Flouff, triumphantly.
Rose took another name out of the hat, aware she only had about ten seconds left before the timer ran out.
‘Milo Jax’ – she stared at the name blankly, looking closer to make sure it was really there.
‘Who is it?’ asked Marco.
‘Come on, Rose, we’re running out of time!’ chimed Flouff.
Rose tried to open her mouth to say something but nothing came out. She looked back down at the piece of paper, which somehow slipped through her fingers and fell to the floor.
‘TIME!’ shouted May, triumphant at her team’s win.
‘Who was that, babe?’ asked Flouff, picking up the piece of paper from the floor.
‘Sorry,’ replied Rose, quietly. ‘I didn’t know who he was.’
Flouff giggled. ‘Milo Jax! You didn’t know who Milo Jax was? Oh, get fucked. Don’t you work in celebrity PR or something?’
The rest of the table laughed.
Rose said nothing and sat back down, quickly finishing the rest of her glass of white wine and then promptly pouring herself more.
‘The things I would do to fuck Milo Jax,’ said Flouff, lighting another cigarette, the smoke blowing directly in Rose’s face.
