I'm over here

The disco pulsed with the beat of the Village People as flying arms morphed out its Y.M.C.A. refrain. Sweaty bodies of shirtless men with love beads, big-breasted women wearing hot pants and platform shoes – all danced with bounce and rhythm.

But for one woman standing against the wall by herself, in pointy black-framed glasses, straight black hair going half way down her back, a white blouse buttoned to the collar, and sky blue polyester bell bottoms that had no pockets. Emmy couldn’t figure what to do with her hands. So she just stood there – with her enormous paws hanging by their sides. I’m over here, guys, she wanted to say.

But the shirtless men and big-breasted women didn’t notice – though in her mind, they did. She’d rip off her blouse, stomp on her glasses, twinkle her hair into an Afro like Samantha on Bewitched, and jump out onto the dance floor and up onto a platform. She’d gyrate her hips to the beat of the Village People. And she’d find a guy to grind out a dance who had big shoulders, a narrow waist, and a round bulge in his jeans that pressed into her own midsection. Then they’d go off and smoke a little pot, get high, and make passionate love-not-war in the back of a beat-up VW bus. And after that, they’d go a coffee bar wearing psychedelic shirts and mood rings.

Mood rings? Coffee bar? What were they? Emmy surfaced out of her daydream. Maybe she was on to something here. She left the party to go do the market research.