The Dinner Party

The Invitation

I don't know if this is going to sound weird. I guess from the outside it probably has an explanation, but I've been going around in circles for three weeks now, and every time I try to explain it to someone, I trail off because I don't know where to start without sounding paranoid. So I'm going to write it down from start to finish, and everyone can think what they want.

Three weeks ago, I got a message from a coworker, Natalia. We know each other by sight; we've probably been at the same company for a year, but we've never talked about anything beyond strictly work-related matters. The message said she was organizing a dinner at her place that Friday and had invited people from work. She asked if I was in.

I was about to say no. I'm thirty-two, and it gets harder for me to step out of my comfort zone every time—I know that sounds bad, but it's true. But I thought maybe it'd do me good to socialize a bit more at work, that lately I'd just go in, do my thing, and go home without really talking to anyone. So I said yes.

I arrived at Natalia's place. There were six other people there, all from the company. I recognized some by face, others I'd never seen before. One of them, a guy who introduced himself as Marcos, worked in a different department, and I'd never exchanged more than two words with him in my life.

The dinner was fine. Normal food, normal conversation, the typical night out with coworkers trying to get to know each other outside the office. Everything was normal until, about an hour after I arrived, Marcos said something in passing. We were talking about something, I don't know, moving to different cities or something, and he just blurted out: 'Of course, considering everything with your dad, imagine.'

I froze. My dad died two years ago. Heart attack. I don't talk about it at work. I've never mentioned it. It's not something I've ever brought up in any meeting or hallway conversation. There's no reason Marcos, who's a complete stranger to me, would know my dad had died.

I asked him: 'How do you know about my dad?' He looked at me for a moment with this slightly confused expression, like the question caught him off guard, and said: 'I don't know, I think someone mentioned it at some point.' Then he just carried on with the conversation like nothing happened. I let it go. At that moment, I thought maybe I had told someone at work after all and just didn't remember, or that someone else had said something. I didn't think much more of it.

During Dinner

But then came the rest.

A woman named Cristina—I think she's from accounting—mentioned at one point in the conversation that she had lived in Salamanca as a child. And I said I had too. So then she said, as if it were the most normal thing: 'Yeah, until you were nine, right?' Exactly. I moved when I was nine. I've never said that at work. I don't even know how that fit into the sentence without me having said it first.

I started paying closer attention. I was trying not to notice things, but I was noticing them. Another guy there, Iván, who's new at the company, made a comment about elevators. He said something like 'Some people genuinely hate them, can't even stand to look at them' and laughed. Nothing out of the ordinary. But the way he said it, vaguely looking in my direction, with the exact words you'd use to describe what happens to me. I have claustrophobia. I've never mentioned it at work. I avoid elevators whenever I can, and when there's no choice, I just get in and don't say anything.

I stayed quiet and started counting. My dad. The city. The phobia. Before dinner ended, I had tallied five different references to things about my life that no one at that table should have known. Things from before this job, personal things, things my long-time friends know but that I've never told anyone at the company.

The weirdest part of all is that no one seemed to be doing it on purpose. No one looked at me when they said these things. There was no sense that they were watching my reaction. It was like they simply knew those things the same way they know my name. Like background information. Normal.

At some point, between the main course and dessert, I made an excuse about having to get up early. No one objected. Natalia said she was glad I came. Marcos shook my hand. All perfectly normal. I went outside and stood on the sidewalk for a while, not really knowing what to think.

Afterwards

The next week, I tried to explain it logically. I looked at the profiles of everyone who was at that dinner. No one has any connection to my old friends. No mutual friends on any social media, no shared universities, no groups, nothing. There's no chain linking them to the people who do know those things about me.

I asked Natalia, casually, where she'd gotten my number to invite me. She said someone from work had passed it on. I asked who. She grabbed her phone and looked at the original message thread where my contact had been forwarded to her. She showed me. The number that had sent her my contact wasn't saved. It had no name. She didn't recognize it either. I tried calling it myself. Number not in service.

At work, I see them and they act normal. No one acts like anything happened that night. I asked Marcos, carefully, how he'd known about my dad. He looked at me blankly. He said: 'Dude, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything about your dad.' It wasn't an evasive answer. It was a genuinely blank response. Like he didn't remember saying that at all.

I have no explanation. The dinner happened. I was there. No one organized anything officially. No one knows who sent my number. No one remembers saying what they said.

There's one more thing. During dinner, I went to the bathroom, and on the way back I passed by the kitchen, which had the door ajar. There were two people inside talking in low voices. I don't know who they were because I didn't see them, I only heard the voices. As I walked past the door, I caught a phrase before they went quiet.

They said: 'He doesn't know yet.'

At the time, I didn't think much of it. I figured maybe they were talking about some office gossip, something between them, anything. Now I don't know. I don't know what they were referring to. I don't know what it is that I still don't know. And the worst part is, I don't know if I even want to.