A few hours earlier
“Abby, come on, it’s Saturday night!” My best friend, Mary-Katherine, was standing in my kitchen with a dress in each hand. “Are you really just going to spend another weekend at home watching movies with your cat?”
“Sebastian likes it when we spend a quiet weekend at home.” I grabbed the orange tabby from the floor and hauled him up into my arms, speaking to him in a baby voice. “Don’t you, Sebastian?”
Sebastian tolerated my attention for a couple of seconds before flipping over and jumping out of my arms. He scurried upstairs as Mary-Katherine extended one dress and shook it at me before doing the same with the other. I hadn’t been out in over a year but the club scene just didn’t do it for me. It was fine when I was in college and had a group of friends to go out with, but doing it as an adult was just annoying. The music was too loud, the drinks were too expensive, and none of the guys ever talked to me anyway.
“Which one is it going to be, Abby?” She held the dresses side by side. “Choose one.”
“You’re really going to make me do this?” I rolled my eyes and sighed.
“Yes, because eventually Rolando is going to propose to me and then I’ll be a barefoot pregnant wife who can’t go out when I want to. There’s a group of girls from work going out tonight, so we won’t be alone. You should wear this dress.” She tossed the blue dress on the table and handed me the emerald green one. “Come on, it’ll be just like college.”
That was what I was afraid of.
“Fine, but only because I know it won’t be exactly like college. You won’t hook up with someone and leave me to find my own ride home.” I took the dress from her and held it up to my body.
“That happened one time...” She wrinkled her nose and pondered what I said. “Maybe twice...”
“What time are you picking me up?” I ignored the fact she was clearly forgetting numerous other times in her attempt to gloss over history and rewrite it in her favor.
“Nobody drives anymore, silly.” She shook her head back and forth. “Get an Uber and meet me there at seven.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then.” I walked to the door and opened it, giving her a rather clear indication it was time for her to go.
It was the worst weekend to go out. I was just gaining traction with my career and we had an important meeting with one of our clients on Monday. I wanted to find some nugget of information other people might miss, memorize it, and dazzle my boss with a profound question that provoked thought. Everyone seemed to have one on the edge of their tongue at those meetings except me. While nobody really cared how a company’s business ventures were doing in a random territory in the wake of some various economic shift, the person who posed the question was always looked at like they were a genius for thinking about it. If I wasn’t going to find a way to become a genius overnight, I had to fake it.
“Sebastian?” I called out. “Do you want dinner?”
Sebastian appeared like a rocket and ran straight to his food bowl. He sat down and then started meowing at me because I had called him before the food was served. I poured some food into his bowl and walked towards the stairs with the dress over my arm. It was going to take a lot of pushing and prodding to get my figure into the elaborate fabric, but it was nicer than anything I had in my closet. I stripped down when I got to the bathroom and stared into the mirror. A loose curl drifted into my eye and I blew it out of the way.
I wasn’t getting any younger. At twenty-four, I was probably the oldest virgin left in America—maybe even the world. Everyone always said I was so pretty but I just didn’t feel like I had it—whatever it was. Mary-Katherine could walk into a club, shake her ass, and have a line of guys behind her. I didn’t have enough confidence to walk out on a dance floor and shake my ass. I hardly had enough confidence to go to a club in the first place. I hoped I would meet someone nice at the office, but I seemed to have fallen into the crack where every eligible guy was either a newlywed or a man-whore. There didn’t seem to be an in-between.
“Okay, Sebastian. I’m going to take a shower now.” I started the water and watched him scurry away when he heard it bouncing against the bottom of the tub.
“WOW, YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL.” Mary-Katherine smiled when I stepped out of my Uber. I tipped the driver and turned towards her.
“This dress is way too tight.” I tugged at the hem.
“It fits you perfectly. See, all that yoga and salad-eating paid off. You’re a skinny bitch now.” She laughed and waved to a group of people that waved back.
“I haven’t lost any weight, I just couldn’t fit into your skinny jeans when you made me try them on while I was on my period...” My words trailed off as we got to the group and introductions were made.
The club was just like college, but worse because we were part of the old crowd—the same crowd Mary-Katherine used to make fun of when we were in college. We gathered around a table and ordered drinks. I ordered a martini, thinking I could just hold it and sip it all night, but by the time the waitress brought it to the table, I had lost my stool to one of Mary-Katherine’s work friends. I just stood on the outer perimeter of the circle and smiled when someone looked at me, or nodded like I agreed with whatever the group said. I started to wonder why Mary-Katherine even asked me to come to the club if she was just going to ignore me.
“Here you are, ma’am.” The waiter handed me a shot glass that smelled like tequila. I watched everyone chug theirs and I took a light sip—yep, it was tequila.
I had too many nights purging Quetzalcoatl from my stomach and flushing him down the ceramic to ever dance with that ancient Aztecan again. I took a step towards the table to my left when the patrons walked away, and put the shot glass in the middle of their empty beer bottles. With one quick step to my right, I was back in the perimeter of the group that had become my permanent home until I could make an excuse to leave. The dress seemed to move up my hips on its own, or rub against my ribs in a way that I was sure would leave a mark, so I had to keep adjusting it. The battle never seemed to be won. The next thing I knew, a voice broke me from the war with my attire and startled me.
Chapter 3: Max
“Me?” She looked at me with a bit of confusion.
“Yes, I think you’re beautiful.” Behind my back I gave a signal to Steve and the volume of the music started to get louder.
“You what?” My words were drowned out before she could hear the last word.
“I said, I think you’re beautiful.” I leaned closer to her, my lips nearly against her ear so she could hear my words.