by Maria Geraci
Even though we are surrounded by people, we kiss like we don’t care who sees. Ben then whispers that he’s dying to sleep with me (this is something else I’ve always dreamed a guy would say to me), only he won’t because he doesn’t want us to rush things, and I agree. I don’t sleep with Ben until our fifth date and it’s utterly perfect. He proposes on our tenth date and—
Okay, maybe I’d gotten a little ahead of myself.
“I hope you don’t mind about Ben,” Kimberly says, snapping me back to reality.
“Mind? Why should I mind? It’ll be fun.”
“Admit it, Emma, you have a crush on him.”
Torie playfully punches me in the shoulder. “And we’re going to help you do something about that.”
“I do not have a crush on him!”
Torie and Kimberly stare me down.
After about four seconds, I sigh because it’s pointless. They have always seen right through me. As a matter of fact, anyone who knows me for more than a minute can see right through me too. I have the kind of face that mirrors exactly what I’m feeling. Please, don’t ever take me to Vegas.
“You could have warned me you invited Ben to go out with us.” I came here straight from work, so I have on the same khaki pants and sensible black flats I’ve worn all day. I’m not going to stand out among the push-up-bra-and-stiletto crowd. I’m pretty sure Ben is above all that, but still, it couldn’t hurt to have changed into something more flattering.
“How were we to know you’d come here with wet hair?” says Torie. “And ditch the glasses.”
Frankly, I’m not too worried about my hair. It’s my best feature. It’s shoulder length and straight, but it’s thick and dries pretty much the same as if I’d spent a half hour blow-drying and styling it. Plus it’s a shade of brown that’s very in right now. Think Sandra Bullock hair. The rest of me, though, is kind of average. I probably fall somewhere between a five on a bad night and a seven when I’m really working it. Ben is a solid seven (remember, he’s handsome, but not too handsome), so he’s on the higher end of my scale, but I don’t think I’m totally out of his league. I know Torie called him sexy, but I’m pretty sure he’s not the kind of guy who walks into a bar and has women fall all over him.
I’m about to go to the bathroom to freshen up my makeup when I spot Ben. He sees me and heads our way. I’ve never seen Ben outside of work before. He’s wearing jeans and a black polo shirt. I watch as he cuts his way through the crowd with confidence. Men step to the side to let him through, and women…
Crap. I was wrong.
Ben is not a seven. He’s not even an eight.
Ben is an undisputable nine.
chapter two
I whip off my glasses and stuff them inside my purse.
“Hey,” Ben says with his slight Boston accent that sends a tingle down my spine. “Thanks for letting me tag along.”
He orders a Heineken and the bartender does not ignore him. Kimberly and Torie get refills. I order a cosmopolitan, and despite our protests, Ben picks up the tab for all our drinks. So far, so good.
He takes a sip of his beer and gazes around Captain Pete’s. “So, Frazier, is this how you spend your Friday nights?”
Ben calls me by my last name. It’s kind of cute, really. I like to imagine myself as the Rosalind Russell to his Cary Grant (think His Girl Friday), except I thought that since we’re outside the office, he’d call me Emma. Maybe I should rethink my kissing fantasy, because “Frazier, can I kiss you?” doesn’t sound so romantic. But surely by the time we reach that point, he’ll be calling me by my first name.
“I have to do something to relax,” I say. “You should meet my boss. He’s a real slave driver.” I know this sounds dumb but I’m too nervous to think of anything cleverer.
Ben smiles and my knees go wobbly. He seems genuinely happy to be here and pays just the right amount of attention to Torie and Kimberly, but his focus is on me. Not too much to make it obvious, though. This is just a couple of friends having drinks after work. It is not a setup (well, it is, but he doesn’t seem to be making a big deal of it and that’s good).
I think I owe Torie and Kimberly big for this. I should buy their drinks for the rest of the night. Maybe even for the rest of forever.
Everything is going fabulously until Torie’s friend Amy shows up. Amy is an attorney at Torie’s firm and every once in a while she joins us on our Friday nights out.
Amy hugs me like we’re long-lost friends and generally makes a big production out of her entrance, like, Now that Amy’s here, let the party begin!
I’ll be honest, Amy rubs me the wrong way, but it’s not because she always has to be the center of attention. There’s something else about her that I don’t like but I’ve never been able to pinpoint what it is exactly. Torie says that Amy is a killer in the courtroom, but because I’ve only seen Amy in the barroom, the only thing I’ve seen her kill are appletinis and I can tell she’s already murdered a few tonight.
I am forced to introduce Ben to Amy, who immediately picks up on Ben’s Boston accent. This is when I discover that Amy is a graduate of Harvard Law School.
Wait. Why did I never know this before? I must have heard wrong.
I shout above the grinding music, “Amy, did you just say you went to Harvard Law?”
She smiles and nods and bats her eyelashes, and Ben looks mightily impressed, but I am now speechless. Amy has never struck me as the modest type. If I graduated from Harvard Law, I think I would shout it from the rooftops. Ben graduated from Columbia, and despite the fact he doesn’t mention this to Amy, I am beginning to feel slightly inferior with my little journalism degree from the University of Florida.
As if things aren’t bad enough, before I know it, the two of them are talking about the Boston Red Sox, and I can tell this excites Ben because he starts to get really animated, the same way he does when he’s just read something well written. I listen to them yap about how much they hate the Yankees and Amy is saying things like “wicked cool” (I have never heard her use this expression before), and how weird is it to discover that at one time they only lived a few blocks from each other. Imagine that!
I’m at a complete disadvantage here because (a) I’ve never been to Boston, and (b) baseball is about as exciting to me as a root canal. I could hate the Yankees too, if I thought about it enough.
But what makes me nervous is that Amy is what our friend Jason calls smokin’ hot. It suddenly occurs to me that Amy is a triple threat. Attractive, smart (I mean, she graduated from Harvard Law, so she has to be, right?), and most people would say she has an engaging personality.
I decide this is a good time to regroup and touch up my makeup. I excuse myself and Torie and I weave through the crowd to hit the bathroom, which is blessedly quiet compared to the chaos out in the club.
“So what do you think?” I ask once the two of us are alone.
“He’s awesome!” Torie says. “And he likes you.”
“You think?”
“Definitely.”
“You…you don’t think he’s into Amy?”
“No! Little Miss Drunken Two-Shoes totally shoved her way in there. He’s just being nice.”
“I don’t know,” I say, wanting more of Torie’s opinion. I’m not fishing, I’m really not. It’s just that I don’t always trust my take on these types of situations while Torie is usually spot-on.
“Emma, I’ve been watching him. The whole time she’s been monopolizing him, he’s been sneaking looks at you.”
This perks me right up, but then I look in the mirror and cringe. Tonight, I’m lucky if I’m a five. The minimal eye makeup I wear to work wore off long ago, so my muddy-brown eyes seem lost, and even though it’s June, I’m pale from lack of sunshine. I do the best I can with the weapons at my disposal, which is some borrowed blush from Torie and a swipe of mocha-colored lipstick. I hand-tousle my hair, which is beginning to dry, and I immediately feel better. Then I go into the stall to take care of
business. That’s when I hear the bathroom door open. A sudden blast of techno pop music is still not enough to drown out the clickety-clack of Amy’s stilettos.
“Oh my God, Torie, he’s fabulous. Where did you find him?” I hear Amy say.
“Find who?” Torie responds coolly.
“Boston Ben!”
“Hands off. He belongs to Emma.”
“Who? You mean your ugly friend?”
My hand freezes on the stall door. Silence engulfs the little bathroom. I almost think I must have imagined Amy’s remark, but then I hear Torie demand in a strangled whisper, “What the fuck did you just say?”
Amy giggles nervously. “Oh, chill. I love Emma. I really do. But you have to admit, she’s your ugly friend.”
My first reaction after the shock is anger and I think about opening the stall door and going all Jersey Shore on Amy’s ass. I know I’m not beautiful. I’m not even close. But the ugly friend?
Torie says something to Amy in an angry tone and I strain to listen. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Torie is telling Amy I am right here in the bathroom listening to every word they are saying and that she needs to shut the hell up. All this serves to calm me down.
Torie is right. Amy is drunk.
I’ve also just figured out why I don’t like her.
Amy is an obnoxious bitch.
I’m so above her petty, junior-high-school antics.
I muster up as much dignity as I can and calmly open the stall door.
The two of them turn to look at me. Torie looks part mad, part worried, and Amy looks appropriately guilt-stricken, although I can also tell it’s an act on her part.
“Hey!” I say as brightly as I can. I have decided to take the high road and pretend I didn’t hear anything. “Do either of you have gum?”
They both tear into their purses, and after a few seconds of fumbling, Amy produces a breath mint.
“Thanks!” I pop the breath mint into my mouth.
Amy is so dumb (sorry, but I think Harvard Law was scraping the bottom of the barrel here) that she buys this. Apparently along with thinking me unattractive, she also thinks I’m deaf. She comments on my “fabulous” shoes, then clickety-clacks her way out the bathroom door.
“I hate that bitch,” Torie mutters.
I guess Torie and Amy are not the good friends I thought they were, which relieves me.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Emma, you don’t believe what she said, do you?” I hesitate just long enough for Torie to add, “You’re beautiful, and smart, and generous, and you have a great personality. Any guy would be lucky to get you.”
Let me tell you about Torie.
I’ve known Torie Jacobs since I moved to Tampa after graduating from the University of Florida ten years ago. She was a friend of a friend of a friend and at the time neither of us could afford our own apartment, so we were roommates for about two years. Until the Great Tuna Fish Incident. Which we can laugh about now, but at the time was pretty traumatic.
One day, while cleaning our apartment, we found an opened, half-eaten can of tuna fish hidden beneath a stack of towels in the linen closet. Yes, I know. Pretty gross. Neither of us admitted to knowing how it got there, except I suspected (and still do) that Torie opened that can of tuna fish after coming home drunk and in some bizarre lapse of consciousness stuck the can in between those towels. She accused me of something similar and this all led to one of those roommate free-for-alls in which all the stupid things that bug you about the other person come out, the end result being that Torie and I split up. By then I could afford my own place and Torie had decided to quit her job and go to law school, so it all kind of worked out anyway. But then, after law school, she came back to Tampa and we got together for dinner, and after a bottle of wine we made up and we’ve been best friends ever since. Torie is a much better friend than roommate.
So while I think calling me beautiful is definitely overkill on Torie’s part, this is just one of the many reasons I am so happy we were able to get over the Great Tuna Fish Incident. Everyone should have a best friend like Torie.
“You forgot talented,” I say.
“Don’t go overboard,” Torie says, and we both laugh.
I’m feeling better but then we get back to the bar area and I see that Amy is gone. Which is awesome. Until I realize that Ben is gone too. Kimberly must have sensed my angst because she points to the back of the room, where Ben and Amy are playing darts.
Amy throws a dart and doesn’t even hit the board.
Is it safe playing darts while you’re drunk?
What if she accidentally spears someone?
Visions of Amy being hauled off to the Hillsborough County Jail for negligent homicide, followed by the disgrace of her disbarment and the subsequent stripping of her Harvard Law degree, almost make me smile. But what really makes me smile is that while Amy is blabbing in Ben’s ear, he turns around and gazes through the room as if he’s looking for someone. He catches my eye, and even though my vision is somewhat blurry from not having my glasses on, I’m pretty sure he gives me what Amy would now say is a wicked smile.
I knew it!
I have not been deluding myself these past months. There is something more between Ben and me other than just my overactive writer’s imagination.
I’m still smiling to myself when Brian comes along. Brian is on my overthirties soccer team. We play on Thursday nights and we’re not half bad. Brian is an investment banker and every girl on the team has a crush on him, except me. He’s never seemed interested in me before, but boy, does he now. He offers to buy me another drink, which I refuse because I’m still nursing the cosmo Ben bought me. Brian introduces his two friends to me, one of whom, coincidentally, is Hugo Boss, whose real name is Cameron.
I know Torie will not be pleased that Cameron has wiggled his way into our group, but we can’t blow him off anymore because he’s with Brian, who I can’t ignore since I know him from soccer.
Everyone introduces themselves to one another and we settle into the small talk/banter/flirtation that always makes me feel weird in these situations (hence my alien sensation from earlier). I wish I was home in bed curled up with a good book. Or with Ben. Yes, I could definitely be curled up in bed with Ben.
I glance back to the dartboards, only this time instead of looking bored, Ben laughs at something Amy says. She is standing so close to him she’s practically on top of him. Amy might be drunk, but she radiates sex on a nuclear scale and few men can resist that sort of energy. I try through mental telepathy to force Ben to look over at me again, but he doesn’t. I think about taking matters into my own hands and marching over there and snatching him away from Amy. But something stops me from doing this, although I’m not sure exactly what that something is.
“So, Emily, how do you think we’ll do against the Strikers?” Brian asks, referring to our next week’s opponent.
I think about correcting him and telling him my name is Emma, but instead, I reply, “We’ll kick their ass!” because this is our team mantra and it’s what he’s expecting me to say.
“Hell, yeah!” He raises his beer and laughs but I can see him lean in to try to listen to whatever it is Kimberly is saying to his friend.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
I glance back to the dartboards. There is no sign of Amy and Ben.
Did they leave?
Surely Ben wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye to me.
And surely, God no, he wouldn’t leave with Amy.
Or would he?
I think back to what Amy said in the bathroom. Obviously, she has the hots for Ben and she thinks I am no competition. There is no doubt that Amy is flashier than me and she certainly has a much better body. My size-twelve (sometimes fourteen) ass cannot compete with her size-four pertness.
My head begins to throb.
Brian is blatantly ogling Kimberly’s cleavage now. It’s like I don’t exist anymore. I’m tired and
I want to go home but I have to find Ben first, and just as I think this, I see him. He’s walking out of the bar with Amy. At least I think it’s Ben and Amy. I pull my glasses out of my purse and put them back on to make sure it’s really them, and it is. She tugs on his arm. Then he kisses her hard on the mouth and whisks her out the door.
I stare at the door for what seems like the longest time. I think a part of me is expecting Ben to walk back in and yell “Gotcha!”
But that doesn’t happen.
Everyone around me is laughing and talking but I don’t understand a word they are saying. It’s as if they are speaking some foreign language that everyone took in high school except me. Slowly, I begin to fill with the sort of clarity that comes from being the alien in the room full of Others.
Brian is Cameron’s wingman and I am the fat friend he’s forced to suck up to so his friends can meet the hot chicks they’ve been lusting after all night. The fact that Torie and Kimberly are oblivious to this (or are they?) is not important. It’s just the way it is. I’m a five and they are tens. Who said life was fair?
Maybe the reason I was able to hold it together in the bathroom is that on some subconscious level I’ve always known I was the ugly friend. Although no one has spelled it out for me as explicitly as Amy (I guess she is smart enough to get into Harvard Law, after all). But I can truthfully say that I have never been one of those women who obsess endlessly because their butt is too big or their boobs are too small. I was raised by two women, one of whom believed intelligence is the most important quality a woman can possess, and the other of whom placed kindness, good manners, and an appreciation of poetry even above the intelligence. But neither intelligence, kindness, nor even good manners will make much of an impression at Captain Pete’s. Or with Ben either, it appears.
It is high school all over again. Only this is worse, because here we all are, a bunch of thirtysomething professionals acting just like we did almost two decades ago. This is supposed to be real life. The scary part of all this is that I think it is real life.
