"...So I had to pull out quickly, and hurry out the door!" Jake finished with a laugh. Everyone at the table laughed, too.
"Bullshit," said Jess. Her husband Tyler nodded in agreement.
Sean looked up from his phone. "Totally fake. Never happened."
Lizzie, who was not so much my girlfriend, but more my 'Girl I'm Fucking,' tilted her head to the side. "I think it's basically true," she said after a moment of considering.
I knew Jake well enough to say, "True."
We were sitting in a dive bar, having a drunken orphan's Christmas, as snow fell down outside.
I had turned thirty last month, and most of the group was closing in on that age, although Lizzie was a few years younger. Nobody had gotten married, aside from Jess and Tyler. Everyone was trying to pretend we were young enough to be out all night in a bar, drinking far more than we should.
The game we were playing featured a deck of cards, with various scenarios. "Beach vacation," "bus station," and so on. The idea was that on your turn, you drew a card, and had to tell a short story about the scenario. The group would guess if it was fact or fiction.
Jake laughed. "Completely true. You really do know me, Aaron."
I grinned and sipped my beer.
"Minus one for that round," Jess said. More of us had been wrong than correct. It was a team game.
Lizzie paused to comment, "Look at the snow come down out there! I'm glad we don't have far to walk!"
"I'm just glad I'm not going home this Christmas," I muttered.
"Your mother's got to be pleased about that, but we still could wind up snowed in here," Tyler added.
"No," replied Sean, "they're staying on top of the roads. In the worst-case scenario, we'll just get a cab back to Jess and Tyler's... if we can stay."
Jess nodded. "Let's keep playing."
And then it was my turn.
I drew my card, and showed it to the group. The coincidence produced laughter and a few comments from everyone.
The text on it read 'Snowed In.'
I paused, considering.
I suppose it started on my first day at work, the day after I moved here, when I was twenty-four.
All the hands being shook. All the new names and faces.
"Aaron Collins. Uh, new engineer," I said, for what must have been the twentieth time that day.
"He'll be providing afternoon and evening coverage here," my boss Larry, the technical manager, and only other member of my team, reminded everyone.
Unspoken in that statement was the fact that Larry no longer had to worry about evenings, nights, or holidays.
"This is Melanie, she runs the Research and Development department," Larry said, introducing me to a woman in her 50s, grey-haired and matronly.
"Hullo," she replied, with the accent of an Englishwoman who has lived in the United States for a long time.
"And what are you working on?" I asked, trying to appear engaged.
But she didn't answer me. "Not from around here, eh?" she replied.
"Naw," I replied, scratching the back of my head in an attempt to act casual. "West Virginia. My, uh... accent must be pretty strong today."
My accent gets stronger when I'm nervous or excited. There's a bit of shame that tends to come with calling Appalachia home. People in the mountains look down on you for turning your back on your roots, and people who aren't from there tend to assume you're a bumpkin who grew up without running water.
But Melanie just laughed. "Oh, you should have seen the looks they gave me when I first came over here," she said. "But don't worry," she continued, "we'll make sure you have a good working understanding of anaerobic production processes before you get into anything major."
I held my tongue. I didn't want to appear arrogant.
"...And this is Maya, one of our Junior Chemists," Larry said. "She's been with us for a few years," his tone making it clear that the dark haired woman in a lab coat had not earned his respect in that time.
But Maya smiled in a way that actually touched her green eyes, pronouncing her smile lines, and shook my hand. I noticed that she was as tall as me.
"Hi Aaron, nice to meet you," she said.
"Fill him in on what you do, Maya. I have to talk with Melanie," Larry said.
"Engineer?" she asked. When I nodded, she said, "I don't want to talk over or under you. What's your background?"
It was the first time anybody here had asked me that since Larry interviewed me. It made me feel like a person.
"Well, I did my Master's thesis on anaerobic production of hormones at an industrial scale, so I've got a basic idea, but I'm sure there's a lot I can learn..."
"Oh, great! So you'll be able to hit the ground running," she said, as she began to explain what she had been working on, and asked minor questions about me along the way.
She also answered my questions competently, explaining the anaerobic processes our lab had commercialized. And true to her word, she did so without talking down to me. It was the first time anybody had done that since I crossed the train tracks coming in to the facility.
My time with her lasted about an hour, and then it was on to elsewhere, to continue my orientation. As Larry moved me along, I realized, with a funny sense of pride, that I had spent the better part of my time with Maya more focused on the work, rather than how pretty she was... how those big green eyes were framed with long lashes, and they sat on a face that was, in turn, perfectly framed by her brunette, chin length side-bangs, with the rest of her long hair tied back, high on her head.
"Now," Larry said, leading me to our office area upstairs, "we'll want to make sure you dress in a professional manner here. No jeans, no t-shirts..."
"Don't worry," I replied. "The clothes make the man, right?" That was another thing. A good wardrobe choice could help offset my accent.
Larry nodded. "Just so. You'll have to stay clean shaven with short hair, also, so as to wear a respirator if necessary... Now, if you look out the window here..." Larry began gesturing to equipment on our property that was visible out of the large window on the back end of the office. The building had walls that were largely composed of windows, giving an almost panoramic view of our industrial park, the train tracks across the entrance, and the surrounding wooded area.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur, as I was introduced to more and more people, and had to retain a significant amount of information
On my lunch break, however, I noticed some music coming from the stairwell. Larry shrugged when I asked about it. "One of the lab employees plays violin on her breaks."
When I stuck my head in, I saw Maya, seated at the bottom of the steps, methodically sawing away at a violin. She was very good. I also noticed that the lab coat she had on earlier had obscured a great deal of her figure. Full breasts and hips, with long, lean legs.
"Maya, right?" I asked as I walked by.
"Yep. Hope I'm not in your way," she said, scooting to the side as I passed her.
"No problem. You... sound really good."
"Thanks," she said. "My daughter, Robin - she's nine - started playing recently, and it got me interested in picking it up again. We practice by Skype in the evenings. I read with my son Josh, too."
"Oh," I replied, unsure what to say.
"They... live with my husband, a few hours west," she went on, "so we... Sorry, it probably seems like I'm unloading on you, doesn't it? I swear I'm not this big of a pain in the A."
It took me a minute to realize she called herself a 'pain in the A' instead of 'pain in the ass.' I could have laughed, but was able to keep control.
I shrugged, thinking of what all I had left behind. "No problem," I replied. I could tell she actually didn't want to talk about it. "I'll leave you to practice," I said.
She smiled at me, but she wasn't looking me in the eye, and began playing again. I left her in peace. The rest of the day went on without issue.
I called my mom that night, and talked with her. There was nothing new to talk about - Dad wouldn't talk to her or send alimony, work was awful, my brother Danny was doing fine, and would graduate in a few years. I would send her a little cash when I got paid. I wasn't sure when I would be home.
Then, against my better judgement, I called Kayla, my high school girlfriend. It was a moment of loneliness, I can say in retrospect. You can imagine how that conversation went, but it ended with my stomach sticky and in need of a good wipe down, and me promising to see her when I came home.
Trips home were like going back in time. I would see everyone from high school, but they were just older and with more problems, getting drunk by a bonfire behind someone's parents' barn.
The next day at work would have been unremarkable, except for a staff meeting in the afternoon - largely because of Maya.
When I walked into our main conference room - a sparse room, just off the lobby of the building, with a wall covered by windows, she was looking outside. The lack of a lab coat let me see her figure a bit - black pants and a tight button-up shirt hugged her body and showed off her form. She was also shimmying slightly, as she adjusted her pants, pulling them up at her waist. I smiled as I watched with hesitation, enjoying the motion of her ass while not wanting to stare. I took a seat quietly, and tried my best not to pay attention to her, as others filtered into the room.
That would have been enough, but it wasn't the only highlight of the meeting. Discussion about a project was turning hostile. The group was discussing a basic need to treat some vapors coming off a small mixing vessel.
"I don't understand what you don't understand, Melanie!" Larry exclaimed a few minutes after the meeting started. Larry, I surmised, was clearly trying to establish himself in a position of dominance. And clearly was not pleased with how that was going.
Before Melanie could raise her voice in response, other members of her team spoke up in her defense.
But Larry shouted over everybody, and I sat quietly, pondering what I had gotten myself into by taking this job.
