If she was being perfectly honest, Marian had never given Josh much thought before tonight. She'd noticed his height, since he was well over six foot, and that the frames of his glasses were almost the exact same almost-black as his hair. On occasion, his hair grew out long enough that it gave the impression that the hair and glasses were melded together. He had an unassuming, bookish charm, but they rarely crossed paths in the office where they worked and, in their brief interactions, he was pleasantly forgettable.
Her ex-husband had been different. Shorter and packed with charismatic energy, he had been the focus of attention in any room he walked in since he was 16. For years, he'd gotten by on dynamism and charm. But, by his early 30s, people had started to notice that there was perhaps less going on behind the boisterous laugh and rehashed stories then at first there had appeared. He and Marian had been together since college and their relationship had seemed disarmingly easy for almost 20 years; but when his career had started to stagnate, he became embittered and withdrawn. She was shocked with the speed in which her marriage collapsed. First, they stopped laughing, then they stopped having sex, then talking. When she confronted him about this, his eyes flashed with an anger she did not recognize and the threat of real violence. She packed a bag that night and never looked back.
She had been 40 then and three years had passed. Marian had an image of herself becoming a pleasantly quirky cat lady. Perhaps ending up in a little old house the neighborhood children would become suspicious of and the subject of rumors about witchcraft. But a strange thing happened along the way, she had begun to feel herself in a way she didn't recognize. It started in little ways -- a dress fitting slightly better than expected, the head of a co-worker turning ever so slightly as she walked by. While she had never considered herself a knockout, Marian knew that she had a few appealing features, and age had granted her a bit more curviness than she'd had as a young woman, and that wasn't all bad. So, when picking a dress for the office Christmas party, she'd decided to be a little more daring than usual and had made sure to pick something with a nice low neckline, and even got herself a new push-up bra to go with it -- cleavage teammates.
While the office was only a ten-minute drive from her apartment, the event space for the party was significantly farther -- 30 minutes easy under the best of conditions and it was not the best of conditions. Snow had started to fall around 5:00 and promised to continue for several hours. Marian contemplated skipping the party, but one look at the dress hanging in her closet convinced her to take a chance. She fashioned her auburn with specks of grey hair into a quite acceptable up-do, applied her makeup, opting for a provocatively dark shade of lipstick, and slinked into the dress -- ready to turn some heads.
The drive was worse than she'd anticipated, so she decided she'd have one drink, two at the absolute maximum, and leave early, giving herself plenty of time to make her way home.
That discipline lasted almost 35 minutes. A group of her friends from the office absorbed her the minute she walked in the door. Within two minutes she had her first drink; within 20, her second. By the end of the hour, she was four drinks and three sheets to the wind. She realized that she needed to slow down the pace and that driving home was best left to Uber. Marian made the rounds of the party, she chatted and flirted, she ate a little and danced a lot. By midnight, footsore and beginning to wind down, she sat down at a table with a couple of women she knew well and Josh.
She couldn't say for certain when in the course of the evening he had gotten pulled into their orbit. He'd been around early in the night and, as things progressed, he seemed to come closer and closer. Marian's friends were in a competition to see who could get him to blush the most with their slightly exaggerated tales of spring break shenanigans and more middle-aged debaucheries. He was young, cute enough, and happy to listen -- he was a perfect drinking companion.
He was also, it turned out, practically her neighbor. Somewhere along the line it came out that he lived less than a quarter mile from Marian. Since neither were in any shape to drive -- especially as the snow continued to fall, it seemed only rational that they'd share a ride. The car pulled up and Josh, in a touching display of courtesy, opened the door for Marian and helped her in before getting in the other side.
The drive was going to be long, she knew, and before long, she started to feel a bit drowsy. Without entirely meaning to, Marian began to lean up against Josh's shoulder. Before long, her left leg followed suit and pressed against Josh's right. The speed with which he pulled his leg away startled Marian out of her stupor and she sat upright. She glanced over and noticed what appeared to be a flush rising in his cheeks.
