This a true story. The names have been changed, but everything depicted here actually happened one night to me and my fiancée.
*
Katie stormed out of the apartment.
I climbed into the shower and turned the calcium crusted hot water knob. The ancient pipes moaned bloody agony, then sprayed out onto me a coating of ice water. Annoyed, I quickly decided that this brief rinse of hypothermia inducing water was enough to get me clean. I turned the water off and climbed out. I watched my self in the mirror as I toweled off.
This mirror has never once been steamed up,
I realized. It was always cold in that shitty apartment. I lifted my arms and smelled my pits.
Crap, I still smell
, I thought. I reached into the medicine cabinet and got my deodorant. I thought about putting on a double dose, but decided that everyone tonight would quickly be drunk beyond the point of understanding such nuanced concepts as
smell
,
speech,
and probably even
walking.
Not that I had anything against drinking, but Katie's friends were just a little ridiculous about it. They always seemed to convince Katie to drink more than she could handle. And for some reason they didn't like me.
Everyone likes me right away. Katie sure did. We met at a party our senior year of college. She was drunk on merlot and really giggly and flirty. We chatted each other up in the kitchen for a few hours, and every couple of minutes she would giggle and say: "I'm not really this outgoing, but merlot makes me do funny things!"
I gave her a ride home and three weeks later we were having sex regularly (always with a condom of course. We've never once had sex without a condom. Not that I didn't try and convince her otherwise, but she wouldn't go on the pill, so condoms it was ). Two weeks after that we were officially going out. That May we graduated and she decided to move back to her home city to go to graduate school. On a beautiful spring day, we sat on a lace table cloth near a lake, having a wonderful picnic. I picked flowers and put them in her hair. She asked me to move with her back to her home town and I happily agreed. Then I asked her to marry me. She cried with joy. We set the wedding date for the summer after she was done with grad school.
So that August, we both moved across country to her home town. The incident I am describing here happened around October of that same year. I was nervous about having to make new friends, but she still had a few friends from high school and had already met some people from her grad school. She assured me that everything would be fine. She reminded me that everyone likes me right away.
But Katie's friends didn't like me right away. They didn't like me at all. They never said anything to my face, but I could tell.
Walking out of the bathroom naked, I stood in front of my dresser, trying to decide what to wear to the party. I didn't know if I was supposed to dress up or not. I had planned to judge by what Katie was wearing but we had an argument and she stormed out of the apartment before getting dressed, saying that she would be getting ready at Lisa's apartment. So I stood there, dripping on the carpet, trying to figure out what the hell to wear. After a few minutes I was starting to get angry.
"What the fuck am I supposed to wear?" I yelled. "God damn it, Katie! I didn't want to go to this stupid birthday party anyway!" I took in a long breath and let it out, trying to calm down.
I opted for a sort of semi-formal attire. Nice jeans and a dress shirt with a tie.
After getting dressed I looked at the clock and realized I was probably going to be late. I was hungry and had planned on eating before I left for the party, but now I didn't have enough time.
Ah fuck it, they'll probably have food there.
I thought.
I rode the bus over to Lisa's apartment. Sure enough, I was late. As I walked up, I could see that the limo was already there, and that Lisa was standing outside of it on the driver's side with her arms crossed. An annoyed body signal if I'd ever seen one. I looked at the cocktail dress she was wearing and felt a little bit of relief as I decided that I was probably appropriately dressed for the party. As I got closer I could hear the music blasting from inside the limo.
"Happy Birthday, Lisa!" I said as I approached.
"Where the fuck have you been, Steve.? We've been waiting for you for a half an hour."
"Sorry. I lost track of time."
"I'm paying for this limo, you know! I had to pay for you losing track of time."
"Sorry!" I said. I waited for her to say something or move out of the way to let me get in the limo, but she did neither. There was a long, long awkward pause. Feeling uneasy, I said: "So, uh...where's Katie?"
Lisa's mood changed visibly; she was clearly not really annoyed. I realized that she was just pretending to be annoyed, just to give me a hard time. For some reason, she really enjoyed giving me a hard time. "Oh, everyone's in the limo," she said. "Come on, get in, let's go." She opened the door and climbed in. I followed.
It was quite dark inside, but I could tell that the limo was packed. I was in the seat nearest the door on the driver's side, and Lisa was right next to me in the middle seat.
"Well close the door, already!" she said to me. I reached out and grabbed the handle, pulling it closed with a thud. Lisa reached up to the control panel on the ceiling. She pressed the intercom button and said: "Go ahead driver!"
The car started moving and everyone let out a cheer.
"Party!" someone yelled.
"Spring break!" someone retorted and everyone laughed.
"Hey Steve!" I heard someone call my name. "Nice tie!" he said, and a half the people laughed.
"Uh... thanks." I strained to see down the limo; my eyes had not yet adjusted to the lack of light. At the very far end of the limo I could just make out Robert, who I assumed was the one that just sarcastically insulted me. He was still laughing. Two women sat on either side of him and he had is arms around both of them.
Asshole,
I thought. Robert was one of the friends Katie recently met at grad school. Everything he said was passive-aggressive, and all the ladies seemed to love that.
The women Robert had his arms around were half in the shadow, but I could tell that I didn't recognize them. They were both dressed in very revealing white cocktail dresses and were snuggling up to Robert like there was no tomorrow. As my eyes adjusted further I saw just how crowded the limo really was, as every seat was taken and about 6 or 7 people were actually sitting on the floor. I realized I knew hardly anyone in the limo. I heard Katie's voice and looked for her, but it was too crowded. I was on the same side of the limo as the long couch like seat that runs from the front of the limo to the back. Because my angle was so bad, I could only see the person sitting closest to me on that seat. Everyone else was blocked from my view. I heard Katie's voice again and I realized that she was sitting towards the front of the limo on this long seat, and thus was blocked from my view. I began to try and lean over to make eye contact with her.
Just then Lisa handed me a tall glass of brownish liquid.
"Here Steve, drink this."
"What's this?" I asked.
"It's my own concoction. It's called
the Carpet Bagger's Only Friend
," she said.
"Interesting name. What's in it?"
"Booze, you idiot. Now drink up! This is a party!" I took a cautious sip and was greeted by a very pleasant taste. I took a bigger gulp.
"Hey! There's no booze in this!" I said.
"Yes there is!" she assured.
"I can't taste any."
"I know. Wonderful, isn't it?" I continued drinking it.
Three drinks and a half an hour later, I could tell that there actually
was
booze in it. I started to feel good. Relaxed. The music was going pretty loud, so you could only really talk to the people right around you, but that didn't even bother me too much.
"So where we headed, Lisa?" I asked.
"What? I can't hear you, speak up!" she responded.
"Where we headed?" I yelled.
"Right now we're just driving around until it gets completely dark. Then we're going to Overlook Point to get a view of the city lights, and after that we're meeting up with some of my other friends at a bonfire in the woods!"
"Oooo, bonfire...awesome!" I said and she laughed. I wondered why she laughed, and then realized that I was probably a little drunker than I thought. I took it easy for a little while.
"Is there any food in here? I'm starving!" I asked, thinking I could sober my self up a bit if I had some food in my stomach.
"All the food was at my apartment. You missed it since you were late!" Lisa responded.
Oh well.
I thought.
I started surveying the people in the limo. I couldn't really hear what any of them were saying over the music, but I was getting a kick out of watching everyone. Katie's friend Derreck was sitting on the floor about half way down and was being very animated with his gestures, making everyone around him laugh. It was good Derreck was there, as he was one of the only people that I got along with.
After looking around some more I realized that the only people I knew in the limo were Lisa, Robert, Derreck and Katie, though I still couldn't see her. There might have been one or two other people sitting out of sight near Katie that I knew, but of the 30 or so people that I could see, I only knew Lisa, Robert and Dereck. The rest were all strangers to me. That made me a little uncomfortable, but I pushed it out of my mind.
Something at the other end of the limo caught my eye. One of the girls under Robert's arm was waving at me. Or was she? I couldn't tell, actually. But what caught my eye was that her dress had started to slip down. It was about halfway down her boobs, her push-up bra sticking part way out above it. No, she definitely
was
waving at me. I squinted my eyes to try and make out her face better.
I laughed a little on the inside as I realized that it was Cynthia, a close friend of Katie's! Katie, Cynthia and Lisa were like the three musketeers or something similar. They had been friends in highschool and picked right back up when Katie and I moved back. I was delighted that I could see the top of her boobs, as I had always found her attractive. That changed my mood for the better.
This party is sweet!
I thought.
Apparently she had been waving at me for a while, because when I waved back, a look of relief came over her face. She smiled at me and winked. I laughed and winked back. It was too great. Her dress seemed to be migrating down her body on its own, as if it had its own mind or something.
Wonderful,
I thought. She did a little dance in her seat. I mimicked her dance back to her and she laughed and threw her head back a little bit, causing more of her boobs to sneak out of her dress. I was pretty sure that if I had been sitting over by her, I would have been able to see a nipple by that point. She brought her head back down and smiled at me and I was starting to feel really good.
Then she looked over at Robert and smiled. No, not at Robert, but at the woman under Robert's other arm. I could make her face out now too, and I saw...
Holy Shit, that's KATIE! That's Katie under his arm!
A feeling of confusion descended upon me.
No, no, no, no, calm down, Steve. That's not Katie. It's just some who looks like...she has to be sitting over against the wall where I can't...let me see.
I frantically crawled over Lisa to see the part of the Limo which I couldn't see before. I quickly but precisely scanned everyone's face all the way down the limo. None of them were Katie. I sat back in my seat. I rubbed my eyes with my hands, then looked back down the limo. The girl under Robert's arm was indeed Katie.
Katie was waving at me too now, smiling a very devilish grin. Memories of our argument earlier in the evening flashed through my mind.
What was the argument about?
Shit I couldn't even remember.
Something stupid, something not important.
No that wasn't right.
