....Back at the hotel lobby in College Station, where the Rice track team called home for 2 and a half days, Sherry Mitchum sat on a barstool working on her fourth scotch of the evening.
To say that her day's work had been a failure would have been an overstatement, but when she considered the stiff competition her team was up against, the fact that Rice sat way down in 7th place after one day's events all but eliminated them from having any shot at placing in the top three after Sunday's finale.
There had been a few bright spots during the afternoon, but as Sherry stared at the hypnotic allure of the ice cubes floating in her glass of booze, all she could focus on was the painful reality of many lost opportunities.
On so many levels, Sherry wanted desperately to do well at the final meet of the season. It was the final meet in the coaching career of her own mentor and coach, Gloria Monroe. There were four seniors on the team that would competing in their last meet as well, and sending them out on top was something Sherry bitterly wanted to see come to fruition. And selfishly, it was also her last chance, in the heat of battle, to show that she was a worthy candidate to replace Gloria Monroe as the head coach after the season.
The list of mistakes, some real and some imagined, that bounced around Sherry's head following the meet thankfully subsided slightly as she soothed those voices with the alcohol.
"God..I hope nobody sees me in here," The guilty part of Sherry's conscience whispered internally as she meekly surveyed her surroundings.
Not wanting to sustain eye contact with anyone, Sherry only made a couple of cursory scans over both shoulders, determining that thankfully, there were no familiar faces closing in on her in the smoky room.
Safe in the knowledge she was undetected, Sherry quickly finished off Scotch #4 and gestured for the bartender to bring her #5.
Sherry wasn't an alcoholic. There was no way in the world that she could be. She didn't drink everyday, barely even more than once or twice a week. On the rare occasion when she did, she never caused a ruckus or made the nightly news. The fact that she did tend to lose large chunks of time to memory didn't phase her in the least, it was merely a byproduct of all the stress she was under.
Ever since her college days, the clarity that came with losing herself in a bottle of fermented escape had been a handy tool in dealing with life's little setbacks. Without the support of her husband around to talk her through it and not particularly keen on the idea of staying up in her hotel room all night brooding over the day's failures, Sherry felt she was right where she needed to be as her fingertips clutched the cold side of the glass of her freshly delivered drink.
Being a reasonably attractive and fit young woman sitting on a plush hotel lobby barstool, nursing her fifth glass of scotch all by herself, Sherry Mitchum shouldn't have been surprised that she was a sitting duck for the shark-like advances of several available men in the room.
As she prepared to take her first sip of her new drink, Sherry felt the shadowy presence of someone easing up on her left. Inhaling, Sherry's nostrils started to twinge from the overwhelming odor of Brut cologne filling her lungs.
Fighting off the urge to yell out "YUCK!", Sherry turned slightly towards the approaching man just as he was asking if he could buy her a drink.
Not even taking the time to make eye contact with the stranger, Sherry subtly flashed the gold wedding band on her left hand upwards and politely responded, "Thanks...but I already have one," to the kind gentleman.
Watching out of the corner of her eye as the third guy of the night, who had tried approaching her, crouched back to his buddies across the bar, Sherry made a casual gesture to herself of shooting the fellow down in his tracks as he sauntered away.
Taking a long, slow sip of her drink, Sherry felt her insides warmly tingle as the smooth booze provided its desired effect.
"One more and I'll head back up to the room...I need to get some sleep," Sherry mumbled internally.
As the bottom of the glass came into view for the fifth time of the evening Sherry altered her stance slightly. "Maybe...just one more."
"Another Sir," Sherry belched out to the bartender as she tapped the top of her empty glass.
"Here you go Ma'am," the blurry image of the young bartender offered as he sat scotch #6 down in front of the drunk married woman.
"This one's on the house," he continued. "Guy over there paid for it."
Sherry grasped the glass of liquor tightly in her hand and savored the comforting feel of the cold glass in her palm before looking across the bar to see where the bartender was pointing. Her vanity over the past year or so had prevented her from admitting that she needed to look into the possibility of getting glasses or contacts.
Peering about 20 feet through the murky, smoke-filled light of the bar, Sherry could barely make out the face of the man that had bought her the drink.
The fact that the scotch had made her pupils jump in their sockets as if they were a vcr, that's tracking was broken, made it that much harder for Sherry to make out the stranger's face as he started towards her.
"The lighting in here sucks," Sherry drunkenly tried convincing herself, not wanting to face the reality that her consumption was the main culprit in her inability to see clearly.
As bad as her vision was, Sherry could still discern the vague masculine blob that the bartender had pointed at, weaving his way through the maze of patrons blocking the path to his prey.
Sherry hadn't spent a lot of time in bars since her binge days back in college. The tried and true instinctual knowledge of what happened in those alcohol infected meat markets never left her however.
Returning her gaze forwards, all Sherry needed was her nose once again to tell her when the dapper middle-aged man, was about to brush up against her left shoulder. As soon as the first whiff of his powerful cologne registered in Sherry's brain, she turned slyly and flared a castrating smile directly at the approaching gentleman.
"I couldn't help noticing you from across the way...you are a very beautiful woman!" Sherry heard the kind man offer.
"Thank you," Sherry replied, feeling a strange sense of giddy appreciation from the stranger's honest but forthright comment.
The two had made small talk for a few minutes when Sherry realized she wasn't using any of her 'defense mechanisms' to ward off her suitor. Looking down pensively at the gold band on her finger, Sherry vacillated over whether or not to make the blatant gesture to show the man to her left that she was married.
Sherry could distinctly feel her rational mind losing sway over her actions with every drink she downed but she thankfully still had enough fortitude in reserve to motion her arm upwards so that the gentleman could clearly see her wedding band.
Subtly waving her left hand back and forth in front of the stranger's face, Sherry stared at him, waiting for his expression to show that he realized she was married. She clearly saw that his eyes had focused on the rock resting on finger but Sherry's heartbeat nearly stopped when the gentleman seemed to simply pay it no care.
Sensing the man didn't mind in the least she was married, Sherry suddenly felt the butterflies in her belly start to flutter madly, her nerves now on edge as the stakes of her little game of flirtation were greatly raised. Squirming on the stool, Sherry started to jitterly pan her vision across the room to scope out the available exits and bathrooms around the bar in case she needed to make a break for it.
Still, the playful and empty part of Sherry's drunken side wanted to soak up all the admiration it could. "So what do you do?" Sherry asked with a curious gleam.
"I'm a doctor...vascular surgeon from Salt Lake City...I'm here for a conference...my name is Steve...Steve Rinson," the slightly graying older man answered with a broad, confident smile.
"Wow...a surgeon," Sherry quickly countered. "Then I bet you know the quickest way to a woman's heart don't you."
Both Steve and Sherry giggled joyously for a few moments as their gazes became more and more entrenched upon each other.
"So...what do you do?" Steve volleyed.
"OH...I'm just a lonely housewife," Sherry lied.
"With a body like that," Steve quickly answered," You must spend ever minute of your free time at the gym."
"AAAHH...Thank you," Sherry blushed, suddenly feeling her panties heat up.
"So are you staying here...at the hotel," the friendly older gentleman asked with a hint of invitation.
"No," Sherry lied once again. "I'm just here waiting for a friend."
The doctor immediately started to see through Sherry's fibs, especially the last one. He had spent the better part of 30 minutes sitting across the bar watching her and had seen, with his own eyes, that the only time Sherry had looked up from her drink was when she wanted to order another one. "Not the behavior of a woman waiting for someone," he confidently told himself.
Sensing Sherry was playfully leading him on and deciding that a more attractive opportunity probably wasn't going to present itself for the rest of the evening, the Salt Lake City vascular surgeon attempted to make his move.
