I was still fuming when I got back to my desk. It was going to take me at least another hour to inform everyone on the team that all the work they’d been doing for the past month was now completely worthless, and it was already almost time to leave for the day.
My phone rang, and I glanced down to see my best friend’s face on the screen.
“I’m going to Thirsty’s after work,” Mare said in her usual chirpy tone. “Wanna join?”
I took a deep breath and drummed my fingers on my desk. It had been a crap day in the corporate world, and Kevin was a big, fat jerk. Okay, so he wasn’t fat, but he was an ass, and he’d been hauling me into pointless meetings since the day he arrived in the building. All he needed was the pointy hair to become a walking Dilbert cartoon character, but it just wasn’t funny anymore. The last thing I wanted to do was work late in order to explain why the project was cut, and I wasn’t even sure what to say about it. I just knew that as soon as I hit send, a bunch of people would show up at my desk and keep me here even longer.
A drink sounded pretty good.
“Yeah, okay,” I said into the phone. “Anyone else going?”
“The usual crowd,” Mare responded. “It is Friday after all.”
“Count me in,” I said.
“Cool! See you there about six, Clo.”
I hung up and shook my head slightly at Mare’s constant need for shortening everyone’s name. She couldn’t seem to actually call me Chloe any more than she would allow others to call her Mary. It was always just Mare, like a female horse. She would even introduce herself that way—“My name is Mare, you know—like the horse!”
I browsed through my email, decided there wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait until Monday, and gathered up my things to head home. Of course, I got stopped on my way out by three people in the hallway. News travels fast, apparently, and they all wanted to know why the project was being cut when it was an important upgrade and why I didn’t make that clear to Kevin.
As tempting as it was to throw him under the bus, it just wasn’t in my nature. Aside from that, and unlike a lot of my coworkers, I was single and had to rely on myself for everything. I couldn’t risk pissing off the new executive without another job lined up, so I attempted to explain his faulty reasoning as best I could before escaping down the stairwell, out to the parking garage, and into rush-hour traffic.
I drove cautiously and courteously. I didn’t cut anyone off. I paused to let others merge in front of me, even though it caused me to miss the light.
My empty condo greeted me with its earth tones, clean lines, and superheroines. Though I told people cleanliness was important to me, it really looked so spotless because I didn’t have much else to do with myself in the evenings or on the weekends. I did have something that resembled a social life and often went to movies and dinner with friends, but ultimately I came back here to my solitary, sterile abode.
I popped in a DVD just to hear Princess Leia’s voice as she confronted Darth Vader. Reciting the lines was better than talking to myself.
My closet was full of outfits for evening get-togethers, but I decided on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt I’d bought in San Francisco when I went to visit my mom last year. Thirsty’s Oasis wasn’t a dressy kind of place—just a nice sports bar with lots of big screens, plenty of beer on tap, and friendly bartenders. There would be a few people coming from work and still dressed up a bit, but the majority of the crowd was casual.
The television greeted me as I came back downstairs from the bedroom to the living room. The movie was nearly to my favorite part, and I was tempted to text Mare and tell her I wasn’t going to make it after all. An evening with the Original Trilogy at home was sounding pretty good.
“Of course it does,” I mumbled to myself.
Suddenly feeling overwhelmed, I sat down on the couch and put my head in my hands. I knew for a fact that I was just feeling sorry for myself, and that pissed me off. My mind wandered to Zach, my ex, but I refused to let myself dwell. It wasn’t the lack of a man in my life—I could cope with that—but between thinking about my dad, dwelling over my mother’s distance, and fuming over Kevin being a total ass, it seemed as if something in the universe was ganging up on me.
“I need a little action in my life,” I informed Wonder Woman. “You need any help with some criminals? I bet your bracelets would fit me.”
She stared down from her perch and didn’t accept my offer.
I shoved myself off the couch with great mental effort and checked myself over in the mirror. Turning my head left, then right, I decided my curly brown hair wasn’t going to get any better, given the humidity, applied a little more liner around my blue eyes, and decided I was good to go. Even if Wonder Woman had needed a little
help, I would have come up with some excuse as to why I couldn’t be of assistance. Maybe I’d consider it later when I had thought about all the ramifications of leaving my job and friends to go on some grand adventure, but not now, not when I hadn’t prepared for it.
Thirsty’s was packed, and at first, I couldn’t find my group. I meandered through the crowd saying hello to a few people I recognized until I saw Mare frantically waving her arms from a high-top table near the back of the bar.
“I’ve had a shit day,” I said as I approached.
Mare and Nate sat leaning closely against each other in that way people who haven’t quite admitted they were interested in each other often do. I thought they would be the perfect couple if they would just get on with it already. He turned his lively dark eyes from Mare to me.
“Join the club!” Nate replied. He held up an empty shot glass with his meaty hand in salute. He was short with straight, blond hair and geeky black glasses that seemed to drive Mare absolutely wild.
“Shots already?” I said with a raise eyebrow.
“I’m pretty sure I’ll be driving him home,” Mare said with a wink. She tossed thick auburn hair off her shoulder and threw her arm around the back of Nate’s stool.
“It’s been that kind of week,” Gabe said from the other side of the table where he sat. He was the ever-present bachelor of our group and seemed perfectly content to be so. He handed me his shot. He didn’t drink anything but light beer.