Alicia and the Party

It wasn’t easy for Alicia to put herself out there. She’d already endured what felt like an extremely long and tedious life by the time she was just 38 years old. She’d already gotten married…twice. Then divorced…twice. And while she wasn’t particularly bitter or jaded, she was extraordinarily wary of men and the havoc they could wreak on her quiet, comfortable life. She was quite sure she wanted no more of that. Never.

Every day Alicia went to work, came home, tended to her garden, consumed a healthy dinner, went to her bedroom decked out in her favorite shades of pink, now that she wasn’t forced to endure a masculine bedroom in shades of navy blue and brown, and curled up in the middle of her soft fluffy bed, falling asleep before the 10:00 p.m. news made it to the weather report each and every night. It was all very familiar and safe, just the way she liked it.

Unfortunately, one fateful day at the office, Alicia learned that many jobs, including hers, were being eliminated. This was not part of her plan. Not even a little bit. No sir.

But she sucked it up, bought a new suit, updated her resume and started going on interviews, finally landing a job that would require her to talk to humans even more than her previous job had. She didn’t know how to feel about that. Well, actually she did know exactly how to feel about it. She did not like it one bit. But she needed a paycheck to carry on with her lifelong mission to keep a roof over her head and not starve to death. 

On the first day of her new job Alicia crossed her fingers and plunged into the murky waters of dealing with humans. To her dismay, that didn’t always go well for her. In fact it pretty much never went well for her. But, she sucked it up, and did the job to the best of her ability. On particularly challenging days, Alicia sat in her cubicle between phone calls and daydreamed about later that night when she’d be curled up in her bed with a good book or TV show. And that daydreaming got her through the difficult days, which were pretty much every day.

Alicia settled into her new routine; however, and thought she’d be able to manage the abyss she found herself in. That is until yet another fateful day, when her boss announced that their entire team was going to act as hosts for a 3-day customer event in the city the following month, which would include the company’s big annual customer party. Alicia started breathing shallower and faster, to the point of nearly hyperventilating in front of everyone. She felt nauseous and broke out in a cold sweat. 

What her colleagues couldn’t possibly know, because she was a very private person, was that Alicia had met both of her now ex-husbands at parties. Parties that she had been dragged to by friends. So let’s just say Alicia wasn’t keen on going to parties. Ever. Never ever.

By the time the week of the event came, Alicia did everything she could to keep herself calm, especially on the day of the party. It didn’t hurt that she had devised a mantra to keep herself safe – “I will not meet a man. I will not get married. I will not get divorced AGAIN.” For the most part, that helped her stay calm.

The night of the party, Alicia left the sanctuary of her hotel room and walked the three blocks to the party venue, where she found the elevators and pressed the button to the top floor of the high-rise building. She conveniently slipped into the party just minutes before it was to start, hoping to avoid being assigned some horrific role like being party greeter at the door or something equally abhorrent. 

Luckily she slid right in the door, did a little wave to basically no one since everyone was preoccupied by that point as she had hoped they would be. She headed straight to the bar for a very heavy pour of Chardonnay.

After a few sips of liquid courage, she braced herself for the onslaught, closing her eyes, and repeating quietly to herself – “I will not meet a man. I will not get married. I will not get divorced AGAIN.”

Before she finished saying it for the third time, someone was tapping her on her shoulder. 

“Ugh, here we go,” she thought, as she stopped her lips from moving to her mantra and slowly opened her eyes.

She then discovered that standing in front of her was a very attractive man. She noticed his perfect hair, his radiant smile, the sparkle in his eyes, his lightly-scented aftershave and the whiteness of his teeth, and was stunned into silence, realizing she was assessing him as if he were a horse up for auction.

“Dear God, where are my manners,” she choked out after staring at him for what seemed like forever. “Hello, I’m Alicia,” she said.

“I know,” the man responded, “I’m Zach. I saw you at the front of the room during the presentation today and wanted to meet you.”

“Reaaally?” she responded hesitantly, thinking to herself, “Stop it. Just because you met a man, doesn’t mean you’ll marry him…” but then the scent of his aftershave, or was it his body wash or the scent of his deodorant she was picking up in the warm room? She couldn’t decide. But the scent was divine. Her mantra was falling apart in her head.

Suddenly Zach grabbed her by the hand and walked her into a quieter room lined entirely with windows and they looked down onto the city lights and traffic below from their 40^th floor vantage point.

They made small talk briefly until Zach stepped back out to the bar a few minutes later to get them each another glass of wine. 

While he was gone, Alicia thought to herself, “I will not…what was it again? What’s my mantra?” One glass of wine and she’d already forgotten it. “Dammit,” she said out loud…louder than she realized.

Zach walked back into the quiet room laughing. “You ok? That ‘dammit’ sounded troubled. I don’t really know you, but are you one of those people who has audible conversations with their alter egos? Because these are the kinds of things I need to know about the woman of my dreams.”

Alicia choked on the large sip of wine she’d guzzled as soon as Zach returned. Wine was excruciatingly rising up into her nostrils and making its way into her sinuses as she coughed and gagged.

Zach stood there laughing at her. “I’m joking Alicia. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Alicia stood up. “Thank you for the wine, Zach.” She extended her hand to shake his. “It was nice to meet you but it’s time for me to head out.”

“Was it something I said?” Zach asked with a chuckle.

“Of course not,” she lied, as she walked away as quickly as she could. She went back to her hotel room, curled up in the soft bed, turned on the 10:00pm news, and vowed she would start looking for a new job as soon as she got back home the following night. 

After all, she did NOT want to meet a man, she did NOT want to get married again, and she sure as hell was NEVER getting divorced again. Never. Ever. Again.