First Sight (9 page)

***

That evening,
Marissa
and I
walked
into a crowded bar in Arlington.  I scanned the room for
Emily
, taking in the loud rock music playing from the speakers and groups of twenty- and thirty
-
somethings
enjoying a drink or two after work. 
The bar was packed
tonight
with other happy hour revelers, and I
looked around
again, still not seeing her.

“
Maddy
! 
Marissa
!”
Emily
called out from
one of the tall
table
s
near the bar
,
wav
ing
her arm
s
in the air
to get our attention.  She was wearing a trendy black top and miniskirt,
her light brown hair pulled back into a chic ponytail,
and I no
ticed a few guys watching her as we
made our way through the
crowd
.
 
As we got closer,
I
saw
the
black
platform heels she was wearing, which were currently perched on the rung of the bar
stool
.

“Hey!” I said, rushing over to give her a hug.
  “Did you go home and change?”

“Of course!
  I can’t wear this to work.”

“
Now I could not have walked up seven flights
i
n those,”
Marissa
said, gesturing toward the heels
and leaning over to
give Emily a hug
.

“Ha, ha,”
Emily
joked.
 
“It was
only slightly
uncomfortable walking down the block
from the metro
.  Ah, the price we pay for beauty
….
”

“Those things are crazy,” I said.  “I could never wear shoes that high.”

“The platform makes them more comfortable.”

“They don’t look comfortable, but they are cute.”

A
waitress came over
to take our drink order
.
 
“I’ll have another margarita,”
Emily
said, gesturing toward her empty glass.

“Dirty martini,”
said
Marissa
.

“I’ll have a margarita
,
too,” I said. 
“On the rocks with salt.”

“
All right ladies,
I’ll be right back with your drinks,” t
he waitress
said and
walked away
.

I turned toward
Emily
. 
She was jiggling the ice cubes around in her glass, glancing around casually to check out the people
nearby
. 
“When did you get here?”
I asked.

“
Twenty
minutes ago. 
I wanted to come early
to snag a table.”

“Good call,”
Marissa
said, looking around the packed bar area.
  Her eyes happened to fall on a group of
twentysomething
guys near us, who started not so subtly jabbing each other in the ribs when they saw
her
looking in their direction. 
The
y
appeared to be arguing about which one of them should come over and talk to us.  I turned back to
Marissa
and
Emily
and rolled my eyes while
they snickered, trying not to let the guys see them laugh.
 
A
few moments later, a
guy
from the group, dressed
in a plaid button-down
dress
shirt and khakis
,
walked up to our table holding a beer.  He looked like he’d already had a few
; h
is red hair was slightly messy, and his eyes had a bit of a gla
z
ed-over look to them.

“Hi,” he said, directing his attention to me.  “My friends said that I should come over and talk to you
,
”
he slurred. 
Marissa
and
Emily
looked at each other and giggled, while I sat there dumbfounded, watching him sway slightly from side to side.

“Can I buy you a drink?”
he asked.

“No, thank you,” I replied
firmly
.

“Oh, okay,” he
said
, looking confused.  Apparently he hadn’t planned on what to do next after being shot down.

“She has a
boyfriend,”
Marissa
inter
jected
when
the red-headed guy continued to stand at our table.
  “His name is Travis.”

I burst out laughing, and as I told the guy
again
that I wasn’t interested, I heard
Marissa
starting to
tell
Em
about our ski weekend.
  The guy staggered off back toward his friends, who were making a loud ruckus over his failed attempt
to buy me a drink
.
 
“Dude, fail!” one of the gu
ys
shouted
, slapping the red-h
ead
ed guy on the back.  I looked back at my friends, shaking my head in disbelief.

“Really
Maddy
, you are too picky,”
Marissa
said
, grinning.  She stirred the olive around in her martini and then elegantly picked up the glass to take a sip.

“I have to draw the line somewhere,” I joked.  I reached over and grabbed a chip from the basket the waitress had brought over and then tried my margarita.  “Delicious.”

“
I know
,
they have the
best
margaritas here.  I’m already on my second,” Emily said with a
giggle
.  “
So,
tell me about this new boyfriend.
 
I would’ve thought you’d mention something like that to me,
”
she hinted,
seemingly
wanting more details.

“You’re right, I would have. 
Travis is
Marissa
’s and my new
coworker
.  He’s
the
new writer at our office.
  We haven’t even been on a date, and he definitely isn’t my boyfriend.
”

“Oh,
so
he’s a writer, too?”

“Yeah.”

“
And
he went skiing with you this weekend
?”

“Yeah.”

“And
now
you
like him
?
”

“
Yeah
—
wait,
what?” 
Emily
laughed at my confusion
,
b
ut
Marissa
simply
looked
amused at my
slip-up
.

“
I
might
have mentioned
to
Em
that Travis
i
s hot and totally available. 
Oh, and that he spent most of the ski trip with you.”

“He is gorgeous,” I agreed.
 
“But we
’r
e just friends.”

“I don’t know,
Maddy
,
Marissa
seems to think he’s interested in you.”

“
Oh, she’s always trying to set me up with random people,” I replied.  I looked over at
Marissa
.  “
But
you
are forgetting to mention that I finally met the mysterious Mike.”

“You met Mike?!”
Emily
squealed.  “That means
Marissa
actually kept
someone
around
for more than a week
?
”

“Very funny,”
Marissa
muttered, stirring the olive around in her martini glass
again
.
  “I can’t help it if all my first dates
are on the road to nowhere
.”

“
You are correct,” I said, smiling at
Emily
, while at the same time ignoring
Marissa
’s comment.
  “
She did keep him around
—and
we all liked him.”

“
That’s great
,
”
Emily
said excitedly,
turning
her attention over
to
Marissa
.  “I want to hear all about
him
.”

“Oh, well you know, there’s not much to tell….”

“Yeah right,
”
Emily
said. 
“Spill!
”

We spent
the rest of the night telling
Emily
about Mike
and recounting the details
of our ski trip
. 
She wanted to know all about where we’d gone, how I’d liked skiing, and more
info
about Travis. 
When we’d thoroughly exhausted that topic, we
giggl
ed
over the random guys we spotted at the bar
that we could potentially set up Emily with
.  Before long we were walking back to the metro together and promising each other that we’d get together for another girl’s night soon.

The next
couple
of
weeks passed
by
in a blur
.
 
In a whirl of workdays
and weekends
,
days spent at the office and evenings out with friends,
soon it was
already
mid-February. 
I
got to know Travis better
, a
s
he often joined
Elizabeth
,
Marissa
,
and
me
for lunch. 
I suspected that the fact that he and
Elizabeth
were officemates was the main reason behind that,
for they had become friends,
but I still found myself looking forward to seeing him each day. 
Travis
had the same easy friendliness that he’d shown when we’d all gone skiing together
. 
He seemed to get along with
everyone
. 
I’d walk into the lunchroom and he could just as easily be talking to
Elizabeth
about her home improvement projects as he could
be talking to one of the guys about
last night’s
Capitals game or
to
Marissa
about the latest DC hotspots.

Marissa
and Mike
had
broke
n
up, but she didn’t seem too upset about it and before long was already talking about some new guy that she’d seen at the gym.
In fact, Travis seemed more
disappointed
about
the breakup
than
Marissa
. 
Mike and Travis
had gotten along well on the ski trip, and Travis didn’t know many people
in the area
yet.  Although
Elizabeth
’s husband, Steve, had been nice, I could see why he and Travis wouldn’t
necessarily
be good friends. 
Steve
and
Elizabeth
were
more homebod
ies
than
the rest of us
, and
because
they were married
,
they spent their weekends doing couple things.
 
I was certain that
was
part of the reason Marissa and I had never become especially close with Elizabeth. 
Travis
probably hoped
Marissa
would keep dating Mike
just
so that he’d have a male buddy to hang out with
whenever
we all went out
again
.