Chapter One:Mary
PART ONE – BEGINNINGS
The band played, the music pulsed, and the dancers writhed on the postage- stamp size dance floor. The noise was deafening, and Mary had to overcome the urge to cover her ears. If she did that, that would surely cause a sensation with this Friday night, ’I am sophisticated and with it” crowd. They would think she was a little off. Didn’t everyone enjoy the noise and the crowds? Isn’t that why everyone was there?
Mary sang deeper into the corner of the booth. As long as there are drinks in front of Arianna and Shannon’s places, no one would dare sit there, or so she hoped. She looked towards the dance floor, but her friends were lost in the barely moving mass that were pretending there was room enough to dance. Mary picked up her drink, the same vodka and orange drink she had been nursing for an hour, and took a slow sip. Have to make it last. Do not want to get drunk around this crowd. Don’t want to end up going home with anyone.
Mary knew what was happening here. Many of these men were married and having a fling on a Friday night before spending the weekend with their families. They looked over the women as if they were checking out prize cattle, and they thought they were bestowing a prize ribbon on any girl they chose. They were bad enough. The single ones were worse. They spent their evening searching for the perfect partner for the weekend. Just for the weekend, mind you. It was actually quite amusing to watch these men as the night progresses. Gradually the couples paired off and, as closing time neared, the ones without partners became almost desperate. They would finally reach the point when they were willing to settle. Mary avoided them when they reached that desperation stage.
Mary would love to get up, move around, talk to their bartender and bouncer friend, Carl, but she knew she couldn’t abandon the seat. She’d never get another. The crowd was thick around the bar and equally thick between the bar and the tables.
“Hey, love. Let’s dance.”
Mary felt the tug on her arm and looked up to see a bleary-eyed drunk leaning over her, a little too close, smelling of alcohol and wearing that desperate look she tried to avoid.
“Don’t dance,” she said.
“Whaa?”
“I don’t dance”, Mary said, this time loud enough to be heard over the noise. She enunciated each word slowly and clearly, hoping that way her words would penetrate his drunken fog.
The drunk tugged harder on her arm, “Hey, stop being hard to get. Don’t think I’m good enough? You’re no prize yourself, you know.”
Mary didn’t need him to tell her that. She had always been the plain one, even in her own family.
“She’s with me.”
Mary felt an arm go around her shoulder and she turned to shrug it off but quickly changed her mind. Somehow, when she was talking, a god had slid into the seat beside her. She was so stunned that she was momentarily speechless.
“Hey buddy, no problem.” The drunk let her go and, even in his drunken state, melted quickly into the crowd.
Mary turned to her companion, this tall, dark-haired stranger, who like a hero in a movie that she spent her lonely time watching, was there to rescue her. But, she thought, will I have to be rescued from him?
