The next week was blah for Katy. Her doc had fourteen deliveries. Katy kept thinking that it had to be some kind of record. Because of the deliveries, nine of which were overnight, Katy had to pick up many of the doctor’s appointments during the week. By the time that Katy finished returning calls and filling out paperwork, it was seven o’clock before Katy left the office each night. Weeks like this happened occasionally for Katy, but luckily, they were few and far between.
Her heavy workload meant that Katy missed girl’s night out on Tuesday, as well as three calls from Todd during the week. Katy returned his calls, but was too exhausted to accept his invitations. By Friday night, she felt like she hadn’t slept in a month. Todd invited her to dinner, suggesting that she still had to eat, but Katy declined. She explained that she was going to have a quick sandwich and head off to bed early. Todd quickly responded by inviting her out to shoot pool at the Corral Saturday night. Katy agreed.
Todd was aware that Claudette, Jasmine, and Lindsey would be at the Corral with Katy on Saturday night. Katy liked the fact that he was not intimidated by the prospect of her friends being around on their date. She was also pleased that he was not put off by her week of refusals. He understood that she was not rejecting him, probably in part because his father was an obstetrician. The fact that her week as a hermit hadn’t put him off told her that he was sincere in his interest in Katy. She liked that he was just as sincere in his interest in her as she was in her interest in him.
She was exhausted Friday night, and it was one of those nights when a person reevaluates her career path. Katy thought briefly Do I really want to be doing this? Her answer was the same as it always was when she reflected. Yes, she did. Katy had wanted to work in women’s health ever since her mother first talked to Katy about the birds and the bees. Even after a full week of frustratingly busy days, the answer was still yes. She couldn’t imagine herself in any other job. Helping patients through the joys and disappointments of reproductive health was an amazing experience. Katy would have preferred, however, to have had a little less amazement this week.
Katy’s exhaustion led her to sleep quickly. As far as she knew, she did not dream. She laid in bed until noon on Saturday; her only thought being To hell with the laundry. She had no television, no books; she just lay there in a relaxed, blank thought, almost meditative state. Her mind wandered through vague notions, but no clear thoughts emerged. When she rose a little after noon , she felt energized and refreshed. She took a long, hot bath with aromatherapy candles burning and new age music on the stereo. She stayed in the tub until the water was cold and her skin was pruny. Then she sat in her oversized recliner and read for hours. She and Todd had arranged to meet at the club at eight and the girls would be meeting at Katy’s apartment at seven-thirty, so she had plenty of time to veg out with Patricia Cornwell.
Katy looked forward to tonight. It would be a typical night at the Corral with one exception, Todd would be there. With her. Todd would be there with her. At the end of the evening, Katy and the girls would return to her apartment for a good old-fashioned sleepover. They needed to catch up on all of the events of the week, especially since Katy had missed their Tuesday night happy hour.
The girls arrived at the Corral right at eight, only to find a line at the door. It wasn’t close to exams or Spring Break, so Katy figured that there must have been some sort of sporting event that day. It was probably an “important” game, and the crowd was coming out either to celebrate or to drown their sorrows. Either way, it wasn’t good. When the masses of students celebrated, they drank too much and became very rowdy, not that rowdy was always a bad thing, but students tended to take it to the extreme. When the team lost, it was worse. Then the students came in angry and sad. That meant that they spent the night either looking for a fight or being weepy drunks.
As the girls left the car, they discussed whether or not they even wanted to enter the club. The decision was made that they had to go in, if only to meet with Todd. After that, they could go somewhere else if they wanted. They were A list regulars at the Corral, so they knew that they could skip the wait and head to the front of the line. As they passed by the waiting throngs, they saw Todd in line. Katy grabbed his hand and pulled him with her. They headed to the door where Rich and Tom stood aside to let them pass.
“Are we sure that we want to be here?” Lindsey asked.
“It’s worth a try,” Jasmine responded.
Todd smiled, “We can always leave if it’s beat. I think that we should go in.”
Claudette put her hands up like a cop holding a gun and yelled in her best Jill Monroe impression, “Cover me, I’m going in!” They laughed and followed her into the club.
Inside, it was beat. It was way past beat. It was beat like a kid who had been caught stealing. The people were wall to wall, packed in with less than two square feet per person. They were so close together that they had to lift their arms along the contour of their bodies just to get their drinks up to their mouths.
The line at the bar was several people deep and poor little Mike just couldn’t keep up. It wasn’t his fault, Rochelle, the owner of the club was assisting, but even with two of them, people were waiting an eternity just to be served. The whole club looked like a crowded dance floor, but no one was dancing. This thought gave Katy an idea. She suggested that they check out the dance floor to see if there was any space there. When they got there, they found it packed as well, with patrons who had moved there to find space; even on the dance floor, there was no room to dance. One glance at the pool tables proved stacks of quarters fifteen deep, suggesting that there were fifteen teams of players waiting to play on each table. The line to the ladies’ suggested that they should get in line now, just so that they could get to the restroom by the time they had to go.
Confined spaces had always been an issue for Katy, and this definitely qualified. She looked Jasmine squarely in the eye and said, “If anyone shouts fire, we’ll be trampled by the stampede.
Lindsey said abruptly, “Yep, gotta go.” With that, the group headed for the door. On the way out, they asked Tom what was going on.
“J-A day,” he replied, and that explained it all.
Their local college and alma mater, Jefferson College John Adams College Adams was only an hour’s drive from Jefferson , and both schools were in the same NCAA ranking. That meant that a couple of times per year, they were competing, occasionally for a championship title. On the field, the players were bitter rivals. Off the field, they were the closest of comrades. When the two football teams competed, it was called J-A day, and supporters of both teams flocked the area. The games were traditionally held on Saturdays, and afterwards, the crowds spent the night. It was a huge party weekend.
Students were bussed in in droves. They stayed with frat brothers or sorority sisters, if they had them. They crashed in dorm rooms. It meant that all of the hotels in town would be booked, and that the floors of the lobbies of every dormitory on campus would be filled wall to wall with teens and young adults in sleeping bags. It also meant that every club in town would be just as packed as the Corral.
On the way to the car, Claudette stopped dead in her tracks, “Oh, my God. It’s finally happened.”
“What?”
“We’ve become old people out looking for a good time,” she replied.
“We’re not old,” Jasmine snorted.
“I know, but to the kids in there, we are,” Claudette replied. The group’s denial faded quickly in the light of the realization. Most nights, they were young and free; tonight they were old, comparatively. That concept was cemented in their minds by the fact that none of them felt like driving all over town looking for the right club. When the hassle of crowds outweighs the desire to party, you know that you are a grown up.
They stood by the car for a few minutes contemplating their next move. It was decided that they should head back to Katy’s apartment and start the sleepover early. Claudette quickly invited Todd to “come over for a while.” This took all of the analysis and decision making on dating protocol and etiquette out of Katy’s hands. Katy worried briefly about how to balance her date with a Girls’ Night Out without the buffer of a club environment. It promised to be awkward, especially at the end of the evening. She could not invite him to stay, and they would have an audience for their “good night” moment, whatever it might entail.
Katy was impressed by Todd’s willingness to join the group at her apartment. She had thought it impressive that he was not intimidated by the group dynamic at a bar, but at the apartment it would be a whole other thing. He would be the relative outsider in a group that had been closely knit for several years. He would also be the only man in a room full of women. And female friends were notoriously hard on new boyfriends. Talk about trial by fire.
Multiple disastrous scenarios played over in Katy’s mind on the drive home. Todd was driving separately, so she had the opportunity to voice her concerns. She resisted the urge. She was quiet and contemplative. The most frequent questions to run through her mind were about whether or not she had left her dirty underwear lying in the middle of the floor when she left home tonight. She thought about her toilet, but only briefly, as she always flushed it after using it. Underwear, where were her underwear? The thought was driving her a little mad, but it kept her mind off of all of the far more disastrous possibilities that the evening might entail. She sped up a little in hopes of beating Todd to her place, so that she could sweep the apartment for drawers before taking him in for the tour.
No such luck. Todd was right behind them when they pulled into her lot. Toilet paper! Had she remembered to change the roll? No matter, it was unlikely that Todd would need toilet paper while at her place, guys were notoriously shy about those things. They walked into the apartment together. As Katy opened the door, she scanned immediately the visible rooms (the living room, bathroom, and kitchen) for embarrassing traces. She then excused herself briefly to her bedroom on an underpants retrieval mission. She had been right, they were in the middle of her bedroom floor.
“Ah, toilet paper!” was the shriek that Katy heard from down the hall in the bathroom. As the bathroom was on the far side of the apartment, she knew that Todd had heard it as well. She headed quickly down the hall, grabbing a roll from the linen closet on her way. She peeked into the bathroom only to find Lindsey looking distressed. Katy threw the roll to her, and then returned to the living room where the rest of her guests were already seated. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she entered the room.
“So, I was thinking, what do we do about refreshments?” Claudette asked.
“There are sodas, juice, and milk in the fridge,” Katy smiled. “I also have a veggie tray with dip that I got for the sleepover. There are chips, pretzels, and popcorn in the cupboard.”
Claudette rolled her eyes, “I meant libations. How were you planning on entertaining us tonight without alcohol?”
Katy laughed, “I didn’t think we’d need it. I thought all of you would get plenty plastered before we got here.”
“Oh, man,” Jasmine said, “Someone’s going to have to make a beer run.”
Lindsey said, as she entered the room, without a hint of embarrassment about the toilet paper incident, “You still have that bottle of Stoli. I think that tonight is the perfect night to get rid of it once and for all.”
The idea appealed to Katy, “And I have juice, orange and cranberry. All that is left is for you all to decide whether you want screwdrivers or Cape Cods Cape Cods
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Christy Parker is the author of three blogs: Ruminations from and Unkempt Mind, Learn to Crochet - In Minutes a Day, and You Be the Editor.
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