As I sit at my desk at work, I look at the clock again, 12:45pm. My friend and co-worker, sitting behind me giggles at my nervousness. It's all her fault anyway. She set me up to this, it was all her idea. I had been perfectly content living life like a frumpy divorced woman since my husband of many years left me for his too young, very ditzy, secretary who was convinced he hung the moon.
The divorce came as no surprise really. I had known the marriage was dead for years, but had decided to try and stay together for the kids. And while it had pissed me off that he cheated on me, now that the divorce was over, we remained friends. We were always better at that anyway. He now called asking for advice for his new young bride for gifts, romantic getaways, jewelry, and advice on sex. Not that I ever got the gifts, jewelry or getaways while we were married, and the sex was just ok. Everyone thought I was crazy to still be there for him, but he was the father of my kids and we did live together many years.
I look at the clock again, 12:50, and another snicker from behind. I suck in a deep cleansing breath and shot a glare at my friend who is now all out laughing. Yes, this is all her fault. She convinced me to email you, a friend of her husbands. You were living in another state at the time and it all seemed so harmless. You are single, and mentioned to my friend's husband that you would really like a nice lady to chat with to make the day more interesting. Nothing more, just a chat buddy. So your friend passed on my email address and the chatting began.
At first it was a little awkward, not sure how to interact with a unknown person on my computer, but I soon felt I was opening up a little. At first we talked about our day, work load, duties, and soon moved to likes, dislikes, favorite foods, music and kids. We found we had a lot in common and I was soon looking forward to logging on to my email everyday to chat. At first we kept it to workdays and work hours, but after a little while we were logging on during the weekend to just say hi.
I glanced at the clock without really moving my head so Ms. Nosey behind me wouldn't notice. 12:55. The phone rang at my desk and I jumped, almost knocking over my large ice tea as I reached for the phone. Ms. Nosey got a kick out of that too. I seriously needed to reevaluate our friendship. After I transferred the phone call, I took a long drink of my tea and thought of when we first decided to exchange pictures. I must have taken at least a dozen head shots with my cell phone before I got one that was somewhat satisfactory. Without trying to dwell on it too much, I attached the file and hit "send" and held my breath. I told myself it didn't matter what you said, we were just friends, not even in the same state. Your email popped up with your picture attached, I sucked in a breath, and hit "open". I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw. You was standing under a tree, smiling. Arms crossed over your chest, wearing faded blue jeans and a soft looking faded tee shirt. You had short cropped hair; it looked light brown, but was hard to see with the shade of the tree, clean shaven, with a broad smile and a definite twinkle in your eye. You looked happy, like someone who would rather tell a joke than discuss politics. Not too tall, maybe close to 6', medium build. Like someone you could cuddle right up against and watch a good movie. I shook my head at the thought; we were just friends, no need to let the mind take a detour. As I studied your picture, my computer notified me that I had mail. I found that I was holding my breath again as I opened it. It came out in a whoosh as I read that you thought I was very pretty. I suddenly felt like I was in high school and the quarterback of the football team just winked at me.
I looked at the clock; I didn't even try to hide it this time, 1:00. I just had 15 minutes to go before I left for my casual encounter. After exchanging pictures, we soon moved to texting on the phone and that led to late night phone calls. After a month of this you informed me that you were coming here for business and you wanted to see me. I was terrified; it was easy to talk to you on the phone, emails. IM's, but to see each other face to face, that was a whole other nightmare. While the years had been kind to me, child bearing had left its mark. Once smooth skin on my hips and butt was now lined with stretch marks and my once perky boobs, drooped a bit. My once curvy size 7 body was now a frumpy 12. You knew my age, and how many kids I had, had seen pictures of me sitting and complimented me. But what would you think up close and personal? I shook my head and reminded myself again that we were just friends.
I clocked out at 1:15 and hurried to the bathroom to freshen up. As I walked back past my friend, she spoke words of encouragement and reminded me that a woman who could sing Karaoke as bad as I did, and live to sing again would be just fine. A quick hug for luck and I was out the door.