We have moved on three years (about as long as it takes me to write a new chapter some would say). Rachel has married but the lab she initially went to work for has gone broke. New jobs in her field are hard to find in a time of cut-backs.
A Well Oiled Evening
It might have been called serendipity. It certainly had never been an ambition of hers to go to such an event. However, she had gone to work in an office while she was waiting for the economy to come out from one of its periodic hibernations. Her colleagues were a good group and one of the things she enjoyed about working with them was that sometimes they'd shift her out of her comfort zone, introduce her to new experiences.
Rachel still hadn't been sure about this one.
"We're going where?" she had asked.
Josie laughed in triumph. "Come on - it'll be fun! We went last year and you wouldn't believe what fun we had." She lowered her voice with a very self-aware smile, "Besides, we'll need a driver."
"Oh well in that case," Rachel replied with a mock tone of offense.
"Don't you need an excuse for that husband of yours?" asked her older work-mate. "I guess he'll want a permission slip."
Rachel knew she was being played. Preston really wasn't like that - recently he'd been so self-obsessed that she could almost have wished he WAS rather more like that. But Josie knew what buttons to press.
"OK, OK, if you need a driver."
Which is how she had found herself here - nursing her one drink of the night and watching her workmates steadily get more and more bombed. She had a nagging feeling that she should be feeling hypocritical. How would she have felt if Preston had secretly gone to something like his? But how did she know that he didn't? He was certainly out often enough with those friends of his. She knew he needed to get out of the same four walls and see some fresh faces but did it always have to be through a haze of Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels bought with her hard-earned money.
So she filed the 'feeling a hypocrite' notion in her mental recycle bin and settled down to 'enjoy' the evening. It was certainly an experience. About 120 women crammed into the one-story hall and enjoying themselves fit to bust. They ranged from girls who almost looked too young to be drinking right up to women in their sixties, perhaps more. Just now they were all singing along to 'Sweet Caroline' between the performers. Hey, it was a good song but did they have to play it everywhere!
Nicki had her arm around her and was swaying to the music. She had to almost shout in Rachel's ear to be heard. "What did you think of him? I know I'd rather have him at home than Mitch!" She'd laughed uproariously. Nicki then leaned across her and shouted the same thing to Josie on Rachel's other side. Josie almost collapsed with laughter as well. Rachel assumed you needed the several glasses of wine to truly appreciate the joke.
Nicki did have a point though. The lead act had been quite something. Over six-feet tall, blond (it might even have been natural), with a dazzling smile and boyish good looks. Quite a body on him too - muscled but not too muscled. Very easy on the eye. He'd come out dressed as a Marine but the uniform hadn't lasted long. It had been steadily discarded to the increasing approval of the crowd. If he was the warm-up then he'd certainly done his job well.
The dancing and stripping part of the act had lasted about five minutes but the dancer, now wearing only a very small thong, had spent the next fifteen or twenty going round the tables. Allowing some of the audience to get a closer look and sometimes to rub baby oil on those glistening pectorals of his. Sometimes he'd kiss a fan or, and this WAS funny, act trying to escape from another. It was really a good laugh.
Finally he'd got to their table and Mandy - a good thirty years older and possibly sixty pounds heavier - had grabbed him and started apparently trying to suck his face off. He'd flailed his arms around as if he was suffocating but then when she'd let go he'd flicked his eye-brows, given a broad smile and dived back into another long deep kiss. The crowd had loved it - cheering and whistling.
Nicki had rubbed oil onto his chest and then let her hand drift downwards. He'd caught hold of her hand as it approached dangerous territory and made a great show of being shocked. Then he'd pushed her hand down onto his thong. Nicki had almost laughed her head off but apparently had also taken the opportunity to 'check his credentials'.
She needn't have bothered because once back on stage he had whipped off his thong about two seconds before the lights had gone down and he'd disappeared back-stage to a standing ovation.
Apparently there were three more acts to come. Well - Rachel admitted there were worst ways of spending an evening. Having her husband bitch and whine about how he couldn't get a job would be about top of that list. Times were tough and maybe you couldn't yet find something in the line you were qualified for. Her office post wasn't exactly Rachel's dream job. But you needed to get your foot in the door, on the first rung of the ladder, etc, etc. She knew for a fact that one of Preston's friends had told him about a job driving and making deliveries. Preston had apparently told him that he didn't want to waste his time like that. She'd heard about that from a third party. Preston still told her that no-one would offer him a job no matter how hard he looked for one. Meanwhile he sat on the couch watching TV or playing games, then went to the bar most evenings - so at least he wasn't 'wasting his time.'
Rachel took another sip of her beer. It was no good. She loved Preston and knew he just needed the world to give him a proper chance but sometimes he could be so frustrating! Most of the time she kept that fact filed way back in the deepest darkest recesses of her mind but now it was loose. She needed something to help cage it up again - a distraction.
"Hey," she shouted at Josie over the music, "Is it OK if we get a cab back after all?"
