Trevor
Eric laughs as he settles against the cool vinyl of the booth and listens to his future. “You guys can’t be serious? This sounds like The Hangover meets Impractical Jokers. This is my bachelor-party weekend. I was thinking bars and nightclubs. Last night was a good start.” He shakes his head. “I wasn’t thinking of crashing a fashion show. A. Lingerie. Fashion show.” He says the last part staccato like it will change Max’s mind.
“Deadly serious,” our friend Max says. “I didn’t travel across the pond to sit casually at some gentlemen’s club. The fashion show is perfect. There will be beautiful women for you blokes and some nice eye candy for me. It’s a win-win.”
Max lives in the UK. How he became part of our inner circle is a long story. Suffice it to say, as an investment banker, his work with McCobb, the engineering firm where Eric, Matt, and I work, brought him to our New York offices many times. He has one of those personalities that is the complete opposite of most engineers: outgoing, gregarious, and fun. Yes, I’m admitting we can be boring. The thing that makes Max unique is that he brings out those traits in others. When I was in Washington and Eric was in Indiana working on different projects, Max used our apartment when he’d come to New York for work. Our interests may not all be the same, but we’ve become friends. While this weekend is about Eric and his impending wedding, Matt—the fourth of our foursome—knew inviting Max would keep the weekend lively.
It seems he was right.
As I try to smother the alcohol from last night in greasy eggs, potatoes, and thick bagel, I don’t have the energy to argue. However, while taking a large gulp of good ole black coffee, my deductive reasoning is getting the better of me. “You don’t expect us to just crash the Saks Fifth Avenue lingerie fashion show, do you?”
“Now, wouldn’t that be fun?”
“You can’t be serious. I’m sure there are tickets and shit. They don’t just let four men off the street—”
Max holds up his phone, interrupting my only attempt to change our plans. The screen appears to have some sort of ticketing information. “Not crash. The dare...” He lowers his voice as his expression explodes with excitement. “...is to make contact with one of the models.”
Eric shakes his head. “Are we twelve?”
“No,” Max says. “Twelve-year-olds don’t purchase tickets to see beautiful women walk around in lingerie.”
“No, they sneak on to their father’s porn sites,” Matt says with a laugh.
“So we’re too sophisticated for that. Besides, we can all afford our own viewing pleasure. This is different. It’s unique and unusual. This fashion show only happens twice a year. How many times do you blokes get to watch lovely models parade in front of you?”
“Listen,” Eric says, “I’m not doing anything to jeopardize my marriage to Cynthia.”
“No one is asking you to,” Matt says, joining the persuasion. He and Max have obviously worked the details out amongst themselves. “Make contact. That doesn’t mean fuck or even touch.” He shakes his head with a laugh. “Well, contact... no. Talk to, get a phone number, have a conversation. Unlike the show, the dare is not for all of us. One of us needs to be the judge. That, my man,” he says to Eric, the groom-to-be, “is you. Max, Trevor, and I are the ones who have to do the dare. You choose the one who wins and the other two pay for this entire weekend...hotel rooms, drinks, and all.”
I can’t help but think that the overall expense would be less if Max had taken me up on the offer to use my apartment for this weekend.
Eric laughs. “No offense, Max, but I suspect the models aren’t your type.”
Max’s cheeks rise. “No offense taken. As we said, fucking isn’t the object. I’ve been known to be very debonair and besides, American women love a man with an accent. I can admire a beautiful woman as much as any one of you.” He eyes the table where we’re all slightly hung over.
Our eyes are undoubtedly bloodshot and none of us have showered. I know that because we all dragged ourselves out of our rooms with dry, messy hair and the lingering aroma of last night’s drinks. Food and coffee were our primary objectives.
“Better than any of you blokes, actually,” Max clarifies. “And as I said, it’s about contact. The one who gets the most intel, the one who gets the closest wins. He then gets to spend the rest of the weekend at the expense of the other two.”
We all look at one another and shrug. “I’m game,” Matt says first.
“If I’m only the judge,” Eric says, “I’m in.”
They all look my direction. I narrow my gaze at Matt and Max. “You two were planning this. You know I suck at coming on to women. I should just throw my credit card on the table and call it a day. Hell, Max will pick up a model before I do.”
The truth is that I have been on a rather dry spell. First, I’m not a lady’s man. One-night stands aren’t my thing. With my job that takes me from place to place for months or even years at a time, I find making commitments difficult. And then there is this one woman.
The unexpected surprise is that Eric’s impending wedding has put her in the forefront of my mind. I met her at a wedding, well, the night before. It was my brother’s wedding, and I’d gotten into town late. I told myself I’d have one drink in the hotel bar to wind down from the flight and let my body adjust to the time difference. With a beer in hand, I made my way out of the loud piano bar and outside to a patio.
There she was.
Was she beautiful?
Without question.
Was I attracted?
No doubt.
Did I do something about it?
For one of the first times in my life, I did.
I could blame my brother, but he wasn’t there. The thing is that I’d spent the entire flight from Washington to Indiana thinking about my brother’s wedding. I was and am happy for him. My sister-in-law, Kimbra, is a great lady. I’d gotten to know her before my job moved me across the country. It’s just that there is this brotherly competition.
It started innocently enough when as kids we wrestled for the controller to our favorite game or the remote to the television. He was always good at football, so I excelled in wrestling. He made good grades. I made better.
I can’t blame our parents. They didn’t pick favorites or make either of us feel less than the other. It’s simply part of brothers’ DNA, an inherent need to one-up the other.
One place I always fell short was on the dating front. I’m not saying I’m not as good-looking. Hell, I know that isn’t true. I’m way better looking than him!
Okay, granted, attractiveness is subjective.
If I were to truly analyze it, I believe deep down it’s a confidence thing. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t go to his wedding stag. I had everything all planned out—that’s what I do. As a matter of fact, it was Eric’s fiancée, Cynthia, who joined me as my pretend date.
And yet when I walked onto that bar’s patio that night in Indianapolis, Indiana, I regretted all my planning. There on the patio of the piano bar was a vision. With long blonde hair and big blue eyes, she should have screamed untouchable to me. She’s the type of beauty that honestly scares the shit out of me, but she didn’t.
I don’t know why.
I didn’t question.
There was just something about her—an aura. Hell, I don’t know. I just know that throwing caution to the wind, I approached her. We spoke.
It’s not like I’m the guy on the TV show with the smart friends who becomes mute around women. I can talk. It’s that when it’s not about work or a project, the conversation feels forced. Nothing about communicating with this woman was forced.
We talked and drank.
It was later that night when we were coerced into partaking in celebratory shots inside the bar that things got out of hand.
I’ll never forget her standing there, laughing. She was wearing this blue dress that hugged all the right places and heels that accentuated her shapely legs. She was laughing, and then all at once, her expression changed and well, the shots didn’t stay down.
Yes, that’s not an attractive scene, but what followed was better.
She was so embarrassed by what she’d done that she made us flee the scene.
Not leave through the door. No...that would have been too easy. She looked at the mess, looked at me, and yelled, “Run!”
We ran.
Scaled a fence, wandered through a parking garage, and finally snuck through tunnels.
It was the most fun I’d had in years.
It was as if instead of an engineer who planned everything in his life, I was spontaneous and free. She did that to me. With her hand in mine, I was someone else. Helping her escape while keeping her safe were my only thoughts.
From that moment on, I wanted her, all of her, but that night she wasn’t exactly in a position to consent to more than my assistance. It wasn’t that she fought me off, but then again, she wasn’t coming on to me either. She isn’t that type of woman. Her purse and room key were MIA after our little excursion. The hotel refused to provide another key without identification. Taking her to my room was all I could think to do. Once there, she fell sound asleep. Like Sleeping Beauty from the fairy tale, it wasn’t until morning when I kissed her forehead that she finally awoke.
I’m a thirty-three-year-old man who admittedly still has fantasies. Perhaps with the time I travel and read, you’d think I’d have daydreams—and night dreams—about a model or an actress, maybe my high school sweetheart or college crush.
No.
Shana Price, the beauty who made me feel alive, who woke a part of my soul I didn’t know existed, who was within my grasp only to disappear...
She’s the recurring star in my imagination.
She’s the one who got away.
Even though we never did more than sleep—yes, the slumber type—kiss, and perhaps a bit of heavy petting, in my mind as I recall our short secret time, I imagine more. I’ve pictured her face on the pillow beside mine. I’ve imagined that kiss I gave her leading to more as I stand facing the shower wall, hot water streaming down and relief at hand.
It wasn’t only our careers and distance that deterred a relationship but also our connection. She’s my sister-in-law’s best friend, her after-college roommate. Shana and I agreed not to tell Kimbra or Duncan about our secret time together.
Now sometimes I wonder if it really happened.
If it was real.
Did she exist or is she an unobtainable aspiration that will forever remain in my thoughts but never again in my grasp?
I reason that she’s real because after that night, we spoke a few times on the phone.
Each time was harder than the last—yes, pun intended. The distance and inability to see her face-to-face became too much. With me on the West Coast and her in London, the time difference made even communication difficult. Finally, the calls ceased.
I thought to ask Max if he knew Shana since he lives in London, but what would be the chances? London is immense. An investment banker who’s interested in men would have little reason to know or meet a Saks Fifth Avenue lead buyer for the junior line.
“Saks?” I say, looking back at my friends. Obviously, their conversation has moved on while I’ve been reminiscing.
“What?” Eric asks.
“Did you say this is a Saks Fifth Avenue fashion show?”
“Yeah.” Matt’s eyebrows waggle. “Lingerie line.”
“Right.” Lingerie. Perfect for a bachelor party but not for seeing the woman I want. Shana Price oversees Saks’s junior line. Right now, she’s most likely in London dressing teenagers and deciding on next year’s best prom dresses.