Unfortunately, the second person to arrive had been Mr. Fallon, who I considered the Australian version of Darth Vader. Well, he hadn’t technically arrived. He’d strolled through the lobby in a sweaty, tight, black workout shirt and dark gray workout shorts, both of which looked like wrapping paper around his gorgeous body.
He didn’t notice me, of course. He never noticed me. And you know what? I was really okay with that. Elias Fallon only noticed people right before he eviscerated them. So, no thank you. No me gusta. Nein. Nah. Nope.
I’d stepped behind a large fake bush while he passed, his dreamy yet eternally distant and dismissive brown eyes fastened to his watch. It was one of those watches I refused to buy, the ones that knew more about you than you knew about yourself—sleeping habits, social media stats, calories ingested, burned, steps taken, hopes, wishes, dreams, sex positions attempted. I didn’t wish to be watched, especially not by my . . . watch.
But back to me talking to myself.
Later, after the team building breakfast and the ropes course, as I was on my way back to my room for a quick shower, I’d discovered a ten-dollar bill in the front pocket of my pants while fishing for my key card.
!
!!
TEN DOLLARS?!
HUZZAH!!
There’s not much that gets me as excited as found money, therefore the words spilled out, “Ten dollars?! Holy shirt, this is great. This is the best day ever. I am officially having the best day ever. Mark it down, Audrey. Take a note. Let the record sh—”
The sound of approaching steps ended my excited monologue and I glanced over my shoulder, finding none other than Mr. Elias Fallon striding down the hall. This time in a suit instead of workout clothes, but again in shades of black and gray, befitting his monochromatic soul. Stuck in startled mode, my eyes moved over him. He was a tall man, lean but solidly built, his hair thick and jet black. And yet, he wasn’t classically handsome. At all. Definitely not pretty.
Rather, his face was interesting. Every time I looked at it, I discovered something new. For example, the two halves were not symmetrical. His pronounced jaw was crooked, like he’d slid his bottom teeth slightly to the side and they were stuck there. Or maybe it just looked that way because his full lips slanted down on the left more than on the right, giving the impression he was either perpetually grimacing or twisting them in wry disapproval. He also had several dark freckles on his left cheek, scattered like a constellation beneath his eye, and at least one, albeit small, brown mole on his upper lip. On anyone else I might’ve called it a beauty mark.
But I found his eyes the most interesting, he was the only person I’d encountered who could convey an encyclopedia of unspoken words with barely a look. Usually, it was disdain or impatience, but the magnitude of it—with no shift in his features but a slight flicker of his stern eyebrows, a narrowing of his eyelids—registered on the Richter scale. When he was pissed, the earth shook. Or so it had felt that way to me over the last year as I’d observed the man.
And right now, he’s looking at you, Audrey.
The realization had me coming to myself and I hurriedly whipped my head back to my door, fumbling as I shoved the key card into the lock apparatus and gulped a measure of air. The LED light on the device turned from red to green, making a telltale eeer-eek-err noise as it unlocked. Pushing the door open, I darted inside and closed it behind me, pressing my back against it as I strained my ears over the sound of my racing heart, waiting for his steps to pass.
Why I’d done this, I had no idea. But I always did. The few times we’d crossed paths back at corporate outside of scheduled meetings, in a hallway or on an elevator, I would always, always turn and speed-walk away.
Instinct maybe? Perhaps some part of me recognized or detected something in him that warned me to steer clear, a subconscious undercurrent wresting this inane, immediate reaction. Or maybe a pheromone? Maybe it was an ingrained, biological process making my mouth dry and my chest seize, and a shock travel up my spine at the mere sight of him.
Preservation instinct . . .
“Why do you do anything? Mystery for the ages,” I mumbled at the memory of hiding in my room earlier this afternoon. Presently, I whispered my lament to the water sketch on the bar, which resembled a crescent moon more than a surfboard. So, I guess I was talking to the moon.
My curriculum vitae said I was a content expert in my field, an impressive human who was extremely competent at her job. I should’ve been more self-assured in social situations, and I’d honestly been trying. But how does one improve at prosaic greetings and idle chitchat? How was that accomplished? I couldn’t practice. If you suck a chitchat, no one wants to talk to you.
“Tell me, Mr. Moon. Tell me how to excel at small talk. I sincerely wish to know.” Unless people were discussing a subject where I was an actual content expert—like fluid mechanics for example, or the process of harvesting honey from bee boxes, or maybe Nick at Nite TV shows from the early 1990s—my skills were the equivalent of steaming dog poo on the pavement of life.
I stank. And made things weird. Which is what had happened earlier in the evening at the corporate “mixer.”
One of my contemporaries from the marketing team had asked me if I liked to travel and I’d made the mistake of being honest. “Not usually. The TSA always wants to touch my hair and my right boob. Never the left, always the right. There’s something about it that sets off the wave scanner. Maybe I should get a mammogram.”
. . . Crickets.
After a few minutes of conversation misfires, I’d faded to the periphery of the discussion, the topic being how much everyone else loved to travel and all the fantastic, unusual, adventurous destinations they’d visited. When the woman to my right mentioned that she loved to climb mountains and documented her adventures on Instagram to the extent that now she was an Instagram Influencer with over fifty thousand followers, all I could think about was altitude sickness, thigh chafing, and the horror of having fifty thousand people reviewing my vacation photos.
Another thirty minutes passed, me sitting quietly as harsh reality set in: I had nothing in common with these people. They were all interesting and fascinating, turning small talk into something bigger, insightful, and at times humorous, living their interesting and fascinating lives. Meanwhile, here I was contemplating thigh chafing.
Listening awkwardly and not contributing, I excused myself when my glass of wine ran out and went in search of another drink. That’s when I discovered the lodge had limited us to one drink per person, and that’s when I asked the kid refusing to serve me another where I could find a bar nearby that would serve me drinks.
He recommended Genie’s Country Western Bar ten minutes up the road. Here I sat, talking to the water-moon on the bar about my dearth of surfing ability.
“I’ll never learn to surf. I’ll never climb mountains. Do I want chafed thighs? I don’t even know. I’ll just continue to be boring in every possible way except my left-handedness. That’s the only thing interesting about me—my inability to use scissors and can openers.” And that was about as interesting as listening to my nana talk about her collection of Epsom salts.
“What’ll you have?” Patty the bartender’s voice asked someone from somewhere close behind me.
I eyed my empty glass and heaved a sigh. Pushing up from my slouched position on the bar, I decided I should catch Patty after she took the mystery person’s order. I would have one more drink. Just one more something before returning to the Donner Lodge.