#3. Patrick and Susan

#3. Patrick and Susan

Patrick had wondered what Susan would look like outside of work. He’d had no idea whether she would dress goth or slutty or not much different than at work, or whether she wore more makeup or less or whether she did her hair differently or whether she wore high heels or boots or whatever. Now he knew: tank-top, jeans and flip-flops. As usual, she wore hardly any makeup; she didn’t need it.

Someone flagged her down and she approached the table. “Susan!” Derek shouted at her. “Drink with me!”

She opened her mouth and looked down at all the eyes that were on her. Some lusted, others judged, others were friendly. Patrick’s sank into his empty shot glass.

“Um, okay,” she replied, shrugging.

Derek came around to the middle of the table, took the two remaining glasses and handed one to her. “One, two, three, blow,” he said, and put out his flame a second before Susan caught on.

“Salud,” he said, and tipped his head back.

Susan drank about half, then looked as if she were struggling to appear pleased with the taste. “Mmmm,” she said. “But I’m more of a margarita girl.”

“Suit yourself,” Derek said. He took the glass from her hand, smiled big, and gulped her half-shot. “But remember this: drunkenness is the road to awe.”

“I need to pee,” Helen said to no one in particular, and left her chair for the bathroom.

Susan frowned at Derek and looked questioningly around the table. “Is there any place to sit?”

“We’ll ask the waiter for another chair.”

“There’s a free one.”

“Oh, um,” Patrick piped in. “Helen was sitting here. I don’t know –”

“Have a seat,” Derek said. “We’ll fetch her another chair.”

Susan pulled out the chair next to Patrick. He looked up at her. She was tall – really tall, like a supermodel. Almost as tall as he was, at six-two. “Hi,” she said, and her green eyes sparkled.

Patrick cleared his throat. “Hey.”

So it was they sat together that night, through the drinks and the appetizers and more drinks. Neither one of them spoke much. Susan was new and didn’t know anybody, and Patrick never really talked to his coworkers much anyway.

“Susan, how’d you get to be so beautiful?” Derek asked her at one point, out of the blue.

“Genes,” she replied, and looked at Patrick with a crooked smile. He laughed.

“Oh . . . oh, she’s a quick, quick wit,” Derek said. “So quick. There’s the quick and the dead, so I guess that leaves me dead, but what a way to die! No, a better question. I do have better questions. Like who are you, for instance? We all have an identity, a personage, if you would, or will, and yours is a lovely personage. Where does your personage come from, m’lady?”

“From Cincinnati.”

“Cincy, great. Lovely town. I hear. I don’t really know, but you’re from there, so that’s good. What brought you here?”

“College. A lot of my friends stayed around here, so I did too. But then they all got married and left.”

“Haven’t found your shining knight in armor yet, then.”

Susan shrugged, and looked down into her margarita glass as she swirled its contents with her straw. “I uh . . . I’m seeing somebody now, so, maybe.”

“Oh god, it hurts so bad,” Derek said, suddenly clutching his chest. “Did you . . . yes, you poisoned the tip, didn’t you? Naughty. Awfully rude.”

Susan laughed, and shook her head over her glass. Then she pointed to Patrick’s hand. “How long?”

“Hm?” Patrick said, as though he hadn’t been listening intently to everything she said. She lifted her hand to jab her finger down and his eyes followed the gesture. “Oh,” he replied, fingering the ring. “Almost two years.”

“What’s her name?”

“April.”

Susan nodded. “I like it.”

“What, the ring or the name?”

She smiled. “Both, I guess. Is it white gold?”

“Silver.”

She nodded again. “Where is she?”

“At work. She’s a waitress at the Corner Stop.”

“Does she like it?”

Patrick tossed his head. “Um . . . no.” He chuckled. “No, she couldn’t hate it more.”

“Oh,” she replied, sincere pity on her face.

They listened to other conversations for awhile before Patrick asked, “So how did you ending up Fopping?”

“What-ing?”

“F-O-P.”

She smiled. “Oh, yeah. I guess I thought I’d be pretty good at convincing people to give to a good cause.”

“What made you think that? What was your major?”

“Chemistry.”

Patrick laughed. “Makes perfect sense.”

“Sure it does,” Susan said, then looked away in thought for a moment. “Only the right combination of elements can make a compound. I’m just good at figuring out what element people are and being what I need to be to make the bond.” She turned her palm upward. “Chemistry.”

Patrick smiled into her beautiful eyes.