Charming, but single

At some point during the day on Friday, I had decided that I was to look devastatingly hot that night when I joined friends for cocktails at a cigar bar. Devastatingly hot meant moisturizing, deep conditioning, plucking, exfoliating, polishing, moussing, straightening, brushing, combing, shadowing, concealing, powdering, smoothing, spraying and glossing entire sections of my body and being into a frenzy, boosting my bosoms with a cleavage enhancing bra and topping it all off with a black dress and three-inch heels, accessorized with dangling earrings and my new pink clutch from Latico NJ. This all took considerably longer than I’d hoped and left me craving a soft Henley and my sweatpants. But dressed to kill, I ran on my tippy toes to my friend Single Girl’s car as the wind whipped around my smooth legs, which were feeling excessively bare in the crisp October evening air. “Damn. You look hot. I just wore jeans,” Single Girl said. “You look great,” I said. “But I had to look fantastic tonight. I decided earlier today that because The Blackberry didn’t call, I was going to remind him of what he missed out on by ignoring that there was a process.” I checked my lips in my compact and smiled at my reflection. I was going to melt his smug face right off. “How do you know he’s going to be there?” she asked. “He will be there. He is always there.” “And so your plan is to …” “Look hot and see what happens,” I said. “So far, I can tell you that he isn’t my type and that I’m not going to go home with him.” “Uh-huh.” I don’t know why I was so intensely focused on this. Maybe I was a touch hurt that after weeks of bad flirting, I’d given him my number, sure that he would call. And his ego was too bruised from me rejecting him to call me. Which, in turn, bruised my ego because a man I didn’t really feel a great chemistry with had rejected me. It is the calculus of attraction. I didn’t make it up; I am just powerless to its equation. We entered in the back of the bar, past the band and I saw several men glance in our direction. The bar was running a bit slim on guys our age, and we passed through the loud back room and into the hall that would lead us into the area that is more of a smoking lounge. As I shuffled along the brick-paved hall, trying not to tip forward in my uncomfortably tall heels, The Blackberry breezed through. As he passed me, he looked me up and down and stammered, “Well, hello.” I nodded, tucked my clutch under my arm and walked by, channeling my inner catwalk queen. Single Girl was aghast. “That was him?” “I told you he wasn’t my type. Also, he’s in a Clark Kent turning into Superman costume. He doesn’t wear glasses.” We milled around the back bar waiting for drinks. Single Girl ordered Crown and Coke and I frustrated the bartender by ordering a wine that they didn’t have behind the bar. Single Girl sipped her drink and started a tab while I waited, quite impatiently, for my wine. No more than two minutes passed and The Blackberry whizzed back into the room, honed in on me, his target, and was at my side. “So, what’s going on? And will you be my Lois Lane?” “I think they couldn’t find my wine,” I said, ignoring his second question as I motioned to the bartender, who was uncorking the bottle and pouring me a generous glass. I introduced him to Single Girl. He shook her hand and then took mine and kissed it. “Hey!” he called to the bartender. “She drinks on me. And her too.” The bartender nodded and slid a very full glass of wine to me. “She’ll take care of you. She’s an ex-girlfriend of mine,” he said, sliding his hand into the small of my back. I tensed up and pulled my body from him as his fingertips grazed the soft fabric of my thin black dress and I turned to him to smile. He leaned in for a kiss and I turned my perfectly blushed cheek, thanked him for the wine and focused my attention back to Single Girl as he moved on to his next target. He was barely two steps away when Single Girl leaned into the bartender and said, “Transfer my drink to his tab.” And she slipped her credit card back into her purse. “[Single Girl]!” I gasped with mock horror. “Oh please,” she said, rolling her eyes and pausing for a sip of Crown. “If he thinks showing off and buying our drinks is going to woo you, then I say that tonight the drinks are on him.”