Aphrodite Bites - cont

February of Last Year

A few small crowds were milling about inside the hotel’s small ballroom after the lecture let out. Mary was talking with her mother and the wife of David Vega the guest speaker of tonight’s lecture topic and the local hero of conservative talk radio in Houston Texas. “So what have you been doing since I last saw you Mary?” asked Karen Vega. “Well,” said Mary haltingly, “I got laid off in November, broke up with my boyfriend and moved back to Texas from Utah and now, I’ve taken up a cooking class in addition to working for my dad” - A nervous laugh punctuating her explanation.

It had been four months since Mary moved back in with her parents and younger siblings and it felt embarrassing to her to admit, especially to Karen Vega, that she was a life failure at 27 years old. Karen and Mary’s Mom, Cheryl, had known each other for the last 8 years, as they attended the same church congregation. “We just love having her home, I hated having my baby so far away,” said Cheryl, “besides you kept telling me how much you hated your job anyway.” Mary glanced passed her mother’s right ear and noticed an extremely attractive dark haired man speaking to David Vega twenty feet away. Mary turned her attention back to the women, “I am glad to be home, I missed my family and I’m hoping that starting over will give me the opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do,” said Mary, “like, open a small boho eatery. Houston’s downtown is being revitalized and this is the time to do it.” Again, Mary glanced down at the dark haired man talking to David Vega. Mary’s focus was interrupted by Karen’s sudden question, “are you dating anyone right now?” Mary always had a short list a men she was going on dates with, but no one she was immediately interested in. “No one I’m seriously dating,” Mary said. Which was mostly true, because the one man she did talk to on a regular basis lived in Utah and they had only met the day before Mary moved home to Texas. Karen’s expression changed and she said, “Do you see that young man speaking to David?” Mary stated that she indeed had seen him and noticed that he was indeed, very attractive. “well that's Kirk Freeman, he has a great job, he’s an engineer for one of the big oil companies around here – David’s known him for years – Kirk went to school with our boys and he's still single.”

At the exact moment Karen said, “still single,” Karen began moving in the direction of her husband and Kirk saying, “you should go talk to him.” “No,” Mary said, “I don’t know him, I don’t have anything to say.” Karen just smiled and said, “that’s ok, I’ll walk over there and you can just come with me.” Karen, Cheryl and Mary moved toward David and Kirk. When the twenty feet between them had been covered, Mary said, “hello Mr. Vega,” smiled at Kirk and just kept walking, until she reached the door to the ballroom, exited and found a small water fountain in the lobby to extinguish her burned attempt at introductions.

At five feet and three inches, silky long brown hair and fair skin peppered with light freckles and large blue eyes, Mary could just about smile at any man and he would stop the world to start a conversation – about anything – and Mary was quite familiar with the routine, it got her free meals in restaurants, front row space at concerts and discounts in stores. Mary was typically a picture of cool when it came to men, never one to feel intimidated by the opposite sex – it was the opposite – Mary felt like she had some special gift of charm when it came to enchanting conversation. There is one time in the history of Mary’s world when she felt a complete loss for words around a male. It was high school and she had a crush on Brit Daley. Brit was tall, blonde, tan, a soccer guru and her dentist’s oldest son. Oh how she loved pretending she hated his guts, but she didn’t, however she sure made Brit feel like she did. Mary eventually grew up and forgot about Brit Daley, until she drank the cold water coming from the fountain.

Mary stood at the water fountain for another three or four seconds, when Kirk came out of the ballroom door, Mary stooped to take another drink as Kirk walked passed with quick steps toward the main entrance of the hotel. Mary waited until Kirk had left the immediate area before moving inside the ballroom to collect her mother and to say goodnight to Mr. and Mrs. Vegas. Why she had felt incompetent, was beyond her understanding, but unconcerned by this queer encounter Mary moved her thoughts onto her life goals. Step one: find investors for her business plans.

Aphrodite Bites -

And the story begins:

Hit and Run

Mary fumbled with the knobs on her car stereo as she drove down the deserted neighborhood street. It was only eight o’clock, but the sun had already been down an hour when Mary left the restaurant. She had felt exhausted as she climbed into the car, but now felt more alive as the refreshing October air flew in her open window. Houston summers were long and hot, but the fall was perfect – tonight’s temperature was a crisp 62 degrees –which was slightly cooler than the last week had been. The restaurant was the brainchild of Mary and Claire. Mary had gathered the capital from investors and ran the daily operations, but her younger sister Claire was the genius behind a majority of the items on the tasty menu. Since Mary could remember Claire was always in the kitchen making food. Even now, with four children running about the house, Claire made time to whip up a fresh batch of pesto – made straight from the garden that flourished in her back yard.

Mary, taking her eyes off the vacant street for about three seconds, peered up at the stars and thought to herself how peaceful the Universe felt tonight, “I love October” she sighed. Mary brought her focus back to the road, just in time to see a stop sign on the looming street corner and just in front of the car a human body. Forcing her right foot down on the break as hard and fast as her mind could reach her lower extremity was not quick enough to prevent what happened next. The human on the road realizing too late that the driver of the car had not seen him, had fortunately moved the majority of his body from a full impact of the vehicle, but was still thrown aggressively to the asphalt as the car came to a halt. Mary screamed and hurled herself out of the car.

“My arm, oh my arm” a man’s voice moaned has he lay uncomfortably on the ground clutching his shoulder. As Mary approached the man, her hands fell away from her face and she disbelievingly stuttered, “Ki - Kirk? I was, oh my gosh, are you ok?” Kirk pushed himself into a sitting position on the pavement, road debris was smeared onto his white t-shirt, blue jogging shorts and worn in Brooks, still clutching his shoulder, he took a deep breathe and replied in a relaxed voice, “I think it’s dislocated, I’m going to need to go to an urgent care, would you mind giving me a ride to my house Mary?” Mary held her hand out to steady Kirk while he stood up. Humiliated, Mary spoke, “I’m so sorry, I should have paid closer attention to the road, Kirk, I’m terribly embarrassed – let me drive you to the urgent care?” Kirk was suddenly annoyed at the inconvenience of being thrown off his jog and now having to deal with a dislocated shoulder, not knowing how long he’ll have to rest, “I appreciate it Mary, I’ll be fine, just a ride to my house please?” he replied calmly.

After apologizing again, several more times, and offering any help she could, Mary dropped Kirk off on his driveway and watched him disappear through the front door. It wasn’t until she backed down the driveway, and turned out of his cul-de-sac into the direction of Claire’s home again, that she burst out laughing at the irony of the situation. Kirk and Mary had an awkward history together, which began in February of last year, a month before going on their first date.