Hot, Colored Tongues

There was cleavage all around me. Flesh jiggled from necklines as low as my belt, and ample mounds were practically bursting out of tight blouses. Blinking lights flirted with the full amount of exposed skin on the dance floor, their neon beams sliding down various shades of flesh like hot colored tongues.

I smiled at the metaphor. Hot colored tongues? That is not an image that normally flashes through the mind of a mother of three. But then again, I reminded myself, I was not a mother of three that night. That night, I would simply be an old roommate from the frenzied days of passion and ardor.

I sat sipping my Four Seasons at a tiny table in the corner—intentionally away from the blasted amplifiers screaming some repulsive techno beat—and squinted into the darkness for signs of um, what exactly was I expecting? An elegant woman in business suit, toting a briefcase in one hand and a cellphone in the other? After all, she had mentioned during that brief phone conversation that she would be coming from a business meeting.

“Oh God, I have a deal to close tonight. I wish I can tell you the details, but everything’s so hushed up. Hey wait, damn, my team’s here. I can’t talk. Meet me tonight at that bar in Midtown …oh deng, what’s its name again? Oh yeah, Flushed or something. I’ll see you there. Kiss Eric for me, will you? Bye, Luv…muah, muah, muah.”

And she was gone, flitting into the wind like the bubbles my 2-year-old is fond of blowing from a plastic makeshift ring. Ten years of silence, and suddenly this. A harried call one typical afternoon of cooking meals and hanging the wash. I had no idea she even knew my number. Soon after the wedding, there was a fury of e-mail exchanges, but even that soon became a task. There were more important things to take care of—the first pregnancy, the big move to the suburbs, and infinite others. I was too busy being a wife and a mother. While she, well, she was too busy living her dream.