Page 23 of The Boardroom: Kirk
Chapter 14-Kirk
I picked a rom-com. I wanted to see a documentary, but I wanted to choose whatever Marissa was most likely to enjoy the most. I’m sitting on a bench outside of the movie theater, wiping my sweaty hands on the underside of my pants. I’m so nervous I could scream.
I suddenly see Marissa walking towards me from the end of the street, and suddenly all my fears fade away. I’m almost shocked, as if somewhere deep down I couldn’t quite believe she would show up.
“Hi,” Marissa says, and wraps me in a hug. I’m lost for words. She’s wearing a light pink dress with matching heels, and she looks unbelievably stunning. She’s wrapped herself in a knitted white cardigan, and her deep brown locks are tumbling romantically over her shoulders. She looked like the kind of girl who was starring in her own movie, but would never know it herself.
“So, um…” I say, motioning towards the theater. “Do you want to go in? I’ve got the tickets, and then I was thinking we could go to the Thai place next door for a bite to eat after, if you like…and if you—”
“That sounds wonderful,” Marissa says, and takes my hand as we walk through the door. I feel my heart leap up in my chest, and I never want her to let go.
Is it early for hand holding? By normal standards, yes, probably, but we know each other well—and we’ve liked each other nearly just as long.
We sit next to each other near the middle of the theater, me on the left and Marissa on the right, just like in Biology. It feels familiar again somehow, and my nerves start to fade away.
The trailers play and I watch the emotions play across Marissa’s face with each one…she shows concern during the dramas, she sighs at the leading men, she beams at the comedies…she is so lovely and so human in all she does that I can barely breathe.
The movie starts, and it’s cliché, and trite, and we both know it. Marissa knows it, but she lets herself fall in love with the characters in the story anyway, because she’s that kind of person…she laughs and swoons along with them. I start wondering if I should hold her hand, or try to put my arm around her, but she’s already done it for me…halfway through the film she nestles herself into my chest, sighing with contentment, and I’m terrified she’ll hear my heart beating with frantic excitement in her ear.
The movie comes to its predictable conclusion, something melodramatic involving a kiss in the rain and rose petals scattered on a hardwood floor. It’s nothing like real life, and everyone in the theater is eating it right up.
Marissa smiles up at me, and we share the same thought:
This. This is better.
I don’t think anybody walks out of high school without a bit of smug satisfaction at the fact that there are a few people that they’ll never be forced to be in the same room with again.
Ella Lawrence was at the top of that list. But then again, here we were.
It’s an obnoxiously hip bar, the rare place that makes me feel like I’m too old to be there. It’s filled with hipsters and shots that glow in neon colors under the lights. It’s exactly the kind of place, I think with a hint of annoyance, that Ella would chose. It was the kind of bar people over twenty-five only enter if they are desperately trying to prove to someone else that they are up with the times. Ella had always put her reputation first, and must be trying to impress Marissa. This bar was exactly the kind of place that a Buffalo native visiting Seattle for the first time would pick to try and impress her friend who lived there.
“Why are we meeting Ella here again?” I ask, as Marissa ducks behind a man with a long red beard. “I mean…it’s a little early for me to be meeting your friends, isn’t it?”
Marissa laughed, as if she had completely forgotten Ella’s role in our past. “Don’t be silly, you remember Ella at least a little bit, right? It’ll be like a big high school reunion.”
“OrCarrie.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
After a few minutes we see Ella walk in, teetering on hot pink heels that look too tight for her feet. Her hair is dyed bleach blonde and her face is caked with makeup, so much so that she probably would look younger without it. Her dress is a striking shade of bright red, one that Marissa could pull off like a model but that washes Ella out completely. Overall, she gives the impression of trying way too hard for her own good. I suppose it’s true what they say, that some people really do peak in high school. I just didn’t think I’d ever see one of them up so close.
“Marissa!” Ella practically shrieks, wrapping her up in a hug once she finds our table. I stand off to the side awkwardly, waiting to be introduced. Or, reintroduced, I should say.
“You lookamazing,” Ella gushes, looking her up and down. “Marissa Hayes, living in the big city. We should have known you’d be working for someone like Johnathan Torver one day, what with all that time you spent studying while the rest of us partied. Damn! Look at you!”
Marissa smiled politely. “Thanks, Ella,” she bit her lip. “You look great too.”
What a liar.
Marissa suddenly remembered that I was behind her. “Oh, Ella, you remember Kirk Atkins, right? From Buffalo? He’s a lawyer at Torver, we work together.”
“Oh, yes,” Ella says, studying me carefully. “Who could forget. You two were the talk of the town for a while.”
It’s the perfect opportunity for Marissa to casually bring up the fact that, oh yeah, we’redating, but instead she buries her face in the menu, studying the wine list.
“So, what do you do now?” I ask Ella, and she looks up at me as if I’ve just randomly asked her what kind of toothbrush she uses instead of the basic question most people use these days to open conversations.
