“Katie, I love it.” The dress was a work of art, hand-beaded silver sparkles over dove grey silk, elegantly sleeveless, a low cut V in front and an even lower scooped back. “When did you wear it, I don’t remember this at all.”

“Bought it for a reunion, about a year ago,” Katie answered while rooting around in her closet for shoes. “One of those moments when you’re willing to spend way too much just to impress people you don’t know.” She sat back on her heels, with a pleased little “mission accomplished” look and a pair of silver sling-backs in her hands. Looking up at me and tilting her head appraisingly, she added “it looks better on you, actually. You fill it out better. Needs these though,” holding the shoes out to me.

Happiness is a best friend who wears your shoe size, and doesn’t mind sharing. I slipped them on and did a turn in front of the mirror, snapping my hips to make the ridiculously high split up the back of the skirt flare open. “Are you sure it’s not too…” sexy? flashy? revealing? I settling for “much? I mean, Ander’s is throwing the party….shouldn’t we be trying for professional here?”

“It’s a perfectly classy looking dress, quit fussing. They’re the ones who decided on the dress code. With all the men in tuxes, we can hardly show up in business suits.”

I didn’t need my arm twisted all that much, it really was a beautiful dress. I pulled my hair into a bunch, twisted it up onto my head to expose the back of my neck, let pieces tumble down to draw attention to my face….and laughed as I shook it all lose again. I was looking forward to tonight. Big room, big crowd, lots of people who weren’t Jason Innis. People I could actually be around without my mind liquidizing. People who didn’t always seem to be looking at me quizzically with spine melting half smiles.

Karn and Stemper had just won a prestigious industry award for the Ander’s Travel campaign, specifically for the latest instalment where our young lovers got engaged on a gondola in Venice. Ander’s was throwing a party to celebrate the award, and to kick off the new phase of the campaign. Kim and Brian were coming to life. Ander’s was moving them into television ads, and out of my hands. Jason and I were being kept on as consultants, but we were being put back onto developing new projects first thing Monday morning. Separate projects. I was on my way back to being a normal, functioning person.

Ander’s themed the kickoff as a black tie wedding reception, sent out clever invitations and everything. When I reached the ballroom, I saw the scene I’d fantasized about years ago when planning my own wedding…the one that no sensible person could afford. It turns out large companies aren’t anything like sensible people. The room was decorated in white with gold accents, flowers everywhere, big band music from actual musicians near a dance floor that extended out onto the balcony, and more champagne than I’d ever seen in one room before in my life.

Katie was standing across the room with her husband and some Ander’s execs I half recognized. She subtly waved me over towards the bar with the gesture that meant “I want someone over there I can notice and need to speak to.” I smiled a “message received” look at her, and decided to take the scenic route across the room to give her time to wrap up her conversation. OK, I’ll admit…I was having fun with the dress. It was turning a few heads, and I could feel sudden blasts of cool air across the backs of my thighs whenever I took a step… I couldn’t help exaggerating my natural sway just to feel it. Tonight was supposed to be all about relaxing and enjoying myself, right? Well, I was enjoying this.

I took a seat at the bar and asked for a glass of champagne. I collected both it and an appreciative, ego-boosting look from the bartender, and turned around for some quality people watching. I should’ve known. I turn, my mouth half full, to find Jason standing right there. A little too close actually, as if I caught him in the act of leaning in to tap me on the shoulder. My lovely champagne went down the wrong pipe, and I started choking and coughing before he’d even said hello.

“Are you ok?” Well, at least he wasn’t laughing. But when he stepped beside me, put an arm around me to help hold me up, I was in real trouble. A quick inhale of shock in the middle of a cough started me gasping. Jason, ever the gentleman, tried to catch my eyes, get some reassurance that I am really ok under all the noise and spectacle. He stroked my shoulder blades slowly, in a way I’m sure would’ve calmed anyone in the room but me. His touch on my skin was electric despite my gut churning embarrassment at my lack of control. Trying to catch my breath, I leant forward over my knees, but it didn’t help and I started to think that hyperventilation really wouldn’t be so bad as long as I could pass out at the end…when Katie finally came to my rescue. Jason stepped away as she knelt down in front of me, held my gaze and calmed me down enough to breath normally. Mostly.

“Better now?” she asked.

“Hic.” I replied.

“Excuse me?” she asked through a bit of a giggle.

“Hic” I repeated, then tried to explain, “I’ve Hic got the Hic hiccups.”

“Oh poor thing…” she said….the only person in the swiftly dispersing crowd to understand just how mortifying I was finding this. She offered me a glass of water that appeared from nowhere. An in-depth conversation started up among the remaining bystanders about the best way to cure hiccups, none of which I cared to try in a designer gown. Through it all, I kept catching glances of Jason on the fringes of the crowd, looking concerned and unforgivably sexy in his tux. And my hiccups redoubled every time I saw him.

“I think…Hic….fresh air” I manage to get out. My best friend and her husband walk me out onto the balcony, as we pass Jason I hear Katie telling him to find her before he leaves tonight. To me she says, “I know I signalled you to get me out of that conversation, Hon….but I didn’t mean for you to go to all this trouble.”


Much fresh air, a couple of drinks that I actually managed not to inhale, and a turn around the dance floor with Josh managed to repair my mood and rescue my evening. I started to enjoy myself again, dancing with men I’d never met before, catching up with people from the office, remembering the joys of casual flirting. Hours later I was starting to run down. And where there hell was Katie? I hadn’t seen her in the last half hour or so. It should’ve been tough to completely lose her red dress in the crowd of the season’s black and white fashions. I decided she and Josh had probably snuck off to find a secluded corner of the hotel, and good luck to them. But they were my ride home, and the party was breaking up.

I went back to the bar for another drink. As I put my glass back down on the counter I heard “OK, I’m working very hard on not sneaking up on you this time.” Jason Innis. Deep breath, and turned around with a smile. After all, we’ve been working closely for months. It’s only right to say an actual congratulations and good bye. Even if I know that he’s going to be staring in my dreams for the foreseeable future. “I’m sorry about earlier,” I say….pleased for once with my conversational gambit.

“Huh?” says Jason. Right, not such a good start after all.

“The whole coughing thing….”

“Oh. No. Don’t worry about that. Not your fault, I spooked you.” He paused and smiled a new smile, one I didn’t know…and I thought I knew them all. “I seem to do that a lot.”

I shook my head, “I’m just jumpy. It wasn’t you.” How can any one person have so many different smiles. “So. Is this the part where you tell me you’ve got another great love story to tell….but this time we’re advertising bicycle pumps?” See? This is what I mean, blithering idiot. Never fails. But at least it earned me a smile I recognized. God, I was going to miss that smile.

“No. That comes later, and it’s bran flakes not bicycle pumps. This is the part where I deliver a message. Katie caught me an hour ago, said they had to get home to their babysitter, and she didn’t want to interrupt your evening. She asked me if I could run you home. She said to tell you to call her in the morning if you wanted a personal apology with coffee for ditching you. So, message delivered and ride offered.”

“I. Oh. OK. Sure.” Blithering. Again. I was going to kill Katie. “Thanks. I was about to start searching for them. I’m ready to go whenever you are.” And I was, as always, wet and ready when Jason was within arm’s reach. A quick zip and a bit of a shimmy and I could be out of this dress. One step forward and I could be in his arms, finding a way through all the buttons and clasps that kept me from the body I craved.

“Shall we?” Oh god yes please….wait, wrong question….that’s not what he meant.

“Sure, just let me get my wrap.” I stood and discovered that my heels were suddenly much much higher than they were 5 minutes ago. At least, they felt like it. It couldn’t just be that my knees were shaky, and I really didn’t think I’d had quite that much to drink. I was walking fine before. And then I was all awash with images of me swooning into Jason’s arms, him holding me up, gazing into my eyes, unable to stop himself from kissing me…cause who could resist with that Hollywood soundtrack rising in the background. OK, that was a step too much. I shake off the imagery and concentrate on getting one foot in front of the other.

I got 5 or 6 good steps in before stumbling at Jason’s “Right behind you.” But you have to give me credit, I recovered, scrounged up a spine from somewhere…and made it all the way to the door without looking back.