Close But No Cigar, Part Two

What were the odds? A million to one; ten million to one? What were the odds that the one girl I slept with out of eight dorm floors of girls, out of five separate orientations, out of the other 30,000 girls at Ohio State, and out of all the other variables beyond my comprehension; that one girl was my girlfriend’s roommate?

“Honey, I’d like for you to meet my roommate…Allison,” said the lamb to the wolf. For that split second of eternity, my mind was totally blank. Total shock had seized up every neuron. But Allison, oh, sweet Allison, saved the day. She simply stuck out her hand and said, “Hi, nice to meet you.” We shook hands, and suddenly all the panic drained from my being.

Allison wasn’t going to say shit. We instantly, silently, agreed to all terms necessary to avoid mutually assured destruction. She was going to have to live with Gina for the next nine months. I didn’t want my life to be hell for the next nine months. It was done. And it was never spoken of again.

You think I would have learned my lesson. And I probably might have if it weren’t for a particularly cute waitress at Stouffer’s. I had taken a terrible job as the breakfast chef at a swanky north side hotel restaurant in the middle of the summer after my freshman year at Ohio State. I was broke and needed money to pay for school and a new apartment I had just rented. I could work at Stouffer’s very early in the morning and still be in class by 10 or 11 am once school started again.

Paige was this little twenty-something knock-out that worked as a breakfast and lunch waitress. I had only been there a few days when I heard from the bakery chef that Paige had been asking about me. All I said to the bakery chef was, “Really? Because she’s hot.”

Word travelled fast because the next morning; I was knee-deep in innuendo. Paige cornered me in the walk-in cooler as I was carrying out a huge piece of prime rib to prepare for the lunch menu. She said, “If you ever need a hand with your piece of meat, be sure to let me know.” As Mr. Smooth, I gulped and replied, “Uh…OK.” Oh yeah, that’ll impress the ladies.

After a week or so, I asked Paige out. We started seeing each other a couple of nights a week. We spent most of our time at her parents’ house because they were always gone. She said they had retired and travelled all the time. Fine with me, I didn’t have to clean up the mess.

Over the summer, Gina stayed with her mom and new stepfather in Cleveland since her mom had moved there after she got remarried. We didn’t see each other much and, when we did; Gina was mostly pissed off because I wouldn’t drive to Cleveland every five minutes to see her.

When school started, Gina moved back into her scholarship house, with Allison, which was on campus. By then, I had my own apartment which was north of town, and was already working at Stouffer’s…and messing around with Paige. Who, thankfully, lived even farther north of town and didn’t go to school at Ohio State. Divide and conquer was the name of the game, baby.

Since Gina was back, we started to get along better. And since we were getting along better, Paige was slowly but surely getting placed on the back burner. There were a few tense conversations between us at work as she was starting to realize that I was not that interested in her any longer. Paige was not happy about it but, at least, she was civil with me at work.

Everything seemed to be working out. Gina and I were getting along great, and Paige was slowly fading into the sunset. Then the funniest thing happened. Gina decided to get a job, totally out of the blue. She told me one night when we were studying together. “Honey, remember a few months ago when you told me how much money the servers at Stouffer’s made?” she started. “Sure” I replied half paying attention. “Well, I thought about it and went there to talk to the HR person today,” she continued as my heart started racing, “They want me to start tomorrow! Isn’t that great? We’ll get to work together!” Fuck.

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode.