“Man, what was her name?”

Roy digs around in the back pockets of his pants because he’s sure the receipt she wrote her number on is in one of them. He’s certain these are the pants he was wearing that night. When they were getting off the boat that night she had pulled him aside and told him to call her some time. She pulled the receipt out of her purse, wrote her number on it and handed it to him. She hadn’t looked very happy at the time, but she had had a lot to drink so she was probably tired. He had a lot to drink too come to think of it.

“Carol? Casey? Candy? Ah hah!”

He finally feels a tiny slip of paper crumpled in a ball deep in his pocket. He pulls it out and reads the name and number she wrote down.

“Katy. That’s right.”

He grabs his cell phone and dials the number written in barely legible handwriting. He lets it ring five times and when her voice mail picks up he decides against leaving a message. He’ll just try again later.

He walks back into the living room and Pam is sitting curled up in the armchair reading a book. She looks up at him and smiles briefly and then goes back to her book. He sits on the couch and turns the television on with the remote and aimlessly jumps from channel to channel. His mind is focused on something other than the random images on the screen.

Her name was Katy. She was a cheerleader. He couldn’t really place her that night on the boat, but the next morning he knew exactly who she was. He remembers seeing her at a couple of football games he played in. He also remembers her showing up at the parties afterward. She was so hot in high school. She was still hot. Why she ever dated that guy Jim made no sense to him. She could be with anyone. She could be with him in fact. Obviously she was interested. Why else would she give him her number?

Pam sneezes suddenly and then looks at him as if waiting for something.

“What?” he says.

She sighs and says, “Nothing.”

She looks back to the book sitting in her lap and Roy shrugs and shakes his head. She’s mad at him again and he hasn’t a clue what he did. She always seems to be mad at him lately. You’d think she’d be a lot happier since he finally set a date for their wedding. She was really happy that night and the next day, but then she started asking him all kinds of wedding questions. How the hell did he know what kind of flowers or colors or cakes they should get? He told her to do whatever she wanted and said he honestly didn’t give a shit. Ever since then she’d been short with him. Sometimes he just didn’t get her.

Since she’s been pretty much giving him the silent treatment for two weeks he had let his mind wander elsewhere. He’s been thinking a lot about Kathy…no, Katy. Pam had mentioned earlier in the week that Jim and Katy had broken up. She had seemed overly happy about it for some reason, but he found that he was somewhat happy about it too so he didn’t make a big deal out of it.

He decided this morning that he would give Katy a call. They could just catch up on old times. He was sure they knew a lot of the same people from their high school days. He wasn’t going to tell Pam though. She had never been very popular in high school so she wouldn’t have much to add anyway.

His cell phone rings and he picks it up off the coffee table. He glances at the number on it and then looks at Pam and says, “Darryl.”

She barely looks up in acknowledgement at him and he walks back to the bedroom before answering.

“Hello?” he says.

“Hey, this is Katy. I saw this number on my Caller ID. Who’s this?”

“Uh…it’s Roy. We met a couple weeks ago. On the boat…”

“Hi, Roy!” she says in the perkiest voice he’s ever heard and he smiles.

“So, you remember me?” he says confidently.

“Of course I do! You were the best thing about that night on the boat. Everything else sucked,” she says losing some of her perkiness.

“Yeah, it was kind of a weird night. I barely remember most of it.”

She starts giggling and says, “Yeah, we may have had too many snorkel shots.”

“Yeah, totally too many,” he laughs.

There’s a pause in the conversation and he tries to think of something to say. He thinks about asking her if she wants to go have drinks sometime this week. He’s trying to figure out the logistics of going out with her without Pam making a thing out of it when Katy cuts off his train of thought.

“So, did you hear Jim broke up with me that night?” she says in a bitter tone.

“Um, yeah. Pam said something about it.”

“Who did?”

“Pam. My girlfriend,” he reminds her. He was hoping she wouldn’t come up in their conversation and here he was being the first to mention her.

“Oh yeah. Well, he did,” she says changing the subject back to her. “He’s such a jerk. I mean, he was never that great of a boyfriend to begin with and then he has the nerve to break up with me. Seriously, who the hell does he think he is? I don’t know why I wasted my time.”

“Yeah, he is kind of a loser. What were you thinking?” he teases.

“I have no idea,” she laughs. “Oh well, lesson learned. I don’t know who he thinks he’s going to date now.”

“Who knows? You sound like you’re over it though,” Roy says hopefully.

“Totally over it. I had a fun time with you guys that night though. You and Darryl and Kim were cool.”

“We had a good time too. Totally. You’re fun to party with.”

She giggles again and Roy feels a nervous tension in his stomach that could be being caused by many things at the moment.

“We should hang out again,” she says.

“Absolutely!” he says excitedly. “I was thinking we could maybe meet up sometime for drinks this week.”

“That would be awesome. Will Kim be there?” she asks.

“Pam?” he says. “Doubtful. She’s not really into drinking.”

“Oh, okay. Well, just you and me then.”

“Is that okay?” he asks sarcastically.

“Oh, I suppose,” she shoots back and then giggles again.

“Alright, well, I’ll call you later this week then. Cool?”

“Very cool. See you then. Bye-bye,” she says and hangs up.

Roy puts the phone down and smiles to himself. She is so fun. He’s looking forward to seeing her and talking to her about old times and maybe afterwards…

“Roy?”

Pam’s standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and looking at him oddly.

“What?” he says innocently.

“What did Darryl want?” she asks.

“Nothing. Just wants to see about going out later this week,” he says.

“Oh. Why would he call about that now?” she asks looking at him curiously.

“I don’t know, babe. He just did,” he replies and walks past her and back towards the living room.

He sits back on the couch and Pam walks back into the room still looking at him oddly.

“Roy,” she says, “if you guys are going to go out one night this week, is it okay if I go out that night too?”

He looks at her and he knows he’s the one with the odd look on his face now. Pam never goes out. She doesn’t have a lot of friends and the ones she does have she doesn’t go out with during the week.

“Who would you go out with?” he asks.

“I don’t know. Angela maybe. Or Kelly,” she says while staring at her hands.

“From work?”

“Yes.”

Roy thinks this sounds weird because Pam’s never said a nice thing about that chick Angela and he’s not even sure which girl Kelly is because he doesn’t remember Pam ever mentioning her before. But then he thinks that if Pam does go out the same night he’s out with Katy it’ll make things easier on him.

“Yeah sure, babe,” he says and smiles at her.

She looks up and grins at him and then gets back into the armchair and continues reading. He picks up the remote again and starts flipping through channels and wonders what Katy might be wearing the night they go out for drinks. He has images of her in her cheerleader outfit and gets that nervous feeling in his stomach again.

He can’t wait to party with her again.