Living the Dream

part 2

“You look like you need it,” he explained. “It’s on the house.” His smile was sweet and made my heart rate run a bit faster. “Thank you,” I replied softly, blushing like the idiot I felt I was. He leaned over the counter towards me. “Can I say, that between you and me, you don’t look like you are enjoying yourself tonight. You belong with that group, right?” He pointed at part of the group dancing insanely to some weird music I knew I hated on the spot. “Yeah, I am with them.” I noticed he spoke English with a thick German accent. I liked it. “But, I am having a good time. I just don’t think I belong on that dance floor.” He looked at me with interest. “People come here to dance and have a good time. You, on the other hand,  just sit here looking bored. You do the math.” He winked. But whatever point he was trying to make by his comment, it was lost on me. I was drowning in those brown eyes of his, making my flustered cheeks change to a deeper color instantly. “I don’t like the music,” I said smiling softly. He laughed. “You do know I work here right,” He winked again, “I can change the music for you. What are in for?” I laughed. “Please don’t, I can’t dance.” He kept smiling back at me. “Have you seen what is out there on the floor? Most of them can’t dance and they don’t care.” I looked at the floor and had to agree. But however they danced, I was much worse, I feared. I was too damn self-conscious to even try. I just wasn’t one who ventured out onto the dance floor to make a spectacle of myself. And I really couldn’t dance if my life depended on it. I looked back at the bartender, only to find that he had left me to help some other people to their drinks. I noticed he talked to the other girls and laughed constantly. He didn’t looked back at me for quite some time and only came around to fill my glass.

I would like to blame it all on other people. On the fact that those girls were much prettier and younger than me, or maybe they just talked better than me, or were more confident – if I had their looks I’d be too. Staring out of the bus window I silently sighed. I would like to blame it on anyone else, but I knew the problem was just me. But this was me. This was who I truly was. I had no confidence to speak of, I wasn’t the life of the party. I could care less about partying. I just longed for some connection, to anyone. I’d been alone for a long time. It felt like it was years ago that I had a meaningful conversation with anyone not related to me.

I couldn’t help smiling silly at my reflection in the window. I had lost hope of finding that one special person to spend my life with long ago. And I was doing alright on my own. We were all healthy, I had a nice job and we were overall happy with life. Still that feeling of being alone nagged me. I didn’t want it to, but there was little I could do to stop it. I wished I possessed the power of making friends so easily, glancing at the reflection of Brenda who was sitting on the arm of her seat talking nonstop about what fun they all had in Germany. I couldn’t care less. I liked the bartender, his smiled, his eyes, but well, he clearly didn’t think of me that way. I knew I wasn’t cute. I wasn’t exactly young. I was 34 years old, my once red hair had faded to a dull kind of dark blond, I had freckles, wasn’t slim or athletically build. I sighed again, and stopped summing up all the things I thought were wrong with me on appearance. I knew I wasn’t monstrous. The thought made me smile. I imagined myself as tall as the Eifel tower and roaming the city of New York, breaking down every building I could. I had plusses too. I liked my shoulders and my back. They were straight and fairly white. English white they used to call it. I still thought of it that way. On occasion I wore off shoulder tops. Once I almost lived in those shirts. But not so much anymore. As a single mum you had expectations to live up too. Plus I didn’t feel the desire to look sexy anymore when I knew I wasn’t anyway. There was no point to it anymore. I also hardly wore any make-up. It felt weird putting on make-up after not having used it for years. I felt like I was trying too hard to get people’s attention.

I needed to snap out of this downward spiral I was finding myself in. I wasn’t depressed, I reminded myself. I was perfectly sane and I still had some humor left in me. And if other people didn’t like me, so be it. I sat up straight by the thought. That was right. I did not care. Even though I could see in my reflection that it mattered.

The bus was going down the mountain now. We had been climbing all morning. In the early afternoon we would be at our hotel were we would stay for a while. It was something like a youth hotel, where the women were all together in one room and the guys would stay in another. I was  wondering how they would devide us. There were ten girls and ten guys. We would be paired up and send on an exploration in the capital Prague. I had been once to Prague before, on a business trip. I had not seen as much then, so I was excited to go exploring – wether it was with some one else or with just me. I scolded myself: Stop singling yourself out. You are not in school. People are not childish like that anymore.  I sighed again, knowing I needed to stop doing that too. I hoped we were all adults and that some one would give me a chance.

 Looking outside I noticed the bus was going quite fast. Too fast, for anyone to go down any type of road, down any type of mountain. There was some smoke developing, coming from where the tires were, I smelled a faint scent of burned rubber becoming quite stronger a few seconds later. Glancing around the bus I tried to spot if any else had noticed it too. Most of the people in the group were talking lively and no one paid any attention to the surroundings. With Brenda still seated on the arm of her seat I moved myself over and walked down the bus aisle. One of the guys and a few girls were talking about the speed and I stopped in my track. They were sitting in the front of the bus so they must have seen the speed go up. I noticed they were talking to the bus driver and our host for this trip we were on. The driver was introduced as Henry Cole when we had first boarded the bus. The host was Paul, who I didn’t trust. He just looked too sleek to have any sort of good intentions, with his hair combed back in an Italian style. His smile was slightly off like he had constant side agenda’s or something. No I wouldn’t trust him if my life depended on it. The driver, Henry, was sweating bullets trying to control the speed without wrecking us or driving us off the side of the mountain. He was a middle aged man, already getting a bit bald on top of his head. His white hair was going in all directions. And part of his shirt was wet. Henry didn’t say much in the converstation, he kept his eyes on the road. Paul was smiling his smile and tried to reassure the people in front. If they were already talking about the situation we found ourselves in, I didn’t need to add to the conversation. I was already happy and relieved that I wasn’t the only one who had noticed it. I turned around to walk away again when I was stopped by someone grabbing my wrist.