As he turned the key in the lock he said, “Anyone want to go across the street for a drink?”
One said, “What a day! I’m game.”
Another said, “I’ve got time for one.”
Two more said, “I’ll meet you,” and “I’ve gotta text my husband first.”
She said, “Sure. Why not?”
After the drinks were sorted between them, they started in about the clients they had, and any progress they were making with those clients.
He took a sip of his beer, looked across the table at a male coworker, laughed and said, “If she didn’t have such great legs, I’d have passed this client off to you.”
She saw the two women at the table look down, cringe, and sip their drinks.
She thought of saying something snarky about clients and legs, but she wasn’t quick enough.
The male coworker said, “I’ll be happy to trade. The gal I’m working with isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. I’m having to explain everything to her.”
She exchanged glances with the women at the table and considered introducing the concept of mansplaining, but she didn’t get the chance.
One of the female coworkers was able to get a word in and said, “I got a call from a potential client who asked me to refer him to one of the guys in the office. When I told him I’d be happy to help him, he said, ‘I appreciate your gumption, honey, but I need to talk to someone with experience.'”
She said, “So what did you do?”
“I passed him off. I’m too busy to scale that mountain. Who needs that kind of crap?”
One of the guys said, “So who did you pass him off to?” because he clearly didn’t get the point.
She threaded her hand through the glasses to grab a handful of peanuts and noticed one of the male coworkers staring at the waitress’s ass. She kept her eyes on him long enough for him to realize he’d been caught staring. She said, “So how does that compare to what you have at home?” He threw up his hands in that way guys do when they’ve been caught in the act, “What? I’m a guy.” He grinned, “I can’t help it.” Then he looked at the other guys at the table, “Right, guys? We’re wired to look. It’s what we do.” Then the three males laughed the kind of laugh that comes with confidence, security and place – a laugh that the three females at the table had only rarely expressed. A laugh had with your best girlfriend, while driving away from a party you didn’t want to go to, to begin with.
She said she had to use the restroom, excusing herself from the table, and leaving a full beer and a pile of peanuts in her wake.
She laughed in the privacy of her car, as she pulled out of the parking lot, saying to no one and everyone, “I don’t have time to scale that mountain.”