Coupling Couples, Two mother son couples get together, Roberta didn’t like these annual regional conferences, but being a member of her professional association made her attendance at them pretty much obligatory. She almost never made any useful contacts at them, the lectures and seminars rarely introduced her to new and interesting research findings, and the social benefits of mingling with others who had similar titles on their business cards were over-rated.
But here she was for yet another year, in yet another basic black cocktail dress that showed enough of her mature curves to get the attention of men who were treating the conference as a vacation from their wives. She stood at the edge of yet another noisy crowd in yet another hotel meeting room, sipped yet another mediocre white wine, and pretended to be listening to the sales pitch of a man in an ill-fitting tuxedo who was, at the moment, trying to pick her up. He was doing all the talking.
The business card which she had just handed to the man, in hopes of bringing their one-sided conversation to an end before she actually fainted from sheer boredom, gave her name as Dr. Roberta E. Williams and confirmed her accreditation as a Clinical Psychologist. She dutifully accepted the other man’s card, slipping it into her purse as if she might actually want to look at it one day. The man finally grasped the fact that he was wasting his time. He gracelessly excused himself, and moved off in search of some other attractive woman to work his magic on.
Roberta had finished her drink, and wanted nothing so much as another one. She worked her way through the crowd toward one of the room’s temporary bars, pretending not to notice the not-so-accidental brushings of hands and other body parts against her lower body as she squeezed through the press of men who had skillfully positioned themselves to achieve the maximum number of such contacts. A couple of them had very good hands, she noticed.
Her cellphone chirped, and she paused to answer it, cupping one hand over an ear to try to block out the crowd noise.
“Hello? … Oh hi, darling!” she said. ” Yes, I’m in the middle of a noisy … sorry about … I miss you too, sweetheart … If you were here I’d be up in my room alone with you instead of here in this crazy mob scene … Yes, I’m wearing the black one with the slit up the left leg … I know you like it … I’ll model it for you again when I get back … think of me later when you jerk off … good night, darling … I love you … Bye.”
Roberta reached the bar and refuelled. She started to turn away, heading for a quiet corner where she could be left relatively alone, and promptly collided with another woman who was as much in a hurry to get to the bar as Roberta was to move away from it. Hasty apologies were exchanged. Fortunately no beverages had been spilled. Something about the woman caught Roberta’s interest and, without knowing quite why, she stayed where she was until the woman had gotten her drink and was headed back her way. Roberta had no idea why this particular woman might be someone she should get to know, but she knew better than to ignore these kinds of serendipitous moments. Serendipity was Roberta’s favorite word.