Take that 1.4 miles and the bar will be on your right.
SARAH: Casting goes from 6 to 9 p.m.
LESLIE: Should she get there early or late? What do we think?
CAROLINE: Well, early reads desperate, fashionably late reads cool.
SARAH: But don’t show up at 9 because they might have already found enough good girls.
LESLIE: So how about 7:30?
CAROLINE: Agreed. That will give a 10-minute cushion to get there and plenty of time to do a quick outfit change after work.
ME: WTF? No! No! NO!
CAROLINE: Ok, fine, you don’t have to change your outfit as long as you’re wearing that cute black Theory skirt suit I like . . .
ME: Haha, not no to the outfit change, no to all of it!
LESLIE: Seriously, what the hell do you have to lose?
ME: Again, my dignity.
SARAH: Andi . . . don’t get me started. I lived with you for three years, don’t make me discuss your dignity . . .
ME: Sarah, low blow!
LESLIE: Think of all you have to gain.
ME: Umm . . . Like what?
CAROLINE: A husband!
LESLIE: New friends? Though they won’t be nearly as fucking cool as us.
ME: Ok, real talk here . . . Ya’ll seriously expect me to go to a casting call for a reality television show?
CAROLINE: Well, duh! Isn’t that what this whole conversation is about?
SARAH: The casting call info sheet does say free drinks . . .
ME: Hmmm . . . free drinks, really?
SARAH: Bible! You know I would never joke about free drinks.
LESLIE: I see it on here too!
ME: What time is the event?
And that’s all it took, really . . . Three of my best friends on my ass and the promise of free drinks.
That afternoon I got off work at the abnormally early time of 6:00 p.m. My plans to meet a girlfriend for dinner had changed due to a scheduling conflict that involved dinner with her boyfriend’s mother or some other I’m-not-single-and-have-more-important-things-to-do bullshit. Plan B was to grudgingly hit the gym. But, the fact that I hadn’t packed gym clothes and would have to drive past the gym in order to go home and get dressed for the gym was inconvenient enough to nix that idea altogether. I mean, yeah I guess I could have sucked it up and gone the extra mile to my house, at least in the name of single sexiness, but instead, I just began driving north through downtown Atlanta. Ready to fight the grueling rush-hour traffic, I was pleasantly surprised by the steady flow of the cars. With the music cranked up and my foot on the gas more often than the brake, I must have subconsciously taken a right on Peachtree followed by a left on Roswell Road, because next thing I knew I was in the parking lot of none other than the location of the casting call. My car had literally steered me to this bar and into this parking space.
I sat staring at myself in the rearview mirror asking my reflection, “What the hell am I doing here?” All the while, scantily clad girls were lining up outside the front doors of the bar. As the line got longer, the heels got higher and the necklines plunged farther down. There was a well-balanced mix of brunettes and blondes, which was surprising considering most Southern girls start bleaching their hair before they hit puberty. Not a surprise: the teased heights of each girl’s mane (another thing Southern girls learn to do before hitting puberty). After all, we were below the Mason-Dixon Line, which meant, “The higher the hair, the closer to God!”
“Fucking shit,” I muttered as I looked down at my modest ensemble of a black Theory pencil skirt and matching blazer, nude pumps, black blouse, pearl necklace, and tan stockings (which I wore to appease conservative judges). In all of this mess, I’d forgotten that I should have gone home and changed out of my prudish knee-length suit before I went to a casting call for a dating show. Caroline would have been mortified to call me her friend (though I do think she said a Theory skirt would suffice). I began frantically rifling through my center console in search