The Invitation -- Prologue -- Part One

“Perfect,” thought Robin as she slipped in her own sweat and took a header onto her yoga mat. At least the day was announcing itself early. She felt guilty for taking a break to see if her face was as banged-up as it felt -- just a big red mark; could have been worse -- so she pounded through the rest of the workout as hard as she could.

Robin hated that workout DVD. She didn’t hate it any more or less than the half-dozen other workouts she owned, but she did take at least a moment, six days a week, to hate it. It was only fair, since Robin hated her body too. The workouts were the only thing that seemed to keep her from ballooning, so she did them.

As she scoured soap across her skin in the shower, Robin tried to remember if she’d ever liked her body or her looks. Straight brown hair, brown eyes, medium height, nothing special. She’d had a few girlfriends, but had never been able to understand why. Robin was nobody to cross a room for, and she knew it.

The exception to that principle was that fact that she’d started getting male attention -- including adult male attention -- for her breasts at the age of twelve, and she’d always hated it. And them. Even though Robin knew in her head that lots of people considered full breasts to be an asset, she still had a tendency to hunch her shoulders to hide them if she wasn’t careful.

And, of course, large breasts came with full hips, and a body that tended toward carrying weight. Robin had committed to working out hard years ago, getting the longest, stupidest, most involved cross-training videos she could find, but nothing really seemed to work the way she wanted it to. 

Muscles had formed and firmed, yes, but to Robin they only emphasized how broad her shoulders seemed to be -- a high school P.E. teacher had once told Robin she should have been born a boy so she could be a linebacker, and it still echoed -- and her breasts were still there, just like always. She still had full hips and a round behind, making for an embarrassingly girly hourglass figure when all Robin wanted was… What? Slenderness? Boyishness? The fake-tits-on-an-emaciated-frame that so much of the rest of L.A. had? Robin wasn’t sure. She just knew it wasn’t what she had.

She couldn’t take the time to fret about it, though. Robin's team had a project presentation at 8:00 a.m., and Dolores Block would be attending. Which meant most of the rest of her day would be taken up with pointless revisions. At least Regina the writer would be there. Not that Robin would think of anything interesting to say to her, but she’d be there.

Robin finished dressing and raced out the door, giving a sad glance to her neglected guitar on the way out. At least the weekend was coming up and she’d be able to get some practicing in. Robin wondered when she’d be able to stop thinking about her life in terms of “at least.”

Oh, well. At least -- yes, at least -- she’d see Annabelle in the evening if she could just make it through the workday.

Robin would have preferred to take public transportation to work, but in L.A., that meant a walk, a train ride, a bus, and then another walk. Normally she liked doing that so she could read and get some extra exercise, but today Robin couldn’t risk missing a connection and being late for her meeting. She fired up her big, embarrassing old-man sedan and headed for the freeway.

Robin wanted to get a smaller, more efficient car, but she was trapped in a cycle of repairs for her current car eating up the down payments she kept saving up and then surrendering to mechanics. Even taking freelancing work on the side, she couldn’t seem to get ahead. At least the car was working today.

One traffic jam and twelve encounters with unspeakably rude fellow drivers later, Robin pulled into the Ingot parking garage. She’d gotten there earlier than most, but drove down to the lowest level anyway out of habit. It hadn’t even registered with Robin when she’d stopped even trying to look for the good spots.

Robin hit her desk and reviewed her presentation for about the thirtieth time since the previous morning. Dolores Block was the one she really needed to impress, but Robin just wanted to sound reasonably articulate in front of Regina.

Regina had classic Italian good looks -- olive skin, long, wavy dark hair, and intelligent brown eyes. Robin knew that she ran, but there had to be more to it than that. Regina was tight all over. Robin would have asked about her fitness routine if she’d ever been able to think of anything to say, but she could barely even talk about their project intelligently when Regina was around. She couldn't even justify it as a loving infatuation. Regina just made her consumed with lust.

Robin hadn’t even been able to figure out if Regina was straight or not. OK, yes, the stacked silver rings, the lack of makeup… Probably queer, true, but who could tell for sure? And why should Robin risk humiliating herself? Hell, even if Regina was gay or bi, she’d probably humiliate herself.

Robin refocused on the campaign she (and Regina) had worked so hard on. There was still some good left in it, though a little more got chiseled away with each vice president–heavy meeting. Clean graphics, a good focus on Regina’s clever headlines, a clear flow that drew the reader easily through the complicated plans they offered... If they could only get the VPs to leave it alone, they’d have a suite of pleasing and useful documents. If.

Robin’s stomach growled -- she’d remembered everything but leaving herself time to eat breakfast -- but she didn’t give in to the urge to make some of the instant oatmeal stashed at her desk. It was just asking for a glob down her front right before the meeting. Instead, she crunched an unsalted, unflavored rice cake as she went over what she wanted to say one last time. She was so focused that Regina startled her when she appeared at Robin’s cube. Robin blew a flurry of rice cake crumbs all over her desk, and then looked up into Regina’s amused black eyes.

Perfect.

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“I don’t understand why you didn’t adopt the color scheme I recommended.”

Somehow Dolores Block’s voice managed to cut through any meeting. It sounded like someone scraping a knife along a wire fence, thought Robin, only whinier. Regina shot Robin a sympathetic look that somehow managed to be an eye-roll at the same time.

Robin took a deep breath to center herself and hide her frustration and despair.

“It’s a beautiful combination, Dolores,” Robin said, hoping to soothe the savage beast at least a tiny bit, “But if you recall, a lot of our audience for this will be seniors. They need sharper color contrasts or reading the headlines will be frustrating. That’s why I went with--”

“Well, I don’t see why you couldn’t have brought that up last week,” Dolores snapped.

“I did, actually. I mentioned it at the meeting and in my follow-up notes--”

“No, you didn’t.”

Dolores made blithe false statements like this to cover herself all the time, and Robin knew that arguing was futile.

“OK, well, if you’ll look at the initial pitch Regina and I put together, you’ll see that we noted the constraints for a senior audience --”

“I don’t see any point in this discussion. I want you to change it. Give me a big purple color bar at the top, with the headline in white.”

Such a huge change would necessitate re-doing her entire design. Robin clenched her jaw to keep herself from saying something that would get her fired as Dolores started in on the process of mucking up Regina’s clean and graceful copy.

Forty minutes later, Robin and Regina headed back to their floor with a raftload of changes to their once-clean collateral. Silence descended as the elevator doors closed.

This is your chance, thought Robin. You can bond with her now. Think of something to say. Think of anything to say.

Robin didn’t think of anything to say. Nothing worthwhile, anyway.

The doors opened, and the women stepped out. Regina gave Robin a wry smile. “At least it’s Friday,” she said before they parted ways.

Regina was halfway down the hall before Robin managed “See you.”

Perfect.

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Robin was in a deep overhaul of her design concept when Regina stopped by again, just in time to see Robin miss her own mouth and drop the predicted glob of oatmeal on her shirt.

“Sorry,” she said as Robin swiped at herself with a napkin, “I always seem to startle you.”

“S’okay,” Robin sighed, “I knew it was coming. It was the Oatmeal of Damocles.”

Regina blinked. “Did you just make a joke?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You should do that more often. Anyway, Dolores wants to see the new versions Monday at 2:00.”

“I think a Monday without us working through lunch is like a day without oxygen to her.”

Take a conference room, thought Robin, put your heads together! Spend the afternoon together. Make another joke! Say something!

“I was thinking we could both run with it on our own for the rest of the day, maybe e-mail back and forth, then touch base Monday morning to put it all together,” said Robin. “You don’t mind coming in at 8:00 again, do you?”

“No, that’s fine,” lied Robin. Had she really been born to spend her life in a cube farm?

“OK, cool,” said Regina, turning to go.

“Do you have any weekend plans?” Robin finally managed.

Regina paused for a moment and then said, “Yeah. My bestie and I have tickets to see Janelle Monae at the Bowl and then I’m hitting the Abbey with the girls for Sunday brunch. You know, just to check out the scene. What about you?”

She looked at Robin with something just above polite expectation.

The Abbey? The realization slammed into Robin’s brain. Oh, my God, she is gay. Or bi. She’s not straight, anyway. Say something queer. Say something about your music at least. Say something. SAY SOMETHING!

“Um,” was what Robin said. She took a breath and made another attempt. “Uh, pretty quiet, I guess. The new Bitch Planet is finally out, so I’m going to pick that up…”

“The new what?”

“Bitch Planet. It’s a comic. It’s about a prison planet, only with kind of… gladiator sports. And women. I mean, it’s all women. Except the guards--”

“Comic as in comic book?” Regina’s face was awash in skepticism.

“It’s really good.” Robin could already feel herself starting to stumble. “It’s this feminist -- really well written -- and the artwork -- but it’s also just really cool… And funny, sort of, but that’s not the main point--”

“OK, well, enjoy,” said Regina, already checked out. “I’ll e-mail you some new copy by end of day to make sure it all fits.”

“OK,” said Robin. “See you.”

Regina was gone. Robin was left alone with the oatmeal on her shirt.

Oh, well. At least Regina was only her work crush. The person Robin really wanted to talk to was Annabelle. Robin felt her chest tighten. The anticipation of getting to see Annabelle blended so completely with the certainty that she’d make an idiot of herself.

But seeing Annabelle was worth it.