Virtual Eternity (the Serialized Novel) Episode 25 - The Holiday Gala Part One: Getting to Lana

This is Episode 25 of the serialized version of the novel, Virtual Eternity: An Epic 90s Retro Florida Techo-Pro-Life Love Story and Conversion Journey. These 52 episodes are presented here free for you every Friday. You can buy the paperback version from Mike Church’s Crusade Channel Store (at a lower price than Amazon!).

Or you can start reading at the Table of Contents: here

The Holiday Gala Part One: Getting to Lana

The next day, when the Holiday Gala celebration charged my cubicle mates with their Friday chat, I decided to act. I left work that evening with a small box of my possessions, never expecting to return. Tonight, at the party, away from security guards and company policies, I would inform Lana of my resignation.

To most people, the gala had always represented the Christmas or Hanukkah season, the sixty days of transferring material wealth from parent to child, from friend to friend, and from relative to relative; the sixty days of vacations and fruitless workdays; the sixty days of feasts, ornamentations, and incomprehensible traditions. The current social illustrated the best of them.

The suburban professionals arrived at the oceanfront hotel. The men wore tuxedos. The women donned their best evening wear: satiny, velvety, busty, colorful. Dozens of round tables circled a square, parquet dance floor, edged by full bar stands. Thousands of green, red, and gold lights adorned the hotel ballroom. They had pine trees and wreaths and men in red suit. They had snowmen and gifts and egg nog to boot. The company presented this cheer to all of us who survived the layoff.

Each celebrant paraded through the hotel lobby and double doors into the ballroom. I arrived early and stood at a bar near the entrance.

Lana strutted in with her princely date. All heads turned obligingly to the couple. She clutched one of my marketing colleagues, Scott Rodman, a tall, thin, long-faced young man. Her tanned chest brimmed over her black satin dress. Bill Billings entered with his date. Perry Farrell arrived with his wife. Everyone noticed Mr. Everette arm-in-arm with his young girlfriend. Even though no one showed for his planned Magic Theater party, Scott Bering found a date for the evening: Gina. Mike was long gone.

I enjoyed the visions the night held. The woman in formal eveningwear most fully held my current devotion to Beauty. I also noted that I was unencumbered to pursue the unattached. But that chance might not happen because I should first find Lana. Inside the Gala door, I saw her at a bar with Scott Rodman.

“Lana, could I talk to you?” I said to the golden-brown muscled skin rippling on her exposed back.

She turned and smiled toward her date. “Jonathan. I’m a little busy.”

“What’s up?” Scott said.

“Do you roller-blade, Jonathan?” Lana asked.

“Lana, I need to tell you something, alone.”

“What now, Jonathan? Another poem? Jonathan likes to flatter me with verse.”

Scott’s laughter peeled through the air. “Naw! But I thought you had Phase 3 access, Hannah. I didn’t know you were gay.”

“He’s not,” Lana said. “And he makes excellent use of his Phase 3. By the way, Jonathan, for Phase 3, a slot is opening up soon. Scott here is interested. He appears to have the dedication. And he says he reeaaaally measures up, to fill the slot I have open.” She patted Scott’s inner thigh.

I opened my mouth to speak, but held back.

Lana smiled. “And as you well know, I’ll open that slot for someone who can position himself right, who goes to the right lengths.” They both laughed and laughed.

“Are you trying to remove my Phase 3?”

“Bright boy,” Scott said as he cupped Lana’s shoulder blade.

“They’d never let you do that. Look at the commercials I made up.”

“But you haven’t produced reports on Phase 3 for anyone,” Lana said.

“Who can I report to? No one else has Phase 3 access.”

“True,” Scott said as he fingered his dangling earring. “They haven’t given out any new ones. The developers keep changing the games and releasing them irregardless. Besides, no one sees any of the test reports, wherever those are. They’re sure not coming from him.” He pointed a long, bony finger at me. “But they say Phase 4 will be ready in April anyway.”

“Phase 4?” I asked.

“Where’ve you been, Hannah?” Scott slurred. “You know which game that is.”

“Anyway,” Lana said, touching her hair, which was bunched up on top of her head, held perilously by one pin. “Many feel, Jonathan, that someone else could do a better job selling themselves when the time comes. Can we talk on Monday, Jonathan? I was in the middle of explaining to Scott the positions he’d fit best in.”

I could stomach no more. Her perfume intensified from this heated talk of personnel and politics, as even her skin glistened a bit. I escaped her heartbreaking aroma.

I could never surrender my access, willingly, to her.

Promptly at 7:30, servers began to cross the room with their trays of starter salads. Other waiters carried mixed drinks and wine. Each table held settings for an even number of people, and nearly all the employees arrived with dates. So, my table had an empty seat. I looked around. Latecomers scrambled for the unoccupied chairs. Maureen Kelly and Kevin’s old girlfriend, Winnie, were among them.

Winnie broke off in my direction. She found the setting next to me seconds before another guy separated from his date.

“I know you,” I said as I stood. “Winnie, right? I was a friend of Kevin’s. We all met at Santiago’s this summer.”

“Yeah, hi! Jonathan. It’s good to see you again. You remembered my name.”

“I never forget the names of beautiful ladies.” I pushed in her chair behind her.

“Charming.”

“Do you want me to switch seats with your date?” I asked.

“No, we’re okay. It’s actually not a real date.”

Winnie was stunning. The purple satin cocktail dress hung loosely off her chest. Its shapes were conspicuous, unmolded by other clothes. Brown curls hung down around her bulging, golden eyes.

During the dinner, we talked about the event and the cuisine that the servers slid in front of us.

“Do you work on Magic Theater?” she asked as she licked the salty edge of her margarita.

“I’m in Marketing. I help develop the ads, arrange demonstrations for trade shows, stuff like that.”

“Really? That sounds exciting. Do you get to try new games when they come out?”

“Yeah.”

“You must love that job. Can you tell me about any new games coming out after Christmas?”

After deflecting this question, I asked her about her career. Then we both agreed the topic of work was dull and off-limits. I avoided the subject of her escort, whoever he was. He must be with the company for her to be there.

During the main course, I detected her boredom with whomever brought her. And she refused the prime rib.

“It’s a shame about Kevin. I liked him. He was a great guy.”

Winnie’s eyebrows arched. Maybe she had not heard him mentioned for a long time. “Thanks for saying so. He was, but we weren’t dating for a couple months before the end.”

“Yeah, he talked about it once.”

“What did he say?”

“Not much. He wasn’t much for words. We were talking about marriage. He said it would’ve been unthinkable.”

“Really?”

“He meant for anyone.”

“He’s right about that,” Winnie said.

“You wouldn’t marry the right guy if he came along?”

“Would you marry a guy?” She smiled.

“I see your point.”

“Finding the perfect match is impossible. I’ve been doing a lot of searching for my center, for my secret place. Having a man in my life, permanently, pulled me off to one side. It always spoiled my harmony.”

“But Winnie, don’t you love all the arguments and the friction between two people trying to get along?” I said, grinning.

“As if,” she said with a chuckle. “No matter what guy I dated, we always had some huge problem between us.”

“If Darwin was right, we should’ve evolved to be more compatible. You’d think the survivors of the species would’ve gotten along together. They would’ve passed this trait on to their young.”

“First, it’s not genetic. Second, it’s not learned.” She smiled. “Men refuse to learn.”

“Seriously, don’t you discover a lot about yourself in those battles? It’s all because of a natural impulse: we need to be with the opposite sex.”

“Natural? I’ve heard that before. No, I’m afraid I have to disagree. It’s totally unnatural. That impulse has been nothing but heartache for most girls I know and for me. I don’t believe the ones who think they’re happy actually are.”

“You weren’t happy with Kevin?”

“At the beginning, we were good friends,” she said. “But at the end, we only opposed each other. Either we hated each other or we bored each other. He was happy without me.”

“Do you think he was happy with you?”

“Yeah. But it was too much effort for both of us.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, Jonathan. Extended relationships are too time-consuming. We’re all trying to be in harmony with the world around us. Having a serious relationship with the opposite sex only obstructs us.”

In the next few minutes, waiters removed our plates. A speaker rose to the podium at the far end of the room during the chocolate mousse.

“As we do every year, we invite someone significant to our organization to speak to us. We had scheduled the chief software engineer for the Magic Theater project to speak tonight. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your worldview, his busy schedule didn’t allow him to make the trip down here. As you know, they’re very occupied up there, making our jobs more secure and our leisure time much more fun. Instead, direct from Washington, we have a more-than-adequate last-minute replacement. Please welcome our representative in the United States Congress, Representative Barry Singer!”

I ignored this speaker. At the time, my mind knew nothing else to seek. Again, one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen emerged in front of me. She obviously was free to abandon her date, given her denunciation of relationships. We whispered more trivial teasings to each other throughout the speech.

A half-hour later, the speaker concluded, and the waiters cleared the remnants of hundreds of meals. The small big-band began playing. The daring ventured onto the parquet floor.

“Would you like to dance?” I asked.

“Later. I’m gonna try to find my friend at the bar. Why don’t you join us?”

“Sure. I’ll be over there soon.”

Her purple shape strode across the room. Maybe she invited me to join her and her date out of politeness. I could survey the situation from a distance before continuing.

She was still without her date when I saw her again, fixed at the bar stand waving. Maureen Kelly stood next to her. Maureen’s white skin, green satiny cocktail dress, and dark brown hair suited her eyes: white surrounding green surrounding black pupils.

“Hi, Maureen.”

“Hi there, Jonathan. Don’t you look dashing tonight?”

“Why, thank you,” I said in a mock voice. “Of course, it’s always a treat to hobnob with the middle class. I see you two blew off your dates?”

“Yeah, we got rid of them,” Maureen said, looking away.

An odd outburst. Winnie glared at Maureen.

“Sounds like you’re glad.”

Winnie still glowered. “I’m ready to dance, Jonathan,” she said as she took my arm.

The music spanned all generations and interests. We found difficulty dancing to the mid-century music. Nevertheless, I knew this was a crucial step in courting. We danced to three more songs, one each from the 1920s, the 1980s, and another 1950s.

After the fourth song, she led me off the parquet.

“That’s enough Charlestoning for now,” she said. “I’ll see you back at the bar.” She veered toward the bathrooms.

After a few seconds, I followed her through double doors into a deserted hallway. She detected me. “You too?” she said as she turned.

I took her hand and spun her, twisting her arm up over her head. She laughed and lost her balance and leaned into me. I embraced her fully now. She stopped laughing, and I kissed her. She returned with a light peck. She retreated.

“I’ll be right back.” She tottered a little on her way through the swinging restroom door.

I tried to hold her again on her return, but she moved onward through my arms. My lunge became an arm-in-arm stroll.

Next week: Episode 26 – The Holiday Gala Part Two: Capturing yet another perfect

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