Also graduating with Trisha, Shelley Sullivan landed a job with WACH-TV 57 the Fox affiliate as a Sports Reporter and substitute anchor. She covered high school football, USC and Clemson sports, Carolina Panthers pro football and Columbia's Single-A Pro Baseball team.
Given the cost of housing, Trisha and Shelley agreed to share a 2 bedroom apartment in the Stone Ridge community on the River near the Riverbanks Zoo. They both commute a couple of miles into downtown Columbia where their jobs are located only 4 blocks apart.
The day after Memorial Day, Trisha started work at Wachovia. Graduate school was a few weeks away so at first she spent all day in the Wachovia office. She met most of her co-workers and managers and filled out a lot of paperwork. It was all very exciting to Trisha to be starting her career. Trisha enjoyed the opportunity to meet new people and build new friendships in Columbia. After wearing classic pumps the first three days of work, Trisha was excited to discover that her new office had a dress code policy that allowed her to wear virtually all of her shoe collection. She was especially pleased that wearing hose was not mandatory or even encouraged. The code was slightly relaxed on Fridays.
Trisha worked hard to learn the various facets of her new job. She also relished the opportunity to open up and wear lots of different pairs from her shoe collection. She wore dressier mules (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) and slides (9, 10, 11, 12, 13) on Monday through Thursday and more casual styles of mules (14, 15, 16, 17, 18) and slides (19, 20) on Fridays.
Trisha began to work closely with some of the others who had been selected for the same work study program. Soon, her closest friend out of the group of six who were on the team was Joanna Blake, who was a CIS major from the University of South Carolina and had lived in Columbia her whole life. Trisha had a desk to Joanna's left in a large open bay area on the fifth floor of the Palmetto Center, also known as the Wachovia Building. Joanna was a slim, attractive, always well-dressed redhead with green eyes. She had a distinct Carolina low-country accent that was just enough to be charming. The desk to Trisha's left was vacant. After lunch on Friday, Trisha happened to ask Joanna, "So are they going to find anyone to sit at the desk next to me?"
"Oh yeah, I did hear something. There's a new guy, a business school graduate, named Mike Maples coming next week. He couldn't start until the first week of June. He had some things to finish up at Auburn before he could come." Trisha did not give the news much additional thought. The mystery was solved and Trisha returned to her job task at hand.
Next week, after learning of the favorable dress code the week before, Trisha wore a pair of black high heel Paciotti mules (Item #7 above) with her smart business outfit to work Monday morning. On the way to work, there was some traffic congestion on the Interstate 126 Bridge over the Broad River. This gave Trisha a chance to take a good look at her new city. Straight ahead, she could see the Columbia skyline, which was no where as impressive as Atlanta's, but fairly significant for a city with just under 500,000 residents in the metro area. To the right she could see where the Broad River merged with the Saluda River to form the Congaree River as well as Riverfront Park on the river's eastern shore. Trisha drove as fast as the traffic would allow and arrived at the parking garage a couple of minutes past eight. She grabbed her attache in one hand and her diet Coke can in the other. After going through a set of metal doors, she began to jog toward the elevator, creating a loud noise with her mules slapping and clacking in the expansive concrete parking garage.
The elevator door was open and a young man dressed in a blue blazer and gray pants pressed FIVE then looked out and saw this pretty brunette coming fast with her hands full and struggling to hurry along in her cute pair of mules. He made sure he held the doors for her in hopes of getting to meet her. Just as Trisha reached the elevator door, she slipped on the carpet and stepped out of one of her mules. Seeing she was safely inside, he wanted to play hero. "Hold the door and I'll get it for you."
With her hands full, she tried to press the OPEN DOOR button but, as the guy leapt outside the elevator to grab her shoe, she accidentally pushed the CLOSE DOOR button, sending the elevator racing to the fifth floor. "Oh no!" Trisha exclaimed as she watched the elevator door close without the guy holding her shoe having time to get back inside. On the way up, Trisha looked down at her feet lined up next to one another - one with a cute black mule and the other bare and well-manicured. When she reached the fifth floor, she realized that the guy must have pressed that floor, ironically the same floor she needed, so she decided to get off then, instead of possibly having to ride all the way up to the 20th floor - the top of the Palmetto Center.
Back downstairs, the well-dressed guy stood outside the elevator and pressed the UP button in an attempt to get to the fifth floor, but more importantly to return the shoe to the pretty brunette he just met in passing. After a couple of minutes, the other elevator door opened and he debated whether or not to risk missing the one-shod brunette coming back down on the elevator. After considering the building had 20 floors, and how long it might take for the original elevator to return, he decided to take the elevator up to the fifth floor.
Meanwhile, up on the fifth floor, Trisha got off the elevator, sat her attache next to her - unintentionally but effectively hiding her bare foot - but was uncertain of what to do next. 'Should she stand there and wait on the guy to find her or should she try to go downstairs to find him?' Trisha thought. Suddenly, the double doors off to the right opened and Trisha's manager, Mr. Allen, came quickly walking through.
Trisha started to apologize for being late but before she could get a word out of her mouth he slowed down and said, "Caught on the I-126 bridge, huh? Half the group's not here yet. Follow me, we're going to have a meeting this morning before we get started.
Trisha tried to say something about waiting on the guy to return her lost shoe, but she felt like she had no choice but to follow her boss into the conference room down the hall. Unevenly, and with a distinct slap every other step, Trisha followed Mr. Allen into the small conference room. Because of the position of the door in relation to the conference table, Trisha was able to take a seat without anyone seeing her missing shoe. She nervously fidgeted in her seat and doodled aimlessly on a yellow grid pad with her Wachovia stock ball-point pen, worried that the guy with her shoe might come and go and not know she was tucked away in this obscure conference room.
The elevator door on the fifth floor opened and the guy wielding Trisha's missing shoe walked out and looked to the right and to the left, hoping to see the pretty owner of the shoe that was still in his hand. Actually it was resting firmly on his bent first and second fingers. The elevator door closed behind him suddenly causing him to look back and ponder what to do next. Since he was at his destination he figured he better at least check in with his new boss and take care of finding the pretty girl who was missing a shoe, later. Mike walked down and stopped at the receptionist station where a cute young blonde with her long hair gathered with a hair clip and hanging in an arch off to one side of her head was typing on her computer.
"Excuse me, I'm Mike Maples, Mr. Allen's new employee, starting today."
Hello Mike, I'm Katie. Nice to have you with us at Wachovia. Your group's in a meeting back down the hall to the right in Room 546."
"Thanks, er, uh, someone lost this shoe getting on the elevator and I don't know where to find her. Is there something you can do with it?"
"I guess so. I'll keep it here and send out an E-mail to the whole building letting them know they can get their shoe back from me.
Mike was disappointed that he would no longer be able to seek out the pretty brunette himself and possibly be her 'prince' by returning her shoe. But this was his first day of work and it was much more important to make a good impression on Mr. Allen. "Okay, Katie. Sounds good!"
Taking the opportunity to flirt with the handsome new employee, perky Katie called back, "Oh, Mike, if you're worried about being a little late, just say you were stuck on the I-126 bridge. That's been making a lot of folks late today."
"Thanks!" Mike said while spinning with eager enthusiasm to meet his new manager and co-workers as he walked confidently down the hall. He entered the conference room and in an effort to cause no disruption, looked no-one in the eye and quickly took a seat at the table on the opposite side of the door. Trisha was sitting across from him and thought he looked like be the guy who had her other shoe. In anticipation, she quit doodling, crossed her bare foot over her shod foot at the ankle and unconsciously began to rub her bare foot back and forth on the carpet.
Mr. Allen was in the middle of a sentence and paused to interject, "Our new employee has arrived. Mike Maples, welcome to Wachovia-Columbia. Let me introduce you to the rest of your team."
Mike slowly came out of his 'hurry' mode and looked Mr. Allen in the eye then he panned the room, stopping abruptly when his eyes met Trisha's. He leaned back in his chair and took a glance under the table to see that the cure brunette across from him was missing a shoe and wearing one shoe that matched the one he had been carrying. As he looked under the table, Trisha stopped rubbing her foot and pulled her foot back a few inches and curled her toes underneath.
"Mike Maples is a recent MBA graduate from the Auburn University College of Business. I'll introduce you to your new co-workers. This is Joanna Blake, she just graduated from the University of South Carolina with a CIS degree. Next to her is Elliott Snead. He's worked for Wachovia in Charlotte for 11 years and just finished his B.S. degree with a double major of Finance and Computer Science there at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte." Mr. Allen continued going around the room and soon he got to Trisha. "This is Trisha Kendrick. She majored in Management Information Systems, minored in Accounting and just graduated from the University of Georgia."
Trisha and Mike made eye contact again and not wanting to call attention to himself, he simply nodded while looking Trisha in the eye. She acknowledged him by nodding back at him. After talking about their game plan for the week, everyone except Mike And Trisha got up and left the conference room. Once everyone was gone, Trisha stood and Mike followed suit.
"I have your shoe." Trisha glanced expectantly at his hands. Mike figured out what she was doing and continued, "But I gave it to the receptionist, Katie."
"I'm just glad we were going to the same floor. I was worried I might find my shoe before lunch or even at all. Thanks!"
"So you're name's Trisha. It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too, Mike. After I get my shoe, I'll take you to your desk. It's next to mine."
Mike could not believe that this cute girl was not only a co-worker but at the very next desk. 'This is going to be a fun job,' he thought.
Trisha walked confidently with one shoe missing as she approached Katie's desk. She quickly reclaimed her shoe and showed Mike to his new home away from home. Before the two of them could talk farther, Mr. Allen called Mike into his office to take care of some last minute orientation items. Later in the morning, after Mike completed a lot of paperwork, he arrived at his desk armed with some manuals to browse.
"I read that one last week. It's a real sleeper," Trisha commented to Mike while working through a SQL Server tutorial.
Soon Trisha and Mike, as well as Joanna were in a get acquainted conversation. Trisha thought it was interesting that Mike actually knew Carolyn, an AOPi she had met while in sorority training in San Antonio just a year ago. Mike told Trisha that he and Carolyn had an English Composition class together and went out on a date a couple of times.
Six degrees of separation (or in this case only two) was not what Mike thought was interesting about Trisha. He was quite impressed with good looks, pretty smile and friendly personality. As the next few days went by, Mike also began to especially like her pretty feminine shoe selection. He could not recall her wearing the same pair of shoes twice and each pair was backless and feminine. He also tuned in whenever Trisha was engaged in shoeplay, which was quite often. He had a good view of Trisha's legs under her desk from where his seat was positioned. Mike wanted desperately to ask out Trisha on a date, but he decided to get to know her a little more first and give her time to know him better and feel comfortable about going out. The fact that they were co-workers also complicated matters.
Trisha found that having Shelley as a roommate was not much different than living alone. Shelley worked essentially a second shift, leaving around 2:00 or 2:30 in the afternoon and getting home around midnight. The only nights that Shelley had off were Monday and Tuesday and that was like her weekend so she was often gone in the evenings doing something fun. Shelley loved being able to sleep 'till 9 or 10 in the morning, lay out by the pool and have some time to herself, or even put down the top of her BMW convertible and drive out to the mall or go sailing or water skiing on Lake Murray with friends. Occasionally she stopped by and picked up Trisha and they went to lunch. That was really their main time to sit down together and talk.
After working together at Wachovia a couple of weeks, Joanna invited Trisha to a Singles Department Bibles study that met on Tuesday nights at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, which was located in the nearby suburb of Irmo. Trisha was looking for a church to attend and was happy to go with Joanna, since visiting somewhere new alone was not as much fun. She had never attended a Presbyterian church, having grown up under the Southern Baptist teaching of Marietta legend, Rev. Nelson Price, and having attended Gateway United Methodist church back in Athens.
Next Wednesday night, Joanna came by Trisha's apartment and picked her up around 6:45PM. Along the way, Joanna told her what to expect not only in terms of the format of the study, but also how as the "new girl," she was bound to garner a lot of attention - especially from the guys. Trisha had her hair in a ponytail and dressed casually with a golf shirt, a pair of Khaki pants and a pair of flat-heeled black mules. She did not think she had dressed to attract attention to herself, but she took Joanna's advice seriously.
When they arrived, there was a group already there and Joanna introduced all of them to Trisha. Joanna's prediction was accurate. As the only first time visitor of the evening, Trisha got a lot of attention. She had caught the eye of several of the guys in the group, even before she wowed them with some great shoeplay with her patent leather mules. The Bible study leader, one of the church elders, did a good job teaching on Church history during the Reformation. Trisha was impressed with the study as well as with the people she had met and decided to visit with Joanna on Sunday morning.
One of the class leaders gave announcements at the end and one item on the agenda caught Joanna's attention.
Next Friday night at 7:00 PM, we're going to do something fun. We're going to have a Speed Dating night. Don't get the wrong idea, we're not trying to force you into couples, but it ought to be a good opportunity to get to know each other a little better. We'll have snacks beforehand so you can mingle then we will have everyone spend 5 to 7 minutes with everyone else of the opposite sex and then at the end we might go to a movie or something."
On the way home, Joanna asked Trisha, "Hey would you like to go to the Speed Dating Night with me. It sounds like fun."
"Oh, I don't know."
"You'll have a good time. Hey, you're new. This is a great way to get to know several people very quickly."
"Joanna, I guess you have a good point."
"And besides, our group has more guys that girls and we need more girls to make things even."
At work the next day, Trisha dressed nicely because their department was having a lunch at California Dreaming, a fun restaurant with a very decorative interior just south of downtown that she had been wanting to try. It was an opportunity for everyone in the work/study program and their management to get better acquainted. Trisha wore a cream-colored dress that ended just above the knee that was tied neatly at the waist with a wide black belt. She wore a pair of dressy black and white Coach mules, adorned with a purse-type buckle that held down a decorative upper overlap. (See Item #6 above.)
Joanna was there as was Mike, Elliott and the others in the group. There was a total of 12 seated at a large table in the back of the restaurant. Trisha looked very pretty and all of the guys noticed how nice she looked, particularly Mike, who thought her Coach mules not only looked nice on her as she walked, but the purse-like buckle made them look even more intriguing.
Trisha took a seat in between Mike and Joanna. To Mike's right was Elliott, who had already taken sort of a mentoring role for the single life of his new friend, Mike Maples. Cute Trisha was already a frequent topic of discussion and Elliott had been receiving a daily briefing on Trisha's appearance, including her choice of footwear, for a couple of weeks. One thing Elliott and Mike had had in common was that their favorite television show was Ed. They had adopted one of the gimmicks shared by two characters on the show - the star, Ed Stevens and his best friend Dr. Mike Burton - in which one of them would make a ten dollar bet with the other - always something embarrassing.
Lunch got off to a good start and everyone was having a good time. Trisha, as usual, was dangling one mule then the other and dazzling Mike with her ability to keep her shoe on her foot while dangling so precariously. Mike had already told Elliott that morning about her unusual mules with the purse-like buckle. While Trisha was talking to Joanna and some of the other girls, Elliott leaned over to Mike and whispered, "Ten dollars if you can knock Trisha's shoe off while dangling."
Elliott found Trisha attractive as well, but being married with two kids, he had no interest in anything besides living vicariously through his friend Mike. Mike responded back to Elliott, "You're on!"
Trisha was totally oblivious to the scheming that was going on off to her left. She really enjoyed the good food and the time getting to know her co-workers and managers. She crossed her right leg over her left in Mike's direction, and turned to Joanna to say something. Mike looked down and saw the mule dangling on the very tips of her toes which he noticed had a bright cardinal red color peeping from underneath her shoe. Mike decided to try to win some money to pay for his lunch and at the same time try to get Trisha's attention. He crossed his left leg over his right and aligned the toe of his shoe below and just behind Trisha's dangling mule. He waited to make sure she was not paying attention to what was going on under the table then slowly moved his foot forward and knocked her shoe completely off. It landed on the carpeted floor and bounced a little to the right, out of Mike's foot-reach.
For a few moments, Trisha did nothing. She had not even noticed that her shoe needed help to fall off. Without hardly missing a beat, she glanced under the table quickly and was able aim the toes of her bare foot straight in to the upper of the mule and resume her position, but this time with both feet flat on the floor.
Mike, knowing that Elliott saw what he did leaned over and whispered to him, "Mission accomplished. I win the bet."
"Okay, Mike, but how about for double or nothing, knock it off again, but this time, get her to allow you to play with the little buckle on the top of the shoe and unfold the part of the shoe leather that is folded down and clasped.
"Oh, I don't know. That sounds hard!"
"That's why I'll give you $20 bucks if you do it."
Twenty minutes passed and Mike found himself in danger of losing the ten dollars that Elliott had bet him. One good thing Mike liked about the lunch is that he got to know Trisha a bit better. He realized that was more important than winning a bet if he wanted to ever ask her out on a date. But Trisha's fervent shoeplay with those excellent shoes was very alluring. Again, Trisha crossed her leg in Mike's direction and spoke to Joanna. Mike decided to try a different strategy. This time he crossed his leg and placed his foot 'behind' Trisha's dangling shoe. Then he waited for the right moment when it seemed like he could jump in on Trisha and Joanna's conversation. He spun to the right toward Trisha and in doing so, harmlessly yet purposefully caught the heel of her shoe and knocked it off. It landed in between the two of them. This time, an apology for his accident seemed necessary.
"Uh oh! Sorry, Trisha, let me get that."
"That's okay.."
Trisha was going to pick up the shoe herself, but Mike was already pulling her shoe off the ground. He decided to take a risk and try to win twenty bucks. Pausing before handing Trisha the shoe he stared at the buckle on the upper and commented to Trisha, "That buckle on the top, does it work?"
Naive Trisha thought for a moment and replied, "I don't know."
Before Trisha could get her shoe back, Mike twisted the top and the leather strip that was folded down came out. He made sure that Elliott was watching. "I guess it does." Mike then quickly pressed the strap back down, buckled the clasp and returned Trisha's shoe. Mike reached behind his back and Elliott slipped him a crisp $20 bill for a job well done. Soon everyone finished their lunches, paid their bills and returned to work.
The next evening was the Speed Dating night that Joanna had invited Trisha to attend. She was uncertain of how to dress. 'Too dressy might send out the wrong impression. Too casual might look like I don't care.' Trisha mulled over what she ought to do. Finally she decided to wear a nice red pair of cotton shorts and a dressy white sleeveless blouse. She added a nice pair of earrings, a necklace and a gold ankle bracelet, which was Jay's graduation gift to her. The final decision was what shoes to wear. The night before she had done a touch-up job on her pedicure and her toes looked great! She looked around at her 97 pairs of shoes that were, for now, neatly arranged on her father's shoe racks on the floor of her walk-in closet. Having taken the time to make her feet look especially nice, she knew she wanted to wear a revealing open-toe style. Her eyes fixed on a pair of slides with a medium-height heel, a pair she could not recall wearing them since the time she and Chuck went to eat at the South City Kitchen over 2 years ago. They were a very pretty pair of slides that had a red and white woven pattern on the narrow strap across the toes that was adorned with a very thin decorative buckle.
Joanna came by to pick up Trisha and they drove over to the church. Joanna's outfit was a little dressier than Trisha's - a pair of dressy blue slacks, a blue and white striped blouse and a pair of black pumps. They chatted a little on the way to the event and upon arrival, they spent some time mingling and munching on hors d'ovres. The food was good and everyone there seemed nice. Trisha had no idea, really, but several of the guys there had already staked Trisha out as someone they wanted to make a good impression on.
Finally the games began. There were 10 tables of two set-up in a circle in the fellowship hall and the girls stayed in one place while the guys rotated around the circle every 7 minutes. Trisha felt no pressure to make a lot of contacts. As the new girl in town, she just wanted to meet a few people. She was probably the least nervous person in the room.
The first guy to sit at her table was, Phil, a Respiratory Technician at the Baptist Medical Center, which was very near her office at Wachovia. He and Trisha talked about where they were from; he had lived a while in Atlanta as it turned out. They also talked a little about health care. Trisha found herself dangling one shoe off to the side and she could not help but notice that Phil was making frequent glances down at her foot and dangling shoe. She decided to have a little bit of fun with Phil. Trisha let her shoe drop and land off to the side. Phil's speech pattern was broken briefly as he was paying so much attention to her foot and shoe. At the end he asked for Trisha's number and she gave it to him.
As the evening progressed, Trisha found herself unknowingly becoming more and more bold with her shoeplay. On three additional occasions, one of her 'barely on' slides slipped off her pretty toes and landed on the floor. Two of her mini-dates played Prince Charming and picked up her shoe and returned it to her. Trisha was focused so much on getting to know the ten different guys that she failed to realize what a strong impact her shoeplay was having.
Afterwards, a group went to the movies to see Scooby Doo and a good time was had by all. On the way home Joanna was very pleased, "I can't believe it! Three guys asked for my number. How did you do?"
Trisha was embarrassed but at the same time flattered that she had been asked by eight. She was also surprised because she humbly considered Joanna more attractive than herself and certainly worthy of multiple male inquiries. Not wanting to show up her new friend she replied, "Yeah, about the same, I suppose." Of course, she reasoned that the phrase 'about the same' could be widely interpreted.
Sunday evening, while Trisha was busy with her weekly self-manicure, the phone rang and it was Jay.
"Hello stranger, what's you doing?"
"Hi there, Jay. I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. So how have you been? How's the law office internship?"
"I'm pretty busy. They work me like a dog at times. It's sort of like being a fraternity pledge. I have to earn my stripes by running through endless court citations and delivering papers all over the place. How about you?"
"Well, I've been working on learning SQL Server and doing some analysis of the existing account database. Our team is supposed to come up with a way to offer some outside Web access to customer account information while increasing security. We're using a lot of password firewalls and encryption technology."
Jay and Trisha continued to chat for over half an hour. Jay did not talk about how he'd been keeping in touch with Heather and how he planned to help her move into her dorm in Athens in a few weeks. Similarly, Trisha did not mention anything about their relationship. She did not want to pressure Jay into a long-distance relationship, given her recent failures at such attempts. But she stayed friendly and a little flirtatous at times.
Over the next few days, three of the seven guys she had given her number to called and asked her out on a date and she accepted each offer gracefully, considering them a good opportunity to get to know some new guys in a new town. Her first date was with Phil the Respiratory Technician. They met at the Blimpie's sandwich shop nearby and had a nice lunch getting better acquainted. Over the nest weeks she went out on a couple of other dates.
Mike was unaware that his policy of 'proceeding with caution' in wanting to date Trisha was in danger of failing miserably. However after about a month of working together, getting better acquainted and watching her slap around and dangle lots of pretty backless shoes, including today's pretty red and white slides (Item #11 above) with a modern flair, he finally got up the nerve to make his move.
Mike turned toward Trisha and out of the blue asked, "Hey Trisha, you want to try Yesterday's for lunch today. Have you been there yet?"
Trisha took her legs out from under her desk and kept them crossed, dangling one slide off her foot and answered, "Haven't been to that one yet. Isn't it near Five Points?
"Yeah, that's it. So would you like to go?"
"Yeah, sounds good. I'll see if Joanna is available and you can ask Elliott." Trisha started slapping her dangled slide against her foot and Mike struggled to not let his eyes gravitate in that direction.
"Actually, Trisha, I was thinking more like a lunch date, just me and you. I thought it would be nice to get to know each other a little better."
After a one and a half second pause that seemed like an eternity to Mike, Trisha replied, "Okay, sure. I'll go to lunch with you. That's sweet of you to ask me." Trisha was being her usual self. She did not consider a lunch date to be like a marriage proposal. To her, it was just a way to get to know someone better.
Around 11:30 AM, Mike and Trisha made their way down the elevator and out into the parking garage. Mike offered to retrieve Trisha at the door near the elevator and she accepted his offer to save her a few steps.
"I guess I really needed the exercise, but maybe I'll need it more after we eat a nice lunch," Trisha jokingly stated as Mike walked off to get his car.
A few moments later, Mike stopped by in his 1992 Ford Taurus and Trisha got in the car. The sounds of Rush Limbaugh was barely seeping through the speakers. Mike had turned the sound down in an effort to be courteous and also to be careful since he and Trisha had never discussed politics.
"Hey, is that Rush? I don't care if you turn up the sound a bit."
Mike was happy because not only was Trisha not offended, but also he thought it might help him pick a topic of discussion. it turned out that he needn't worry. He and Trisha had no problem carrying on a good conversation. They started by talking about their college experiences as they arrived at Yesterday's. There was a line to be seated and Mike suggested, "Hey, we could get the food 'to go' and take it to Riverfront Park. They have a paved path that runs along side the Columbia canal and there are some benches we could sit on and look out on the water."
Had it been hotter, Trisha would have raised an objection but since it was an unusually cloudy June day, Trisha agreed, "Sounds fun to me." They made their order and son they left Yesterday's with Trisha's Veggie Plate and Mike's Grilled Chicken Salad in tow.
Mike enjoyed taking his pretty co-worker to lunch. She looked very pretty and her slappy slides seemed like a logical by-product of her fun and friendly personality. Like a gentleman, he opened the car door for her and seated her in the spacious passenger seat of his Taurus. They continued to get better acquainted as they drove to park at Riverside Park. They quickly walked down the path to one of the first available picnic tables, which had a nice view of the canal and the old bridge, which was not reserved for pedestrian traffic. Mike enjoyed the excuse to sit on the same side of the table next to Trisha so both could have the good view of the canal and bridge.
"So Trisha, how do you like working for Wachovia, so far?"
"It's been good so far. I like the challenging work environment and everyone we work with. Columbia's a nice place to live also. How about you?"
"So far, so good. I'm looking forward to starting graduate school in a few weeks, though." Mike got a good view over to the left of Trisha dangling her shoe off the end of her toes away from the table out in the open. The conversation continued to go well and Mike confirmed what he had already realized - that Trisha was a very nice girl that he wanted to go out with again and again. Trisha was very relaxed and enjoyed Mike's company as well, but her thoughts were not on another relationship, just making a new friend. Mike glanced at his watch and noted, "Hey, it's fifteen 'till one, I guess we need to leave in a couple of minutes so we can get back."
"Yeah, I had forgotten until just now, but we have a meeting at 1:15 we need to get back for."
Mike and Trisha took their last few bites of their delicious lunch and were soon 'greeted' with a friendly dog, a 70 pound black lab. Trisha saw he dog first, "Hello pretty doggie. I don't have any meat, but maybe you'd like my last bite of my corn bread." Trisha threw the dog a bite and he gobbled it up.
Mike then addressed the dog, "Here's a bite of chicken."
The dog really liked that and he returned to see if Trisha could do any better. "Sorry, dog, I don't have anything as good as that." The dog then sniffed Trisha's foot, the one dangling her shoe, the licked her on the heel.
"Yuck!" Trisha replied as she felt the slimy dog slobber on her foot and instinctively pulled her foot away. In the process, the shoe she was dangling hit the dog' snout, came off and landed a couple of feet away. The dog immediately leaned over and grabbed Trisha's shoe and began to gallop away with it. Trisha called out and began to run lopsided after the dog, "Hey, give me back my shoe!"
Mike began to run as well, but the dog was very fast, Trisha kicked off her remaining shoe while running down the path but she still was not fast enough to catch the dog. Mike ran past her and grabbed a stick on the side of the path and chased the dog onto the pedestrian bridge. "Stop dog! Stop dog!" Mike threw the stick at the dog and hit it on the tail. The dog proceeded to drop Trisha's shoe out of its mouth, falling over the edge of the bridge into the canal. Trisha heard the splash about the time she reached the edge of the bridge.
Back on the trail, Molly Newman was looking everywhere for her dog. Actually it was not her dog but instead the dog she had been hired to walk daily while it's owner, a local executive, was busy at work. "Luke! Here Luke! Where are you!" In the path she spotted Trisha's abandoned red and white slide. "Hmm, I wonder who could have lost that shoe. It's such a nice shoe!' Molly then slipped off her well-worn Birkenstock clog and tried on the pretty shoe, angling her foot with the shoe from side to side so she could see how she looked wearing it. 'If I find the other shoe, I might just take these home with me!' she thought before coming back to reality and kicking the shoe off and putting her own clog back on.
Trisha spotted Mike stopped on the bridge looking over the edge and also that he had quit chasing the dog which had stopped running away. "What happened?" She kept walking in his direction barefoot.
"Well, I threw a stick and hit the dog, then he turned his head off to the side and dropped your shoe (pause) over the edge.
What! My shoe fell in the canal!" Trisha exclaimed while running over to where Mike was standing and looked in the canal.
"There's Luke!" Molly got within sight of bridge and called out to Luke who this time, finally obeyed. Luke and Molly walked off in the other direction away from Mike and Trisha.
"I'll run up and catch that girl and see if she will pay for a replacement pair of shoes."
Trisha replied, "Well, really those didn't cost me anything, I modeled them in New York."
Mike and Trisha began to walk hurriedly off the bridge. Mike was surprised, "So you were a model?"
"Yes, I was a part-time shoe model. I modeled Cole Haan, Kenneth Cole and Nine West." Trisha leaned down and picked up her abandoned shoe off the path and showed the label in the sole to Mike. "These are Nine West as you can see."
Mike was surprised, not that Trisha was once a shoe model but that he was actually on a date with a model of any kind. He took a good look at her pretty ankles, feet and toes and seeing how nice they really looked made him consider that she must have been a very successful shoe model. They quickly reached their picnic table and hurriedly tossed their food boxes in the nearby trash container. After practically running back to Mike's car, with Trisha carrying her remaining shoe, he looked at the car clock. "It's 1:02, we better hurry. But what do you want to do about getting a replacement pair of shoes. How long does it take you to get to the office from home?"
Trisha quickly refuted his idea, "There's no time. I'll just have to manage the rest of the day in one shoe. I have no choice, really." After saying that, she slipped the shoe she had been carrying back on her foot and Mike got them back to the parking garage in a few short minutes. After parking the car, Mike and Trisha hurried back to catch the elevator.
Mike looked down at Trisha's feet while they took the relatively short trip up to the fifth floor. He imagined that she looked about the same the morning they met, when the elevator rushed her to the fifth floor without him carying her shoe. She looked cute trying to hide her bare foot by tucking it behind her other foot. The elevator door opened and Trisha entered the hallway en-route to her desk. She planned to stop only long enough to pick up her notebook and a pen and go to the meeting.
"What happened to you?" Joanna asked Trisha, seeing her walk back to her desk in only one shoe.
Trisha sighed, "It's the silliest thing! Mike and I were at lunch down at Riverfront Park and this Black Lab grabbed my shoe and ran off. The dog ended up running midway across the pedestrian bridge and dropping it in the middle of the Columbia Canal. There wasn't time to get a replacement pair, since we had to hurry back for our meeting."
"Oh, that meeting got cancelled."
While Joanna paused, Trisha breathed a sigh of relief. 'Maybe I can work quietly the rest of the day and keep my legs hidden from view under her desk,' she thought.
Joanna continued, "We're not meeting because the Vice President is stopping by in a few minutes to meet everyone."
Sure enough, moments later, their manager Mr. Allen could be heard introducing Elliot to the Vice President, Mr. Keith Wilson, a tall distinguished-looking gentleman with graying hair and an expensive suit. One by one, each introduction was fairly brief, but each encounter lasted long enough for Trisha's missing shoe problem to be uncovered. In addition, each employee stood when they were introduced to Mr. Wilson, so Trisha quickly abandoned any idea of sitting with her bare foot tucked underneath her thigh in her chair.
Mr. Allen came next to Trisha's desk with the Vice President. Trisha decided to stand next to her chair and try to use the chair to camouflage her bare foot.
"Trisha I want you to meet Keith Wilson, Vice President of Customer Information Systems. Keith, this is Trisha Kendrick, one of our new employees who comes to us from the University of Georgia."
Trisha extended her hand, "Nice to meet you sir. I'm enjoying working here."
"It's nice to meet you too, Trisha."
Trisha thought she was just about through the woods when her boss continued, "Trisha, is our SQL Server expert on the team and she has been working on a mock security breach simulation. Hey, Trisha, after I finishing introducing Mr. Wilson to everyone, let's go back here to the lab and show Mr. Wilson your work."
Trisha was crestfallen. She was going to have to walk 15 feet away form her desk over to the lab wearing one shoe for both her boss and her Vice President to see. While Joanna met the new VP, several ideas raced through her head. 'Should I take off the one shoe and walk barefoot? Should I apologize and say that I rubbed a blister on one foot, or should I just say nothing and walk in one shoe?'
After Joanna met the VP and while the last co-worker was getting to meet the VP, Joanna slipped off her blue pumps and slid them toward Trisha's desk. "Trisha, I overheard - wear mine."
Trisha whispered back, "Thanks a lot, Joanna, you're a good friend."
"They're a size 8C, I hope that's not a problem."
"I'll manage." Trisha slipped on Joanna's pumps and noticed she could stick her thumb and a couple of fingers between her foot and the heel of the shoe. Not only were they a size and a half too large, but they were a medium width. Trisha normally wore a 6 1/2 AA in pumps - the rare times she wore them at all - to help keep them on better. Mr. Allen led Mr. Wilson over to the Lab and called out to Trisha, "Come on over Trisha and show us your project."
Trisha walked the short distance to the Lab and her shoes slipped on the heels very noticeably. She sat down at the computer with both feet flat on the floor and began to talk. "We have this computer terminal connected to that server over there (pointing) via a telephony connection. This simulates a Wachovia customer at home or at work who wants to check his or her account information or make a transfer between a savings or a checking account. The customer would log into the web site and enter their Social Security Number, their Account number and their password like this." Trisha relaxed and crossed one leg and immediately one of Joanna's pumps flew off the end of her toes and landed with a plunk on the floor. Trisha was momentarily startled, but she continued. "The three data entries are encrypted as they pass over the network and they pass through the encryption software on the Wachovia server." Trisha uncrossed her leg and tried to locate her shoe under her desk, but she was not reaching in the right place. Mr. Wilson noticed her foot and how it was so shapely and perfectly manicured and how it had a nice dark red toenail polish. Trisha finally located her shoe and put it back on and she continued her demonstration. Relaxing again, she crossed the other foot and the same thing happened again and again only Mr. Wilson noticed. Trisha was able to recover the fallen pump a bit easier this time and soon she walked back to her desk and was out of trouble. She took the opportunity to stop by the restroom then returned the shoes to Joanna and thanked her.
The rest of the work day, Trisha sat with her feet under her desk and her one shoe off. She waited until everyone left her part of the office before she put her one shoe back on and began to walk to the elevator. She was mere moments from escaping Wachovia being virtually undiscovered in her one shod state. She pressed the 'L' button and soon the elevator arrived and the doors opened. She walked in and immediately realized that on the elevator with her was none other than Mr. Wilson! Trisha retreated to the back of the elevator and turned to face the doors and tried to hide her bare foot from her Vice President.
"Well hello again, Trisha. I was really impressed by your demonstration this afteroon," he said while glancing down to see her one red and white slide and her one bare foot.
Embarrassed, Trisha replied, "Thanks. I had a lot of good help putting it together from Joanna, Elliot and Mike."
The elevator slowly approached the bottom floor of the parking garage then both exited. Trisha realized that trying to hide her problem from Mr. Wilson was futile. Mr. Wilson stopped and Trisha did so as well, flexing her bare toes on the rough concrete parking garage deck to keep from looking so uneven.
Mr. Wilson commented, "Pardon me for my nosiness, but I could not help but notice that when I met you, you were wearing only one shoe and then you wore a pair of pumps that were too large for you when we looked at your demonstration and now you're wearing the same one shoe again."
Trisha realized she was caught and decided to just tell him the truth. "Well, Mr. Wilson, it's embarrassing, but, I was having lunch at Riverfront Park and this black lab dog ran off with my other shoe and dropped it in the canal."
Mr. Wilson laughed moderately but commented, "I'm sorry for laughing, but my dog sitter called me a half-hour after I came by and met you and your co-workers. She said that she had a problem with Luke while she was walking him in Riverfront Park around lunchtime. His leash broke so I need to get another one before she walks him tomorrow.
"Luke! That's the name I heard a girl calling for when he ran back off the bridge."
"So my dog dropped your other shoe in the canal. That silly dog! He used to take my ex-wife's shoes and hide them. Never took mine though, only hers. We'd be getting ready to go to dinner or a musical and she'd be hobbling around on one shoe looking under beds and tables for the other one." Mr. Wilson reached in his pocket and pulled out a well-stuffed money clip. "Here, take this $100 and buy a replacement pair."
"Oh, that's too much to take, they're only $49.95 retail and I get a discount."
"Well, if you insist." Then Mr. Wilson pulled out a Grant fifty and told her, "Get a pair just like them if you want. Where are you parked?"
"I'm up at the top of this row."
"Hop in my car Trisha and I'll take you up to it. It's a ways to walk on this rough concrete with out a shoe. Once my ex-wife lost a shoe crossing the street, a backless sandal similar to yours, and I had to go and get the car to pick her up."
Mr. Wilson led Trisha to his Jaguar and opened the door for her and drove her about 150 feet to where her car was parked.
"Thanks for the ride and the shoe money, Mr. Wilson."
"No problem for the ride and I'm sorry about Luke losing your shoe. Hey, by the way, when your Security Breach Simulation project is finished, I want you to show it to the President and a couple of other VPs. You've got a bright future at Wachovia, Trisha."
Trisha got in her car and drove back hope, stunned that she had made such a good impression on her Vice President despite being in one shoe. She was even more motivated to do a good job and do well for Wachovia. 'Wait until Shelley hears about this!"
