The Masquerade

This is where it all happened. The Masquerade. A Thursday night. 80's night. Almost 11 years ago. Me and the girls met up with some of our other college friends and in that group was a fella I didn't know. Quite cute. Wearing a blue Adidas tee-shirt with a white long-sleeved shirt under it. And a hat. I went up to him and pointed in his face because I was young and obnoxious and confident and wearing a cute dress with platform shoes. "Who are you?"


That's when I met Evan and I loved his Irish name, but it was his brown Doc Martins that won me over. A guy is only as cool as his shoes, I say, and those were my favorite. Plus he plays racquetball and I was huge into racquetball. The lights came on at the end of the night and you know how scary that is because there's a good chance you have that drunken make-up all over your face googly-eyed look that remains hidden as long as the lights are low so you pray they'll stay off. But they never do. And I may have had that look but I can't remember. All I remember is bolting to the bar to get a cocktail napkin and jotting my number down for him, which I never voluntarily did. My friends and I used to give out the number for the psychiatric hotline at our college campus.

So cute guy called. He picked me up at my dorm for our first date and it was great, a Japanese steakhouse and a comedy club where I ordered my first legal cocktail just after my 21st birthday. A strawberry daquiri with some whipped cream and a cherry on top. I don't normally get daquiris with whipped cream on them but that's how it came and it was my first real drink so I didn't care. We went on a second date. And a third. I was an intern at a TV station and I thought his last name would make a great TV name for me when I grew up and got a real job, not the one I had waitressing at Denny's. I recited it. Christie O'Sullivan, FOX News.

It's hard to believe now that I see The Masquerade in the daylight all closed up and quiet, that we used to stumble in and out of that wonderful club every Thursday night. 11 years ago. It's closed now and it feels like the end of an era. Walking by it, I could still hear the thumping of my favorite decade of music "You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby right round round round..."

I can still see the line of people wrapping around the building waiting to get in. I can still picture where I ordered my vodka and cranberry and the space of dance floor where my boyfriend and I would dance all night, forgetting that we came with friends, and forgetting that there were other people at the club. Dancing and laughing until those lights came on at the end of the night and we were shooshed out. And then everyone would gather outside, mulling around, trying to find their friends, their cars, and make their next move. Huge groups of people spilling out the doors, sweaty, make-up that's seen better days, aching feet, all of it. The smell of old cigarettes on my clothes and in my hair. It feels so long ago. He was a keeper and I knew it back then. And we dated for a while and then we didn't. Life happened. But it all led up to this time right now. A little ironic, maybe. Leaving a baby shower with some of those very college friends I went out with that night and walking by the very place where my fate was sealed 11 years ago, hand in hand with that same cute guy, heading home to see our baby. My Valentines.