She clenched the half empty beer bottle in her hand and gripped the steel railing of the bar. She wanted to smash every champagne glass across the table and tear through the office, screaming: "That bitch set me up!"
Her face stiffened with suppressed rage. The more she studied the glasses, the more she wanted to break every single one of them and the more she thought about it, the more incensed she became. There were no people. And there was no music. There were only the millions of empty champagne glasses this night at the Surf Club, and the office where she would rip apart every letter, contract, agreement, proposal; knock them off the shelves and send them scattering at Elyse's feet.
That tiny gold purse she held - she wanted to fling it, full of glass bottles and jars, against the wall.
"You look very mad at something or someone." The voice was behind her.
"I am," she hissed.
"Well, tell me what it is and I will tell you what you should do."
"I don't wanna talk about it."
"Perhaps I will buy you a couple of drinks and you wil tell me about it."
The face was unusual, the eyes light, the nose pug, the lips full and curved as were the other features, with well-groomed hair brushed back from the face, not unlike the mane of the Cowardly Lion.
"Are you upset with a woman or a man?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know if it is a woman or a man? Then, there is a problem."
"No, I'm upset with both."
"Which one are you more upset with, the woman or the man?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know who you are more upset with?"
"Not him, not him. Her. She set us up. It's someone at work wh I really like and she knows..."
"Are you sure she knows that you like him? How does she know?"
"She sits right in front of me. Her desk is right here and mine's across from her." She gestured with her hands.
"She set you up with him?"
"No, she fixed him up with someone else because she knows I like him."
"Does he know you like him? Have you told him that you like him?"
"I think he does. No, I haven't told him."
"Ahh...here is what you must do. Tell him you like him. It is OK for a man to tell a woman, but a woman cannot tell a man! It should not be that way," he exclaimed with a grand gesture of his hand.
"Oh, I know!"
"Ask him out for a few drinks after work. Do not tell him in the office. Say, 'do you like me?'
She giggled. "Maybe I should."
