Shit! I thought to myself. I imagined that things would probably get worse there for me. Kim had met Victoria before at the airport, but I couldn’t account for Rachel, TaShay, Paula, and the other black women in the room. We were not at all in the majority. Victoria and her friend fit in better than we did. I figured maybe that would help me out in the long run. At least she would feel comfortable if I left her alone in the crowd.

“Wow, this is quite something else here,” she looked around and told me.

I was afraid to look with her. I didn’t want to see who all were looking back at us.

Victoria was gorgeous that night, I’ll give her that, I just had no idea how many attachments to various black women I would have in the room. It turned out I had more ties than I had previously expected, and that only increased my nervousness about inviting a couple of white girls.

“So, are we sitting at the same table?” Victoria asked me.

I looked again at her ticket stub. It read Table 43.

I shook my head. “I believe the models are all sitting at the reserved tables up front,” I told her. That gave me a little bit of breathing room at least.

Right on cue, a female escort found me to guide me to my table.

“Ah, Mr. Terrance Mitchell?” she asked me with a smile. She was another attractive white woman wearing a black silk dress and high heels.

“Yes,” I responded to her.

She said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how you got away from me, but I’m supposed to escort you to your table up front. My name is Darla.”

I told her, “That was my mistake, Darla. I kind of drifted away from everyone else once I spotted a few folks I knew around the room.”

I turned back to Victoria and started to introduce them.

“This is Victoria Mason, an up-and-coming mover and shaker in the marketing and entertainment field.” I didn’t know how else to introduce her.

“How are you?” the two women addressed each other.

“And this is her friend…”

“Jill,” Victoria filled in for me.

“Right,” I responded with a nod. “Well, I’ll see you guys a little later once we get everything started in here.”

“Oh, okay, well, we’ll be here,” Victoria promised me. “And remember, we’re at Table Forty-three.”

“I got it,” I told her.

I moved behind my escort a few feet toward the direction of my table before I was stopped in my tracks again.

“Long time no see, Mr. Man.”

I heard that “Mr. Man” quip and turned to my left. Only one woman called me that.

“Andrea,” I addressed her. She looked good, only older in her gold designer dress. She had a matching gold flower in her hair.

“Surprised to see me here?” she asked me.

There was no hug, no handshake, no touch, just words and eyes between us.