Ten
Some days, I wish I was the corpse on the examining table instead of the girl behind the reception desk. This was one of those days. The phone had been ringing off the hook since I had come in that morning, only it wasn't hundreds of different people calling. It was one jackass from the DA's office who wouldn't leave me alone. I guess he figured that if he hung up, waited two minutes, and then called again, I would have the answer to a question he had asked that I didn't have earlier. People can be so stupid.
On top of that, Missy was insisting that I go out with her 34-year-old son, James, who still lived with her at home. He was a nice boy, so she claimed, but he had trouble getting out and socializing with women. I knew his type before she even showed me the picture: overweight, awkward, glasses, "Star Trek" t-shirt, the works. I tried telling Missy over and over again that I wasn't exactly available, but she didn't want to take the relationship between Greg and I seriously.
"You need a dependable man," she said. "Someone who won't leave you for a better looking woman." I was too tired and annoyed to even come up with a witty comeback. To be blunt, she thought that Greg was too good-looking for me. Ah, to be chubby in a skinny world.
The only silver lining in my day of dark clouds was the cupcake that I found waiting for me on my desk when I got back from the copy machine. It was drenched in bright blue frosting, like it was the work of an overzealous 8-year-old chef. A small piece of paper sat next to it with a message written in Greg's chicken scratch: A sweet for my sweet. I could hear his dopey voice saying it in my head, and I smiled to myself, if only for a moment. It was Missy who again rained on my parade.
"You're not going to eat that, are you?" she asked, picking up the cupcake and examining it like it was a three headed ladybug. I snatched it out of her hand, and bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to explode.
"No, Missy," I said through clinched teeth. "I was going to preserve it for future generations." My humor was lost on her, and she could only stare at me as I sat back down at my constricting desk. How many more hours until quitting time? Too many.
I didn't want to go back to my ratty apartment after work, so I decided to head over to Greg's place. I knew that his shift wasn't over yet, so I figured I could use his hidden spare key to sneak inside and wait for him. Besides, I owed him a surprise after my little blue desert today. Unfortunately, Cornelius, my car, had other plans.
As I turned the corner on a narrow street about six blocks from Greg's building, Corny started to sputter and jerk violently like he had a hacking cough. Being the loving owner that I am, I freaked out and started pounding on the dashboard with my fist (I knew it wouldn't do any good, but hey, why do people hit their computer monitors when their frozen?). Still, my pounding couldn't help, and the tiny car made one final lunge forward before dying completely. I sat behind the wheel for a second, in a sort of "why me?" daze. Was God punishing me for stealing those crackers from a grocery store when I was 10? I knew never to mess with another man's food.
As a modern woman of the 21st century, I should have had a cell phone with me. But since luck wasn't on my side that day, I had left my phone, along with my other work related items, at home. I weighed my options, and concluded that I could either walk my butt to Greg's apartment, or ask one of the surrounding residents to let me use their phone. Looking at the houses to my left and right, I realized that I was in the Las Vegas ghetto. I had a better chance of jumper cables falling from the sky than summoning the courage to talk to a stranger who had a pit bull in their front yard. Walking it was.
Again, the big man upstairs saw fit to punish me further, and he unleashed a brutal downpour of rain on me. I stopped in my tracks when I felt the first big drop hit my head, but kept on going. At that point, I had given up on trying to repair this day. I walked along the road for what seemed like hours, dodging cars and mud puddles as my hair became a stringy, wet mess. Never in my life had I been as relieved as I was when I got to Greg's apartment building. Climbing the stairs to his floor, I could hear the water in my shoes squeaking and squishing. I looked like I had just fallen into the dolphin tank at Sea World – before it was cleaned. I didn't even bother to pretty myself up before ringing the doorbell.