- 1 -
"Hey, how about we invite Anna, Matt, Tara and Chris over for dinner?" I say from the bathroom, as I get dressed. "When?" Adam asks from the bedroom. I think for a moment. "Tonight?" I suggest. I can hear hesitation in my husband's voice. "Jane, do you think you should this soon?" I sigh. "Adam, I'm not sick anymore. I'm barely sniffling and I'm not really contagious anymore. I really really want to have a date night with our friends. Come on Adam! It'll be good for us to do this. We haven't done anything fun as a couple for a while." I can just tell Adam's trying to find ways to get out of this. He seems to have finally given in as he replies "Okay, Jane if it's what you want."
I open the bathroom door and beam up at him. "Really?" I ask, excited. "Unchallenged Jane." Adam says. I jump up into his arms to hug him and I give him a big kiss. Adam kisses me back and drops his arms to my hipbone. "If you're happy, then I'm happy yo." I give him a big kiss on the cheek and say "Thank you." Adam smiles at me. "Only for you, my love." He says. I pull myself out of his grasp and walk out to the living room to put on my burgundy sketchers. Adam grabs our coats and reaches for my hand, which I happily give as we close our apartment door and head for the stairs to go down to street level.
"We're doing what tonight?" Tara asks, walking down the hallway after me. "Dinner. You, Chris, Anna, Matt, Adam and I at our place." I reply. "Who's cooking?" Tara asks. "Adam and I." "No take-out?" Tara asks surprised and I roll my eyes at her. "What?" She asks, laughing. "We don't just eat take-out Tar." I say. Tara laughs. "I've seen your trash can at home. It's filled with take-out containers." I smack her teasingly on the shoulder and go into my office.
My phone rings a moment later and I reach to pick it up. "Hello?" I say into the speaker as I click at my computer mouse and return to writing up my Downtown article. "Hey Jane." I could almost melt into the phone when I heard Adam's voice. It's just that amazing nowadays. "What's up?" I manage to say. I could never before have imagined that hearing the word "Hey" could make me go weak in the knees, but I guess it can. "Not too much. I just wanted to hear your voice I guess." Adam replies. I smile because he is so obvious and I don't mind either. "Oh." I say trying to sound disappointed that he didn't want more. "What are you doing?" He asks. I sift through papers on my desk as I reply "I'm trying to write up an article on Downtown." "Trying?" I can hear the smile in Adam's voice. "Yeah, trying." I reply. "Cool yo." He says. "I can't do lunch today if that's what you're really trying to ask." I say, getting to the point. "Cha, I guess. But, can't I just call to hear my wife's voice?"
I'm in pure giddyness at the moment. " Sure, I guess." I reply. "Unchallenged. I'll talk to you later Jane. I love you." I smile at those words that I love to hear. "I love you too. Bye." I say.
I bite my lip as I hang up the phone. I have a mountain of work to deal with and I don't want to! I let out a huge sigh of frustration and I must have been pretty loud, because Tara comes out of her own office and comes into mine to see what's wrong. She just gives me a weird look. "It's just I have a lot of work to deal with." I say. Tara raises her eyebrows and walks back into her office.
"Stop acting like such a drama queen and get back to work." Clare, one of my co-workers says, smiling. I put on a pout. "Fine." I say, all dramatically. Clare laughs. "Go!" She says, trying to sound serious. I roll my eyes and turn back to my computer screen. I bring Microsoft Word onto the screen and start to type. My phone rings and the little button that says, "front desk" is glowing. "Yes?" I ask. "Iris is on call waiting for you." One of the receptionists down at the front desk says. "Thank you." I say as she patches Iris through.
"Hello?" "Hi Joan." Iris says. "Hey Iris. What's up?" I can tell that Iris is shrugging. "Not too much. I was wondering if it would be all right if I bring the photographs from our interview with Downtown over for you to see in say, 45 minutes? I just finished developing them about an hour or so ago." "Sure. Yeah, that would be great. I'm excited about seeing them, so yeah. That'll be great." I reply. "Cool. See you then Joan." Iris says before she hangs up.
About 45 minutes later, there's a knock at my door. "Come in." I say looking up from my computer screen. Iris opens my door all the way and smiles at me. She shows me a manila envelope that says, "D.T shoot" on the front. "Cool." I say, taking it from her outstretched hand. I open the latch on the back of the envelope and lift the paper flap and take the pile of photographs out and put them on my desk.
The one on top is of all 5 of them. Alex Zimmer (Lead Guitar and Vocals) standing behind his wife Lucy (Bass and vocals) with his arms wrapped around her, Chelsea Able-Fisher (Keyboards, Piano and vocals) standing beside them leaning her arm on her best friend Lucy's shoulder, Sierra Eden (Guitar and vocals) standing beside Alex and Mitch Amsburry (Drums and vocals) standing next to Sierra holding one of his drumsticks in the air.
The next one was of Chelsea and Lucy sitting on benches facing each other. Lucy's wavy red hair is falling in her face while she is laughing at an inside joke Chelsea had just told her.
The next one is of the 3 girls with Sierra in the center and Lucy and Chelsea grinning like idiots. Sierra's long brown ringlets shinned and Chelsea's Lilac eyes were filled with so much laughter.
The next one was of the 5 of them looking all serious and trying to not laugh in the meantime.
The next one was of Mitch and Chelsea standing at Chelsea's keyboards. Chelsea looked all casual wearing a light blue ski hat that let her long blonde hair show.
The next one was of Lucy and Alex with their arms wrapped around each other, gazing into each other's eyes all romantically.
The next one was Sierra sitting at a desk, looking into the mirror that the desk was placed in front of. Sierra was wearing a v-necked black shirt and black lounge pants and her hair was really wavy. Iris had taken the picture so you could see both the real Sierra and her reflection.
The next one was of Sierra and Alex (the founding members) acting stupid and trying to irate each other.
The final one was of the 5 of them looking very relaxed on a couch.
"Iris, these are great. I love them all." I say, looking back up at Iris. Iris smiles at me, proud of her work. "Thank you." She says. "Which one do you want for the cover?" I glance through them again quickly.
"I like this one for the cover." I reply, choosing the first one of them all standing. Iris looked at it for a moment, then replies "Okay", agreeing with me.
"And this one for the full page one at the beginning of the article." I say, choosing the one of the 5 of them relaxed on the couch. And I want the rest of them in this order." I say as I look through the pictures and put them all in a pile on top of the envelope.
Iris nods her head and replies "Okay, cool. That sounds good. I'll leave them here with you then?" I look up at her. "Sure." I reply.
Iris puts the pictures back in the envelope and hands it to me. I bit my lip and take in a breath, then look at her again.
"Did you love him?" I ask. Iris closes her eyes, and then looks at me, knowing exactly who "Him" was. "Almost. But, I never would have been you." "Why?" I ask. Iris sort of snorts and replies "Joan, there was no use ever trying to compete. It was always you. You've always been the one he's wanted." I look at her again and swallow. "What do you mean?" "There's like this huge statue of you in his heart. We can look, but if we ever try to touch it, we get a st load of crap about it. I'm sure Jennifer and Bonnie felt the same way." Iris stops when she sees me stiffly cringe.
"What?" She asks. "It's just still hard for me to hear her name. I'm sorry, go on." I say. Iris smiles faintly, then starts again.
"There are like these flying monkeys circling around your statue. They look like a creepy mix between Adam and those monkeys that you would see on TV that would dance around and beg for money. If you tried to touch the statue, they'd start to scream and come down and start to hit you. Once they'd thought you'd learned your lesson, they'd happily go back up and circle 'round you again. The statue of you is huge and there's barely enough room to walk around you." She finishes as she starts to laugh. I'm laughing pretty hard at this point.
"You'll have to show me a drawing of it sometime." I say. Iris smiles then replies "Sure." while she's still laughing. She stands and starts to walk towards the door.
"Where are you going?" I ask. "I've got to get back to work. There's a lot to do today without Adam being there. Where is he by the way?" I grin, and then reply "He's getting stuff for tonight." Iris raises her eyebrows and asks, "What's tonight?" "A dinner date with Anna, Matt, Tara and Chris." I reply. "Cool." Iris says. "Yeah." I say. "I'll see you later Joan." Iris says, attempting to walk to the door again. "Okay. Bye Iris." I say. Iris smiles and says "Bye." as she walks out the door.
There's a knock on my door a while later and without looking up I say, "Come in." "Hey." I hear Adam say as he comes in. I look up at him wondering why he's there. "What are you doing here?" I ask. Adam raises his eyebrows. "Gees, you sure do seem happy to see me." "That's not it Adam, I am. But why are you here so early?" Adam sits down in one of the chairs in front of my desk and reaches for one of my pens and starts to flip it around his fingers. "What do you mean early? It's almost 5:30." Not believing him, I glance down at my computer's clock. It reads 5:27. "Oh wow, it was like early when I last looked." I say, with a slight chuckle. Adam lets out a slight laugh. "I hope this night's great, 'cause today was crazy. I got everything at the Grocery store, I got the flowers you wanted, chocolate cheesecake, candles and the wine." "Awesome." I say, as I turn off my computer.
"Yeah, so you ready?" Adam says. I smiled slightly up at him as I reply "Yeah." Adam nods as we walk out of my office. "See you later!" Tara calls from her office. "Bye!" I say. Tara smiles, then stands and walks to her door. "What time?" She asks. Adam shrugs and looks at me. "7:00?" I suggest. I look back at Tara. "Sure, we'll see you then I guess." Tara says, agreeing. I smile at her, and then turn towards the elevator.