Lilies And Smoke

CHAPTER EIGHT: Old fashioned love

Anita wakes up around eleven in the morning, her phone vibrating on her bedside table. Her face wedged into her pillow. She shoots her arm out and pats the table roughly. She grabs her phone and rolls over onto her back and answers the phone; "hello" she grunts, her voice hoarse.

"Who woke you up on the wrong side of bed this morning? Was it Mr sexy neighbour?" Janice taunts on the other end of the phone. Anita lets out a moan and says, "nothing happened, I just didn't sleep well at all". She hears Janice sighs in disappointment on the other end of the phone, "you need to hurry up and jump on that tiger".

"Do I look like the pouncing type to you?" Anita groans, waking up fully as she sits up in her bed. She listens as Janice snorts, "yeah you would, you just don't have the confidence yet".

"I feel like sleeping for days" Anita states, her mouth dry as she wrinkles her nose.

"Sounds it" Janice agrees.

"When are you working?" Anita asks, making small talk.

"Soon, in an hour or so. The couple's house I'm doing isn't that far away, they've had to out so I'm waiting for them to come back so they can let me in to do my work" Janice answers. Anita lets out another, louder yawn "well, whenever you like give me a ring and I'll make us a brew. I've got to do the Smith's account soon, I tried looking at it yesterday, but they have made so many mistakes. I literally can't work with it so I need them to send me another one so I can get it redone in braille to read".

"Alright Hun, I'll leave you to it" she says, but just as she was about to hang up Anita interjects, "I really need to talk to you about something, but it can wait until we next see each other".

"Are you sure? We can talk about it now if you like?" Janice offers. Anita bites her lip, "honestly it can wait, it's not important. Really. It can wait" she lies. Janice hums, "well, in that case I'll see you soon yeah?".

"Yeah, I'll see you soon" she replies, removing the phone from her ear as she hears the line go dead. She lets out a shaky breath and her breath shortens. It doesn't take long until she's fully dressed in her leggings, baggy shirt and fluffy socks that kept her toes feeling tingly. After another fifteen minutes she decides to have some cereal, coco puffs to be precise and takes her breakfast into her office. She sets to work; it takes her over an hour to organise the new forms with her client as they remedy their mistakes. She organises a date to meet with them to go through their accounts. Anita finishes her work around four in the afternoon and decides to feed Bill.

When she finds his bag of dog food in the kitchen, she realises it was near enough empty. She tuts to herself, searching the shelf above it for canned dog food but only finds one tin. She uses the remainder of the dry dog food and the can into his dog bowl. I need to get some dog food; she makes a mental note to herself. She places the dog food on the ground and smiles as she hears Bill wagging his tail in excitement. "Here you go buddy" she says through her smile.

She hears Bill munch down eagerly on his food, sloppy and wet noises emit throughout the kitchen as he continues to eat. She leaves him to it and rubs her eyes. An hour nap couldn't hurt, she thinks to herself and lies down on her sofa and closes her eyes, drifting into a comfortable slumber.

. . . . .

It was nearing five in the evening, when Anita wakes, rubbing her eyes. She yawns and tilts her head side to side; it was strained and sore. I must have slept on it funny; Anita tells herself as she sits up on the sofa. She places her head in her hands and breathes out steadily, I need to clean Bill's mess in the garden she reminds herself. But it wasn't much of a mess, with a little bit of help from Janice she had trained Bill to do his business in a tray which she spreads out a black bin back in there. The tray was very flat, so water usually just drains straight off from it when it rains.