Someone had been here, obviously. The evidence was probably here in the bathroom. Jennie shook her head. Didn't matter, she told herself again. Just get her stuff and get out. It didn't matter if Lisa had another girl here last night. Didn't-matter-didn't-matter-didn't-matter.
"So did you have a good time last night with Cha-Cha?" Jennie heard herself ask Lisa.
"Who?" Lisa looked through the bathroom door towards her. She was so screwed right now, she thought to herself. So completely and utterly screwed.
Lisa had broken a cardinal rule. The Multiple Voicemail Rule. The one where you never leave more than one message at a time on a girl's phone. Never. No exceptions. Every dude knew that. Leave a second voicemail on a girl's phone before she responded to the first one, and you just kissed goodbye to any chance of ever sleeping with her. Ever.
Anyone who knew anything about women knew that. They'd even put it in Swingers. Swingers! That movie was freaking about Lisa! Except she had always been Vince Vaughan, the smooth operator. She was never Jon Favreau, the loser - the guy who's so twisted in a knot by his ex-girlfriend that he completely forgets everything he ever knew about women.
When had Lisa turned into that Jon Favreau character? Worse than Jon Favreau! Jon Favreau left maybe five voicemails, tops, when he struck out with that girl. But ten voicemails? Twenty voicemails? So many voicemails that you overflowed Jennie's mailbox? That wasn't even in the rule book. Lisa didn't even know what that would make a girl do. Probably back out of the room slowly and make a run for the nearest police station.
"The one you were dancing with." she heard Jennie say.
Lisa furrowed her forehead in confusion. "What?" Lisa was struggling to concentrate on what Jennie was asking her. "Cha-Cha? Who? You mean Audrey?"
"Audrey?" Jennie raised her eyebrows. "Just Jared said her name was Aubrie. Who's Audrey?"
"I don't know. But who's Cha-Cha?"
Jennie just shook her head, not answering as she gathered her things off the counter and moved back into the bedroom where she had left her suitcase. She unzipped the toiletry compartment and concentrated on packing her items neatly inside. Lisa still hadn't moved. She was just standing there, watching Jennie.
Not that she needed Lisa to spell it out any further. Message received, Jennie thought. Lisa had spent the night with someone named Audrey and not Aubrie. Wow, talk about having choices. And now Jennie was packing. And Lisa sure as hell wasn't stopping her.
Oh, this was bad, Lisa thought to herself with a shudder. This was very very bad. She couldn't let Jennie see those messages. She couldn't let Jennie charge her phone. Jennie was fiddling around with the suitcase on the bed, but Lisa's attention was on the bedside table just behind Jennie. Her phone was sitting there on the table. The screen was still black. Lisa had about 30 seconds before it would be charged up enough for Jennie to turn it on.
Lisa's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing in the living room. She ignored it, desperately casting about for some way to distract Jennie.
"Aren't you going to answer that?" Jennie asked.
Lisa didn't move. She knew from the sound of the ringtone that it wasn't an important call. Anyway, she couldn't leave Jennie alone in here. Lisa had about 15 seconds now.
"Lisa?"
"Yes!" Lisa exclaimed. She bounded for the doorway towards the living room, pulling the bedroom door shut on her way out. The ringing was coming from the pocket of the blazer she'd been wearing last night, but she ignored it. Instead, she flung herself towards the far end of the room and reached for the grey metallic cabinet just left of the kitchen sink. The circuit breakers. Lisa pulled the cabinet open and flipped the main switch, letting out a gasp of relief as the lights around her all flickered off in unison.
Lisa heard Jennie's voice call out behind her a moment later. "Did you blow a fuse?" Jennie asked.
Lisa took a deep breath and shook her head as she closed the metal door and turned around to face Jennie.
"No, it looks ok," Lisa said with an innocent shrug. "Must be some kind of a black-out."
