The Aftermath Of You

Chapter Fifteen

On the fourth day I was once again unemployed. I spent the start of the day watching infomercials, imagining that if I spent a few hundred dollars on an exercise machine I would have buns of steel and thus would become more employable.

In the midst of my musing the phone began to ring, I glanced at the number; great – not my mother. "Hello?"

"Hello, Toni, this is Jack Patterson. I had a missed call from your number a few days ago. Were you needing any more information?"

"I – no! Well, perhaps." Sucking in a breath fearfully, I nearly fainted. Why couldn't I think up an excuse? I'd had four days to work on it!

He waited patiently.

I waited fearfully.

"Ok, so perhaps s... we can work with that. How can I help you?"

"Err; I was ringing to ask if interest would go up any further if ..."

"Yes?" I could hear him punching calculator buttons in anticipation.

"If I asked you out for dinner sometime." I squeaked. My eyes were closed tight.

"Oh." he said, quite shocked. "But I'm not really sure who you are."

"My friend and I came to see you about a loan; we wanted to make designer umbrellas."

"Oh!"

"You don't have to, of course!" I told him breathlessly. "I mean, you probably have someone-"

"No, no, I figured you were to do with the designer umbrellas but I meant which of the two women are you?"

I sucked my breath again. Was he hoping that I was the blonde? Sophie was the girl that got bullied all through high school ... you know the one ... the girl with the audacity to be six foot high in heels with the fastest metabolism to boot, so that even if she spent a month drinking wine and eating constant doughnuts her thighs would remain untouched by cellulite. It hadn't endeared Sophie to her peers and they had snarled names like Twiggy and Stick at her for five solid years. "I'm the brunette."

"Okay then. I thought I'd lost you to some outlandish cult. How does seven tonight sound?"