Across the Brooklyn Bridge

4

2:34 PM - 17th February 2015

"There's someone on the phone for you."

SEATED BEHIND A SMALLER rendering of Julianne's desk, Jane ushers the central office phone in her supervisor's face. Jules raises an eyebrow upon Jane's uncharacteristic look of mischief. The girl praises right from wrong, she wouldn't have the unerring knowledge to execute a prank. Would she? Jules warily accepts the implement and places it at her ear with a sense of uncertainty.

"Hello?"

"Hello yourself," the deeply familiar, masculine voice that Jules had heard repetitively over the past few days, sounds on the other side of the phone line. She momentarily closes her eyes, then casts Jane a glance of unalloyed mistrust. Jane smiles widely, her eyes radiating amusement as she discards her betrayal as an act of good-will.

"If you want to ask me for dinner so badly, why don't you just ask?" Jules laughs, sarcasm tracing through her words. She touches on the abrupt correspondences between their lives. Jules can't seem to get away from him, whether she wants to or not.

"Have dinner with me," she falls silent at his rejoinder. Jules was only teasing him, nothing to be taken for authenticity. She chips her fingers at the splinter on her wooden desk, ruminating on an appropriate response. He told her, clearly, that he's seeing someone else. Whether his proposition is sardonic or genuine, Jules remains lost in his intonation.

"Are you asking me on a date?" she asks jokingly and ignores the sudden astonishment on her intern's face. Jane is unduly involved with situations that are far from her own business, but Jules, as forthright as she is, doesn't hold it against her. To be accountable for an intern, does not only require work experience but comprehensive practical knowledge.

"I want you to meet Kim". The exchange of words surrenders to its fleeting silence. Charlie's suggestion for dinner is suddenly a lot less appealing than two seconds in the past.

"I'm actually not a big fan of the Kardashian's, but if you ask nicely, I'll consider it," twirling in her desk chair, Jules replies with an equalled sense of irony. Her choice of reality television is, by her opinion, a lot more tasteful than the activities of an over-exposed family. She can perceive unclear laughter on the opposite side of the phone, but withholds her own comment.

"Don't make me laugh, Jules," Charlie says, eventually.

"What do you want me to do?" Jules asks, deprived of her inkling of humour, "give the girl you're seeing a balloon to convince her that I'm harmless?" She doesn't understand what good it would do for Charlie's alleged girlfriend to meet a girl who he occasionally shared a kiss with. There's really no motive to that introduction. Jules would prefer to avoid offering her blessing to a man she's still romantically attracted to.

"So you don't want to come over for dinner?" he asks, but both Jules and Charlie know the answer to that question.

"Oh- no. I'll be there. I'm all up for free food and third wheeling".

Someone should really scold Jules for continuing to make terrible choices in life. First, to kiss an un-available man, second, to share a meal with that un-available man and his girlfriend. As Jules lingers outside the accustomed apartment premises, she regrets complying to this proposition. Even free food can't mend an awkward situation. But before Jules receives the opportunity to escape the stairwell, Charlie swings open the glass door of the lobby.

"Jules," the blonde slowly pivots on her heel from her reversed direction. She flashes Charlie an uneasy smile, purposefully disclosing this bit of information to emphasise the stupidity of the concept.