Things To Say Before I Go

Chapter 7: Jess

I just couldn't focus today. I was so wrapped in other things floating around on my head that I didn't even care to pay attention to the paperwork that I had to get done. I was busy daydreaming when my phone rang, waking me from my state of wonder. I picked it up. 

"Hello?" I asked. 

"It's me!" I heard a yell in response. It was my sister Ali. I forgot she had called last week asking to have lunch when she would be in town. Ugh, here we go. 

"So you never called me back and I SUPPOSE I can forgive you, but we should really have lunch, Jess. I'm only in town for the next two days and..." she continued on a story that I eventually tuned out of. 

When she finally took a second to breathe, I butted in, saying, "I'm free on Sunday at 12:45." 

She agreed to meeting me at a new Chinese restaurant that was near her hotel. I was grateful to hang up the phone. My sister is one of those people that can somehow take a story about an event that began and ended in a minute and stretch out the story for close to an hour. And on top of that, she over dramatized everything. She was a theater kid all throughout school, always fought to get the lead and would cry for days when she didn't get it which, fortunately for my family and all that knew her, only happened twice. She only wanted the lead because she craved the attention. Once, she lost to this girl named Annie for the lead in their fourth grade play about the origin of Thanksgiving and she cried for the longest time. When they finally got her on stage, she was a pilgrim with the sourest facial expression you'd ever seen. But, yeah, I love her. Well, maybe. It comes in flashes.

"Kels, please kill me," I said, running my fingers through my hair in frustration. 

I had just gotten another email with work to do, this time from Melanie. I think she had finally gotten over the initial shock of my forceful approach to her and was starting to gather herself together because she had started sending m emails with assignments again and this morning, I found a stack of files to be gone through similar to the ones I spent two extra hours on on the night of..., let's just call it 'Doom's Day'. That woman had balls. Yes, I recognize that that statement holds no ground anatomically, but I couldn't care less. 

Kelsey rubbed my arm. "I know, I know. I can take a couple of these if you want," she said, eyeballing the stack of untouched files. 

"Oh, you are a life saver," I muttered gratefully. 

We split the files and went to work. I don't think I ever typed faster in my life, I started to contact the various clients in the files with various updates, changes to policies, and quick check in messages. It was boring, absolutely, but to quote my annoying sister, I SUPPOSE it had to get done. It was 4:30 when we both had finally finished every last one of the files and everything was sent to whoever it needed to be sent to. 

"Phew!" I said, giving Kelsey a high five. 

"You did it, bitch," she said, pretending to be out of breath. "You know what I could go for right now?" she started. 

"A cold beer," we said at the same time. 

I cracked a smile. "I'll get my coat!" I said, leaping up out of my chair. 

"I'll get some cash!" she said, running in the opposite direction.

****************

We quickly made our way to Mike's Pub on 37th street for a couple of beers. We had to push our way through the crowds which, as always, was a pain in the ass to do seeing as nobody wanted to move at a seemingly normal pace. Mike's was a nice Irish bar that had been in the city for a while now. The current owner, Val, was always giving us our first beers on the house since the day we started going there three years ago. 

The bar itself had a couple of dart boards lining the left the wall when you first walked in and to the right were two refurbished billiard tables that Val salvaged, one from a yard sale in a small town outside of the city and another from a junk yard. We walked in and smelled the familiar mixture of ale, cigar smoke and some damn good burgers. We took of our coats, hung them on the hook at the door and sat down at the bar. The bartender, an Irish girl of about our age named Abby came over with two beers already for us. 

"On the house as usual," she said with a smile. 

"Thanks, Abby," I said. 

Abby was the usual bartender. She had worked there for about five years now and was helping Val keep up with the place. We talked to her for a minute about some random things when an unruly customer started to yell to her. 

"Hey sweet thing, you wanna do your job and get my another beer or are you just gonna stand there trying to look pretty?" Abby rolled her eyes, took a deep breath, politely said, "Excuse me," to me and Kelsey and turned to face the man. "Earl, I'm not going to get you another beer just because you want to get drunk off your ass for God knows what reason. If you can honestly talk to me like that right now with the amount of alcohol you've consumed, I am sure as hell not going to give you more. And take your miserable ass out of here and home to your wife before I beat you for her."

The man she referred to as Earl sat there for a minute, grumbled something and then begrudgingly got up, grabbed his jacket and walked out. 

"And for your information, I don't have to try to look pretty, smart ass! This all comes natural!" The whole bar cheered as Earl left. Abby took a bow and came back to us. 

"Well played, my friend," Kelsey said, applauding.  

"I do what I can," she said, accepting the fanfare. "You guys want some onion rings?" 

I took a quick drink of my beer and set it back down. "Is that even a question?" I asked with a laugh. 

Abby laughed a little but straightened up, wrote down for an order of onion rings to give to the kitchen and said, "Don't push it or I'll kick you two out too" with a smile. 

Kelsey and I talked for a little as people came in and out of the bar. I didn't watch the door at all so I didn't immediately see who Kesey was referring to when she said, "Well damn, who is that?" I turned to see who she was talking about and almost choked on my beer.