You Don't Know Us

Chapter Three

I pick my head up from my desk when I hear a knock on the door. After a weekend of traveling and no sleep, I am simply exhausted. Waking up at 4 this morning after tossing and turning, certainly didn't help matters. Coffee couldn't even help this kind of an exhausted. This was bone deep- mental, as well as physical.

"Well, don't you look pretty this morning," teases Terry, walking in the door with her usually bouncy demeanor. Her blonde hair twisted in a perfect knot on the top of her head, and her colorful clothes perfectly in order. I perfectly hate her.

"Thanks," I say through a yawn. My medium length brunette hair was thrown hastily into a loose French braid that currently had more hair out of it than in. I honestly can't remember if I put mascara on both of my eyes and deodorant under both arms.

"You never texted me after the meeting; how did it go?"

I eye her, warily. Last we talked, she was over the moon/on the floor excited about my ex-boyfriend, but now she looks weirdly subdued.

"I calmed down!" she says, exasperated, throwing her arms out in a defensive gesture.

I sigh and relent. I tell her the whole story, including who they would want to cast at the characters. She just stands there and looks at me. The more I talk, the guiltier she looks, which is not the reaction I was expecting.

"What?" I ask, wondering what she could possibly be guilty about.

"Okay, don't get mad. I read your book over the weekend," Terry says quickly.

I just stare at her. "Great. Now I can go to the vending machine and get a soda with the 50 cents I got from that," I snark, sarcastically. Lack of sleep always gave me a bad attitude.

She rolled her blue eyes and sits down. "Seriously, Katie! It was really good. And now I'm not surprised that they want to make this into a movie. I mean, it was like a film reel rolling through my head."

"Well, I'm glad you liked it," I say, turning to my computer to start getting things ready for the day. I always feel awkward when someone compliments my books. It's like they're complimenting my life. Mind you, the only people that have commented on it are the people in my life, so that makes me feel extra awkward.

"Do you know what you're going to do?" she asks.

I sigh and put my head back down on my desk. "No," I grumble. "I read the script in the hopes that it would actually suck, but it didn't. It was the book to a 'T'. It was perfect."

"Well, how long did they give you to make a decision?"

"I have until next week. I need to get a lawyer to look at the contracts, just to make sure I'm not getting screwed somehow."

"Mike, can look at it," she says, offering her fiancé. "Come by tonight! He can look at the contracts and you and I can drink a lot of wine and finish grading papers! Report cards are due on Thursday."

"Are you sure that won't be too much? It's a lot to ask of him on short notice," I protest, while still hoping that he can do it.

"Oh, it'll be fine!" Terry says, waving me off. "What good is having a fancy lawyer fiancé, if I can't use him?"

The bell rings, signaling that the students are going to make their way into our rooms any minute. I sigh, not even close to being ready for the day.

"Okay, so be over by 7 tonight, and we'll see what your best option is," Terry says, and then flounces out of the room.

The kids are excited to come in and tell their friends the stories of what happened over the weekend; meanwhile, I can't shake the feeling that I'm about to encounter my ex-boyfriend.