I Like Your Shoes | ✓

Chapter 14 | I'm a Barbie Girl in the Barbie World

[Ambrosia Bellemore]

"Ambrosia! Please wake up, you'll be late for work." A surprisingly gentle voice coos at me.

Huh? Did my alarm have a change of heart?

"Aw, mom. Let me sleep for a while." I groan, pressing the pillow closer.

I hear a small gasp from behind me.

"Did you hear what she just called me?" Freida gasps. I turn my head to face her, squinting against the light to see utmost joy etched on her face.

"I did. This must be a proud moment for you." Her boyfriend, Jeremy says, patting her back and pretending to wipe his own eyes.

"I thought I'd never see this day," Freida cries. "To see our adopted child finally warming up to us!"

"Huh?"

"You can call me mommy, sweetie."

"And I'm daddy." Jeremy says, pointing at himself.

"And I'm a barbie girl, in the barbie world." I grumble.

"Aww, she's so adorable!" Freida gasps, clapping her hands and jumping for good measure.

"Are you for real?" I grumble under my breath, throwing a pillow in their general direction.

"Okay, baby girl. You have to get to your office in...two hours. Wakey-wakey now." Freida informs me and they walk out of the room.

I sit up slowly, and then fall face first on my pillow again. With some difficulty and lots of will power, I finally manage to haul myself out of my bed. I look around my room, the violet walls were bare, but I'd made sure that my band posters and some photographs of Mr Cadwallader decorated it. The small wooden desk had my laptop and notepads strewn over it. My bag, which I'd been unpacking yesterday, was on the floor, open. I sigh and crawl into the bathroom.

I swear on River Styx that I'm not this lazy every morning. It's just all the shopping Freida made me do by dragging me into the mall yesterday and insisting on trying on every piece of clothing that crossed her eye.

I think I ripped off half of my hair by the third shop.

I hear the phone ringing urgently back in the room while I was brushing. Rinsing my face, I rush to pick it up, just to fling it back on the bed a few seconds later.

Sometimes, I wonder if she has the oesophagus of a full grown T-rex.

"..hello? Am? Ambrosia?" My best friend was mumbling when I picked it back up and pressed it to my good ear.

"Bloody hell, Caecelia! My ear almost fell off." I complain, massaging the ear which was ringing.

"Sorry, not sorry."

"What is it that you wanted to tell me?"

"Okay, now where do I start?"

"Start from the beginning, and go on till the end, and then stop." I declare.

"Did you just quote 'Alice in Wonderland' to me?" Caecelia asks incredulously.

"Huh. Start talking."

Let me cut off from our conversation and tell you what I expected her to say. In the past, I'd been in situations like these. Situations where Caecelia droned on about her perfect mistakes, or something even more sappier, but had to end it for some reason. I didn't judge my best friend, I mean I was a big supporter of the motion 'give women their rights', but if my friend was okay with men having their way with her, I was okay with it, sort of. I was used to my best friend being sappy one moment, heartbroken in another, and over it with a flirty smile on her face in the next, I mean, the girl had no belief whatsoever in love, happy endings and forevers. So, I was kind of jolted, rattled and shook by what she told me next.