On The Double

Chapter 1.

" My feet hurt like crazy. Like literally I'm so cranky right now, if anyone tries to talk me I swear. I can't wait to fucking sleep," I groan into the phone as I talk to bestfriend. 

"You haven't reached home yet? You left the studio 20 mins ago." Mae asks.

"Of course there had to be a lot of traffic. Just got here though. Walking towards the apartment."

"Okay happy sleeping then. I'll text you tonight for next week's schedule. Also, try not to interact with people at all. Bye." Mae chirps and hangs up.

I weakly smile to what Mae said and open the door to my apartment when I hear faint voices of people talking. "Oh my god please Lord not again."  I think to myself. I mentally scream and cry when I confirm that it is my mom and she has another one of 'those kind' of guest over. I just could not believe I was about to deal with this right now. 

"Try not to interact with people at all ,"  Mae's words repeated in my head. That girl may know me but not my crazy family.

"Nilly!" My mom hoots. Of course she would call me that.

"Come on in and meet my very good friend Ronda. Ronda dear, this is my daughter, Nilly. Oh well her name is Natalia but we call her--"

"Natalia. We call her Natalia and Natalia only!" I interrupt my mom and give them both a huge fake grin and deadly glare to my mom to not say that name again.

Ronda draws closer to me and pulls me into a tight hug, "Oh my, you're so pretty I can take you home." She baby talks me, still hugging me.

"Oh you just might." My mother excitedly smiles and Ronda finally let's go of me. "Natalia, Ronda here has a very handsome son, Joe. He is a Surgeon. Yes, and he is about your age almost. Ronda now where is that picture of that ever so dashing Joe."

I absolutely didn't have the energy for this. I can't believe this is happening again, after the thousandth argument with my mom she still doesn't want to listen.  I felt like screaming and throwing both these crazy women out of the window. 

"Here it is," Ronda pulls out a picture from her phone case/slash coin purse thingy that's attached to her hand, and shoves it my face. It was funny how she would carry around a picture of his at this day and age, and she keeps an iPhone right with it. Joe, however, wasn't bad-looking, but he looked very clean-cut and posh, almost as if he were gay. I could tell because I had a lot of gay friends.

As appealing Joe was, I had to put an end to this situation. That was no problem because I was a pro at doing that by now.

I returned the picture back to Ronda and took a deep breath. "Ronda honey, you're a sweetheart and it was swell having you over but I'm afraid you will have to leave." I said in the most polite way possible. Ronda looked very confused and a little scared it seemed. My mom on the other hand said, "Don't you dare start, young lady" with her eyes. 

"Excuse me?" Asked Ronda.

"You heard me. You gotta go. You have a real cute boy and someday he will meet a nice gu-- I mean girl and they will fall in love and marry each other. I am just not the one for him. Definitely not the one. I am in no position mentally to date anyone let alone marry someone. I mean I am in my twenty's Ronda and this is the age to have fun. To party till you're wasted and to have a lot of boyfriends if you know what I mean. I mean you know what it's like to be in your twenty's, right? You could use a little of that kind of fun though," I wink at her. 

My mother looked humiliated and Ronda was lost of words. She looked furious and red in the face. After half a minute of her looking back and forth between me and my mom, she stormed off of the apartment without saying a word with my mom chasing after her. I mentally high-fived myself. 

Now I was even more exhausted. Usually scaring mothers or parents off who come to see me to marry their sons is a lot fun. But today I was really tired. The photo-shoot and meetings took all night and day. My days here were hectic. My schedule had no specific timings. I could be called for work at 3 in the morning and would return in the evening, like today. Or it would be the normal timings, from morning to night. My work has a lot of demands but it is all worth it because I am really passionate about it, and I refuse to sit around like I am on vacation even though I am. Making pocket money this way is what I chose and I do not mind it. It's better than sitting at home listening to my mom about marriage and boys. Even though my parents are extremely against me working to be an actor, I did not back away. Them thinking that sending me to business school in California would change my decision of being an actor was a very wrong and they still don't have any idea about how wrong they were. I am successfully working towards being an actor there. I had done a lot of commercial and plays, and have a known name there. I already have a lot of auditions lined up for me when I go back. I had also saved money for a nice apartment. I just had six more weeks. 

I went to my room, not caring to shower or to remove my makeup, changed into my fluffy pajamas and got ready for a good ol' snooze fest. As I am about to lay down, my mom barges in, anger plastered on her face. I did not give one shit. 

"I am sick of you being like this. From the day you were born you have been not pleasant to deal with. God Nilly why do you have to do this?" I swear If she says that name one more time. Embarrassing nicknames were given to people in our family, it was a thing, but I had absolutely hated mine and my mom loved calling me 'Nilly', even in public. She did not care that I didn't want her to do that. 

"Okay first of all, for the one trillionth time mom stop calling me with that name, especially in front of outsiders for god's sake," I cried. 

"Secondally, I have made myself clear a lot of times that I don't want to get married. I am working on my career, to be an actress and that's all I am going to do!" I let out a stressful sigh and down on my bed without getting into the blanket.

"We have paid a fortune for your college and you still don't get that you're wasting all that hard earned money that you're father and--"

I interrupt, "Mom, I didn't ask you to put me in business school, that was your guy's choice. Right now, I have zero energy to argue over the same damn thing. Work was stressful and I would like to sleep." I pull the blanket over my body, ever so ready to sleep.

My mother sighed and left the room, without switching the lights off and closing the door. I huffed loudly. Annoyed, angry and very cranky, I get out bed and close the door slightly hard as it made noise. I missed LA, and nothing will stop me from going back.