Be Careful What You Wish For (PUBLISHED)

(5) - The Proposition

 

Ana had just come into her office when the extension on her desk began ringing. She sighed and sat down. The morning had gone by so quickly and she had forgone lunch to finish a long set of experiments. She looked at her watch and realized that the cafeteria would be closed by now. Double sigh. She wondered if she could send someone out for a McDonalds or something. “Hai?” she answered the phone as she leafed through the memos on her table.

“Ana is that you? Thank god you picked up! I’ve been calling you for the past half-hour!”

“Tessa. Yup, I have about a dozen memos from Nakano-san saying informing me that you called. Warui! I left my keitai at my table, I was in the lab doing an experiment for the past three hours…” She tucked the phone under her chin as she leafed through the pamphlets of the various delivery services in the area. She kicked her shoes off and unclipped her hair, letting the heavy mass fall down her shoulders and tiredly massaged her scalp.

“Ana, first of all I want to say how sorry I am…”

“Uhuh,” Anna said distractedly as she debated whether to get a pizza or a bento box, “What happened now? Did you break one of my plates?” She murmured almost amusedly. Tessa always prefaced her wrongdoings with a guilty apology. The last time that she had gotten so worked up was when she accidentally broke one of Ana and Kaye’s wineglasses.

“Oh Ana, its worse than that. Remember I told you about Marga?”

“Yup. Did you finally murder her for Kaye? You don’t have to be sorry,” Ana joked as she decided to get a pizza. Calories be damned.

“I didn’t, but I may as well might …”

“Oh. Then Kaye will certainly be disappointed, but then if you do then I promise to get you a good lawyer,” Ana said as she reached for her keitai and began dialing the pizza service.

“Ana! She told Ken Nakamura about you!” Tessa finally burst out.

The mobile device slid from Ana’s nerveless finger to the carpet. “What?” she asked faintly. “How did she know?”

“Some of your batch-mates recognized the suitcase.”

Damn. Damn. Damn.

“Ana?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, she was sort of fishing at first but when she saw my face she sort of jumped to conclusions. I didn’t even say anything, I swear!”

Ana understood. Tessa’s face was like an open book, with each and every emotion clearly portrayed. “It's okay Tessa,” she managed to say, “It’s not as if he’s going to come and look for me, is he?” Tessa was silent for a bit too long and Anna suddenly felt the small hairs at the back of her neck rise. “Tessa? He wouldn’t come and look for me, would he?”

“Uh, Ana-san?” Nakano’s voice softly called.

Assuming that it was about the experiment, without turning Ana called out, “Nakano-san, chotto matte, I’ll be back in the lab in a few minutes.”

“Uh, Ana-san, you have a visitor.”

Ana turned to see Nakano, her eyes almost bulging out from their sockets as she looked back and forth from Ana to the man beside her.

 “Ana? Omigod. Is he there now?”

 “Tessa. I’ll talk to you later,” Ana said as she put the phone down. She turned to Nakano and said, “Arigatou,” clearly indicating that she ought to leave.