Wait until the music's over

10. From 4 to 5

"Who's that fucker cleaning with the vacuum at..." I take a look at my watch as I drag myself through the hallway to my apartment "at 4 o'clock?"

It's 4, it's not so late. I'd have stayed more with Layne and the guys if Mike weren't there too or if only he hadn't been such an asshole and pissed me so much. But I really couldn't, I couldn't stand seeing him around all the time, stare at me from afar with puppy eyes, as if he was the victim. As usual. Of course, I'm the witch, he's the poor kid who's just been a little naughty, not a big deal. You know what? You can fuck off. I'm pretty, I'm nice, I could have every guy I want, why do I still waste my time with this asshole who doesn't want me? And why does the vacuum's noise come from my apartment?!

The answer comes when I open the door and see my roommate struggling with the dust on our carpets. Angie cleaning and tiding up is a normal everyday occurrence, but not in the middle of the night. When she cleans or cooks in unusual hours it's not a good sign. It means she's anxious or angry. Or both. I can't wait to find out.

"Oh hi Meg!" she tells me without stopping what she's doing.
"Ehm hi... what the hell are you doing?" I answer shutting the door behind me really quickly.
"WHAT?" she shouts.
"I said, what are you doing?"
"UH? SORRY, I CAN'T HEAR YOU"
I roll my eyes and walk to the device to turn it off.
"I said, what the fuck are you doing?"
"Oh can't you see it? I'm cleaning with the vac" she answers innocently.
"At 4 o'clock in the morning?"
"It's already 4? Oh well, you know, I couldn't sleep, so I thought I could watch a movie, but as I sat on the couch I looked at the floor and suddenly noticed the poor condition of our rugs. It's been a while since I last cleaned them, but how could I? I'm always so busy, I never have the chance. So I thought, since I'm awake anyway, I could use this time in a productive way and do something" she explains in a single breath. All this energy irritates me. Where does she take it from? Oh, yeah, she's 18. And most of all, she hasn't spent the last few hours drinking to forget a jerk.
"At this point, since you're not sleeping, you could have come to the party"
"Yeah... I'd better have come... much better!"
"Why? Why can't you..." I haven't finished my sentence yet when Angie turns the infernal vacuum back on and starts working with the hose under an armchair.
"Angie, I'm talking to you" I'm about to switch it off again but Angie quickly pulls the cord to bring the canister away from my hands. Tsk who do you think you're dealing with here? I shrug and pretend to walk to the kitchen, then I quickly pull the plug off and put an end to all this.
"What the... Meg, come on, I'm almost done!"
"No electrical power until you tell me what's wrong. Why can't you sleep? What happened?" I ask her waving the plug in front of my nose.
"Nothing"
"Angie..."
"It happened that I'm stupid, but that's no news" she finally admits letting the hose fall down and sitting on the couch.
"Spit it out" I tell her sitting next to her.
"Jerry took me home"
"Ha! I knew that! When Sean said Jerry wasn't coming with and would have joined us later, I don't know, I kinda felt there was something going on and for a moment I thought he could be with you, I swear to god!"
"But later he joined you, right?" she asks taking a toss pillow and holding it tight to her stomach.
"No. Not as long as I've been there, at least. Why? When did he leave from here? Anyway, who gives a fuck about the time, I wanna know everything, all the details!"
"What? Do you mean he didn't come home?" she asks suddenly worried.
"No, he didn't, I told you... Was it so bad?"
"It wasn't bad, it wasn't good either, it simply wasn't. It was nothing, nothing happened" she answers, then she tells me everything about this nothing which occurred between them: what Jerry told her at the club, the ride home, the long good night moment at the door, the way she rejected him.

"Ahahah poor Jerry didn't score tonight, he must be shocked" I wouldn't want to laugh cause Angie's worried. But I can't help it.
"Stop it Meg! What if something happened to him? Maybe he was really drunk and tired, maybe he had an accident, maybe he's at the hospital... all because of me, because I didn't want to sleep with him!"
"Or maybe he's been hospitalized for a sexual abstinence crisis"
"MEG?!"
"Just kidding! Nothing happened to him, maybe he was just a little disappointed and went somewhere else" I try to reassure her.
"Yeah... maybe he went somewhere else, to someone else, someone who's less... hesitating" she adds squeezing that poor pillow.
"Oh no, he probably went to a bar to drink, you know, to drown his sorrow" I giggle. I know, I'm a terrible friend.
"But what if something really happened to him?"
"Listen, I'm sure nothing bad happened to him, but if you want, if it makes you feel better, we can give Layne a call later, just to check, ok?"
"Ok"
"Anyway, I still haven't figured out: are you upset because he wanted to fuck you or because you rejected him?"
"I don't know" she stated after an everlasting pause.
"Well, if you're not sure yet you did the right thing anyways, take your time"
"The whole female population of Seattle, no, of the State of Washington, would spit in my face if I told them I rejected a hot guy like Jerry. I'd do it myself if I could. Wait, I can, I just have to spit up in the air and wait for it to come back down. God bless gravity!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I don't know, since I shut the door in Jerry's face there are hundreds of nonsense thoughts spinning in my head... What if he doesn't want to see me again?"
"In that case he would be an ass, don't you think?" I point out baffled. It's true that when you're too involved into something you can't be objective and see things for what they really are, but Angie's smart and now she seems an idiot. Maybe she likes Jerry more than I thought.
"Right... and what if he's an ass?"
"If he's an ass you forget him because he doesn't deserve you" I tell her.
"But I want him to deserve me!" I can't believe that pillow's not torn to pieces yet.
"He's not an ass, trust me. If he only wanted to screw you he'd have given up a long time ago, don't you think?"
"Well, yeah..."
"Who knows, maybe he appreciates you even more now because you didn't put out"
"We're not in an episode of a sitcom for families, Meg" Angie snaps raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I didn't mean... literally. Of course he must be a little sad for err... not scoring"
"He wasn't a little sad, he was devastated. I thought he was on the verge of crying"
"Hahaha really?"
"He had the same expression of a child who's just being told something like 'Do you remember when I promised you we would go to Disneyland today? Well, forget it. Oh and put you're jacket on, I'm taking you to the dentist's'"
"But you didn't promise anything to him, did you?"
"Nope! At least, not explicitly. Maybe I unawarely communicated him my accessibility through some kind of encoded message of my body language that I completely ignored"
"Or maybe, let's say he just hoped and tried"
"Maybe..."
"Come on, don't think too much about it! Jerry's not a saint for sure, but he's not so jerk to get pissed for such a reason. And you don't owe him anything, the sole fact that you're considering the issue is absurd" I remark, hoping to bring her back to her senses.
"I know, you're right. I know I did right, it would have been too... fast. I mean, I decide to get to know him better, we have a coffee together..."
"Aha! So you decided it, you did it on purpose!"
"Yes, ok, I admit it, I did it on purpose! Are you happy now?"
"Very happy, I love being right"
"By the way, I decide to get to know him, I have a coffee with him and then what? I take him to bed? Nothing wrong with it but it wouldn't make sense. And most of all, it wouldn't be me"
"Exactly"
"Yeah... but I could have kissed him at least" she says hiding her face in her hands.
"It's ok, you just didn't feel like..."
"I felt like! I really felt like! I've been dreaming about kissing Jerry since the first time I saw him. And tonight he was so sexy... but when he leaned down to kiss me, I just fled like a rat into its hole" she admits throwing away the pillow.
"Hahaha but why?"
"I don't know, I don't have the slightest idea." she confesses "And do you know how long it is since I last kissed a boy?"
"How long?"
"One fucking year and a half!"
"What? Oh my god, Angie, if you let this out before, one of the guys would have already violated your mouth by now, as a friendly gesture" I laugh.
"Don't laugh at me" she pleads burying her face in another pillow.
"Oh come on," I put my arm around her shoulders "it was just a little awkward situation, you clearly got embarrassed and you only did what you always do in these cases"
"Run away"
"Exactly. Next time will be better"
"If there's a next time..."
"Sure there will be! Now just put all this stuff away and go to bed, a hard day's waiting for you"
"Right, I must get up in less than three hours"
"And we also have the birthday thing at Roxy's tonight" I add.
"Holy shit, the birthday party at the diner! I completely forgot. I wanna die" she comments standing up and walking towards her room.
"You can't die, you've got to kiss Jerry first"
"I'll die as a centenarian then"
"Shut up"
"It's true though, I cannot die yet." she adds stopping and slowly coming back to the living room "First you have to tell me what the hell happened with Mike"