The Rebound Game

Three

What actually disturbs me is the fact that he is married and my calculator says he is fifty. So why the hell is a man, twenty seven years my senior sending me a message? He is obviously not inviting me to those charity events or offering me a deal to furnish my crummy flat, right? I suppose I could find out. Its not like I have better things to do on a Friday night besides get drunk. And fight the urge to light a cigar.

I type hello to you too, stranger.

He is online so I should be getting a reply soon. He is ancient, he wouldn't know the first thing about today's chatting rules that say that you should wait for at least five minutes before tapping send. He has approximately twenty five minutes to convince me he is not some creep.

How are you today

I'm doing fine thank you Mr. Bradshaw

Can I get your number?

Have a nice life Christian Bradshaw, your fifteen minutes of fame are officially over. I get back to Celeste's page and I am disappointed to find nothing new.

About time I drowned this glass and went to bed, I think. It is eleven, just a few minutes past my bedtime. I take my glass to the kitchen, brush my teeth and change into a T-shirt and socks. I toss the jumpsuit into the overloaded laundry basket making a mental note to call the laundry lady first thing in the morning.

***
I wake up the next day with a killer headache and an urgent need to empty my bladder. I race to the bathroom and decide to take a hot shower. Like I predicted, I feel slightly better. I pop some painkillers in my mouth and unlock my phone for any texts or calls that I must have missed from my deep slumber. It's ten forty one.

It's ten fucking forty one.

Fuck, fuck. I missed my fucking interview at the clinic in Karen Shopping Center .I was supposed to be there at nine thirty and no one has even bothered to find out if I got lost on my way there. Or if I got ran over by a truck. Such things happen by the way.

I should just call Annie with a fake emergency and request her to tell her people to reschedule. I am not sure she will buy it because unfortunately, she knows me like the back of her hand .She will see right through my lie.

"Hey Katie, how was the interview?" she answers on the first ring.

Annie must be in the office because she is whispering and I have to strain to hear her. I bet her tough boss is towering over her about reports. In an ideal social setting, my crazy sister Annie never whispers but she has a good voice unlike Jess so I suppose she can pull that off without sounding like an underfed parrot. What do such birds feed on, by the way? I should look that up to appear knowledgeable like Ollie's work friends.

Stop. We are done thinking about Oliver motherfucking James. For eternity.

"That's um, what I'm calling about. I woke up with a fever and threw up a lot. I think it must be something I ate last night." I hope I don't sound too cheery for someone who has stomach flu.

"I'm sorry honey. Are you feeling any better now?" She asks and I feel guilty for lying.

She just swallowed my lie which means I don't have her full attention. Annie takes her role as the older sister quite seriously and always feels like it's her fault that my twin brother Alex and I turned out this way. Alex is a college dropout who flew to stay with my dad in Virginia.

He studied Nursing but quit in his third year, saying his real passion was in photography. Mom was quite stern with him and gave me two alternatives; to finish college and would sponsor his second degree which would be of his choosing or quit school and she wouldn't care. It was not much of a choice anyway but my twin brother is as stubborn as a mule. He packed all his bags in his dorm and appeared at dad's doorstep a week later.

Our parents divorced when Alex and I were five but have remained good friends since the separation. We are allowed to visit dad and his parents in America during the holidays but since mom got remarried to a Maasai, we schooled in Kenya. I have always been comfortable with the arrangement because I don't know how I would fit in as an African American in the west.

I wouldn't admit it to him but I admire Alex's guts. He has always teased me of being daddy's little girl who would never think of disappointing him. I might have confided in him under a stupid influence of whisky that I don't know what I am doing with my life but I am sure as fuck that my dream career is not to be a shrink. I am a psych major graduate and I am yet to master the basics of being a good employee. I quit several jobs in the past which is why I always turn down dad's offer to work for his company in the US.