FUCK!

5. Theresa

"You look nice," Shar says as she springs onto my bed and looks at me through the mirror, "what's the special occasion?"

"Nothing, just going out for a little coffee."

"I thought you said you weren't speaking to Dave anymore."

I place the mascara down and grab my coat, "I don't. I'm meeting up with Tim."

She scoffs, "Well that's a special occasion ain't it."

I wrap the scarf around my neck and sit onto the bed putting my shoes on. Shar has slipped her phone out and is scrolling relentlessly.

"Do you wanna come with?"

"No," she says bluntly.

"Why not?"

She raises an eyebrow, "And do what? Watch you eat him alive?"

"It's just coffee," I say, "please, otherwise it's going to be embarrassing."

Shar springs off the bed and darts to her room. I do want Shar to come, but a part of me has to be honest and say I'm also using her for a free ride.

"Glad you brought me, aren't you?" Shar says as she walks in first into the coffee shop.

In one of the back booths sits Tim. And Theresa. Of course, he brought his fiancé along. Why didn't he just bring his mother along too, then. She's better than Theresa.

"Hey guys," I say taking a seat at the same time as Shar.

"Hey," Tim answers as Theresa smiles, "didn't know you were bringing Sharice."

I smile at his statement, holding my tongue back on the issue of bringing people unannounced.

The waiter comes and takes our orders and instead of getting coffee, I end up getting a beer, rather perfect for the situation.

"Sharice, you were not born in this country where you," Theresa asks.

"No, I was not."

"I was reading this article this morning, about the current large influx of immigrants into the country. Like I get it, people are running away from genocide and poverty and whatnot, but by the end of it, there will be no more jobs left for anyone," she chuckles.

I side-eye Shar and she does the same, as Tim gives Shar an apologetic look and there's an awkward silence.

"That's rather xenophobic of you, Theresa," Shar says with a smug face, how she normally looks when she wants to wind her up.

I don't hate Theresa. I doubt Shar does either, but it's moments like these where she utters the most privileged shit out of her ass that have us second-guessing everything about her. 

"Uh, no," she scoffs as if what Shar just said is far from the truth, "I'm not xenophobic. I was just saying it as it. Look at the other countries, they obviously have immigration problems and-."

"Remind me again what it is you do?" Shar asks.

"Uhm-I'm a stay at home fiancé," Theresa answers with a smile while looking at Tim making me want to gauge my eyeballs out.

I hold my tongue and look back at the two ladies. I'm rather enjoying this conversation.

"Oh yes, right," Shar scoffs, "you know I have an engineering degree right?"

"I thought you worked at that power plant facility," Theresa looks at us for validation and I simply shrug.

"Yes. As an engineer," Shar replies.

"Oh."

"I didn't come here to steal your job, Theresa and if I did, I would be marrying Tim right now, wouldn't I?"

"Can we not have this conversation right now?" Tim asks looking embarrassed.

I hide my laugh by sipping onto my beer and Theresa untangles her hand from Tim's and crosses her arms on her chest defensively.

"Okay, well we got to go," Tim says after an hour of awkward silence and forced conversation.

Shar looks at me with a relieved look, "Really? So soon. I feel like I was just getting to know you guys better."

"No, we got to go back, I have some work to do for tomorrow."

"Okay, well bye guys," I say standing up to hug them.

Shar doesn't bother getting up and waves at them. We watch them as they walk out of the coffee shop before breaking into hysterical laughter.

"Fucking steal her job. She annoys me so much, my God, I can't!" Shar says as we collect our things and walk of the restaurant.

The following day, my day starts early. Usually, my alarm wakes me up, but Rachel called me way before my alarm could and it sounded urgent. She never has to say anything really. She assumes if she's ever to call you way before your shift, then instinctively you should know it's urgent. The early train ride didn't help. It was stuffed and loud. Louder than a pub with Marvin in it.
It was unusually long as well, due to a delay caused by an accident that occurred in the early hours.
To my better judgement, Rachel's phone call wasn't anything urgent either. She just wanted a meeting with everyone. What I fail to understand is why she had to make it early. Everyone was yawning and clinging onto their coffee cups for those 30 minutes. Some failed miserably.

"Aww she's so cute," I coo looking at the picture of Martha's granddaughter in my hand.

"Of course, she is," she chuckles, "they named her after me."

"Really? That's amazing."
"I think it's because I'm dying," she whispers and raises her eyebrow in a playful manner.

"Yes, I think so too," I say with a smile, "she's going to be just like you. Amazing."

She stares at the picture for a while with a distant look before putting it away into her small bag of memories.

Martha reminds me a lot of my mother, in a lot of ways than I would like to admit. Just like Martha, my mom's family hardly ever visits her. Besides me, my mom only has May. I don't even remember the last time she visited her. My uncle and aunt live too far and to be honest never really forgave my mom for placing May into their hands the way she did.
Martha also has a cursed tongue on her and it's that sharp tongue of hers that makes most of my days here bearable.