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Member
Join Date: Jan 2004
Posts: 1
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A short story in the Second person.
Cats on Prozac
Reading the weather report that morning you thought a coat and gloves were enough, not scarf weather. At least you think it’s not scarf weather, and it’s only four hours later. You hear the wind and rain howling outside your window and you realise you were wrong. You should have brought a scarf today.
“Are you coming ‘round to the Rock ‘n’ Knife?”
Two hours sleep last night, you realise alcohol won’t help the situation. “No, thanks.” You would have gone if she’d asked you but it’s only John Weber, so you’d rather stay seated and fight the narcolepsy. Your prescription ran out last week but you’ve been too busy to re-fill it. And you haven’t felt the symptoms since. “Hello,” You switch ears with the receiver after feeling a shooting pain in your arm. “I’m calling from Chime-Acuity for Mr Winter, I need to talk to him urgently.”
“I’ll try his extension.” You hear The Beatles ‘I Am The Walrus’ for thirty seconds.
“Hello?” Mr Winter answers.
“Mr Winter, I’m from Chime-Acuity.”
“I usually deal with Monty.”
“Monty left us earlier this week.” You can’t tell him too much. The boss doesn’t want you to discuss Monty. Just chase up his customers, make sure he hasn’t taken any of them with him. There was talk of legal action earlier this week, but so far out of 74 customers none had heard about Monty’s departure.
“Oh. Why?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that.” You hope that your serious tone will discourage further discussion, and you quickly get back to the script. “I’ve taken over his account and I’m checking that our service is meeting your expectations.”
“Everything is OK.”
“Don’t hesitate to call me if you have any problems.” You hang up the receiver. You can feel that shooting pain again in your arm, and hope it’s just the sleepless-ness manifesting itself, and not something worse. The rain has stopped and you hope it holds out until home-time. It can rain tonight, when and if you sleep, you don’t mind if it rains then. You cross Mr Winter off your list, only six more names to go and you can go home.
“Are you coming ‘round to the Rock ‘n’ Knife?”
Kathryn Morrison. You look up from your list, the same question as John Weber asked 15 minutes ago, but you know this questioner is going to have a different response. You try not to stare at her chest and instead force your gaze to meet her eyes. Her green eyes. You told yourself you’d go if she asked you. “Er...” And now she’s asking you. “Are you going this minute?”
“Yes.” She smiles to qualify her response.
“I’ve got to finish Monty’s customer list...” You want to finish your work, impress Mr Cousino, but her smile is tempting you. “But that can wait, I suppose.” You curse yourself for giving in. “I’ll just fetch my coat.” You go to the cloak room, but don’t rush back you tell yourself take it slowly, act like she isn’t who she is.
“Has any one else gone around?” You ask, feigning ignorance.
“John Weber, I think...” You arch your eyebrows in pretend surprise. “Some of M and A...” You smile, but you’re not sure about Mergers and Acquisitions. Lisa Sohm and Ashley Cox are recovering alcoholics. “Although... I think Lisa and Ashley are still upstairs.” You nod your understanding. “Are you ready?” You think her voice grows more angelic with every sentence.
“I’m ready.”
You sit near her, but not too close. You can see John Weber, Keith Palm and Henry Schein over the left side of her. Simon Brice, Claire Nolshaw and Annabel Tschetter to her right. And others scattered around you don’t recognise except for the fact they walk past your window to go to work on the nearby industrial estate.
Everyone is talking about Monty leaving, you know what most of them think as they’ve spent the week telling you. And they all think Oran was right to fire him, except her, she was Monty’s friend. You think you knew him, and after phoning most of his clients, you think you’re right. After all he hasn’t stolen any of them so far.
And you want to disagree with the loud majority, but you also want an easy life. She leans in to say something to you, and you smell her fragrance, light and sweet, you catch a glance of her shoulder, she has a tattoo hidden under the edge of her top, a small dragon, which you can see only because of the angle she is leaning at. You can’t hear what she’s saying and ask her to repeat it. “Do you want another drink?”
You nod and the two of you walk to the bar. She pays for the drinks. “Thanks.”
“I think it’s terrible they way they’re talking about Monty.”
“And he didn’t really do anything wrong.” You agree. “I noticed your tattoo.” You hope you haven’t embarrassed her. “When did you get it done?”
“Last month, with some friends.” She smiles. “It was kind of a dare.”
You smile back at her.
She leans in close and whispers, “I got my left nipple pierced last week and it’s still quite sore.”
You realise that she is telling you secrets, and this company is built on secrets, you wait a few seconds because you can tell that she’s waiting for you to reciprocate with something. You need to tell her something personal. Or you need to relate to her, and quickly.
“I had my nose pierced when I was fifteen, but I only kept it for a year. I kept losing my nose studs, I ended up buying a new one every week.”
She finishes her drink and orders another.
“The guy at the jewellery store must of thought I was a dunce.”
“Surely he was happy with the regular custom.”
“I think he was a little disappointed when I decided to just let it heal over.” She laughs and you think you see her lock her gaze to yours, you can feel her hand touching your arm and after her laugh dies down she keeps smiling. You think this is the time to take a chance. “So, do you want to do something after work?”
“Sure.” She answers quickly, finishing her drink. “What did you have in mind?”
You could list a million lame things to do knowing that none of them were what you had in mind. “Drink.”
You spend the rest of the afternoon finishing your list. All eighty clients done, and none of them have heard about Monty’s departure. And all afternoon you see her, walking to the coffee machine, passing on the main landing, talking in reception with Marianne Gravatte and Connie Brighton. She smiles and you nod back. You watch the clock. Five fifteen, quarter of an hour to go.
You stand by the entrance to reception, you say goodbye to your co-workers as they leave, all the time waiting for her to arrive. After a few minutes she comes out of reception with Lisa Sohm and Ashley Cox. You say goodbye Lisa, goodbye Ashley. “So... anywhere in particular you want to go?” Kathryn asks you as you walk up Van Every Street.
“The Algonquian Hotel serves a good evening meal, and the bar is reasonable.” You realise that you may have sounded as if you have been preparing that sentence all day, which is partly true.
“The Al is fine.”
You walk side by side with her, trying not to invade her space, you want to hold her hand but think you should save that for afterwards, assuming everything goes well. “Are you still sore?” You ask, although the question is probably not appropriate you feel you have nothing to lose now.
“Not as sore as I was. Thanks for asking.” She half-laughs the last word.
“So, without sounding too much like a therapist, tell me about your family.”
“There’s not much to tell. I’ve got one younger sister and my father died ten years ago.”
“Was it... anything bad?”
“No, no, just old age. He was Eighty, my mother is fifteen years younger than him... was younger than him. It shocked the neighbourhood when they got together, my grampa refused to talk to my mother for nearly ten years. It was only when I was born that he made the effort.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I don’t think he ever intended it to be ten years, it’s just that my mother was stubborn and grampa was stubborn and a day turned to a week and week turned in to a month and soon it was ten years.”
“Are you that stubborn?” You ask.
“No. I’m like my dad, easy going.” She smiles, you assume she’s remembering him.
“Is your sister stubborn then?”
“She’s like twenty...no, a hundred mules. She is exactly like my mother, I’m hoping she doesn’t marry someone fifteen years older than her.”
You arrive at The Algonquin Hotel and go through the reception to the restaurant. You ask the Maitre D’ for a table for two. You hope he doesn’t presume that the two of you are a couple. You almost want to tell him, but stop yourself. You sit down and look over the menu waiting for the waiter to bring your drinks.
“My sister keeps borrowing my clothes, although it’s not borrowing if you don’t return them, is it? So, my sister keeps stealing my clothes. That’s probably the worst thing, she’s the same size as me now, even a little bit thinner, so she keeps taking them and I’m going to run out of things to wear to work at this rate.”
“You could always...” You don’t know if you should finish, and then you decide to finish anyway, “come in naked.”
She smiles. “I wouldn’t want to get a reputation. So, tell me about your family.”
“My parents live in Manchester, and my brother moved to San Diego last year.” You’re tempted to tell her you’ve spent the last three weeks just eating toasted cheese sandwiches. “And I don’t really see any of them, except for Christmas. I went to Manchester last Christmas and Peter flew back, and stayed for a week.”
“Will you be seeing them this year?”
“No, my parents are flying out to San Diego to see Peter.”
“Couldn’t you go?” She asks as the waiter finally brings your drinks.
“I could, I just... I’m not too good flying. It’s hard to get to the West Coast without at least one plane journey. And I can always see them in the New Year, Peter’s flying back for my Mother’s sixtieth birthday party, I’ll see them all then.” Suddenly you think about where you are and you realise you probably shouldn’t be here, doing this, doing it now. You should be elsewhere, you should get out while you can, then her voice interrupts your thoughts.
“That’s one good thing then.” She finishes her drink quickly and waves the waiter.
You take a breath in, and you tell yourself to relax. She’s enjoying herself, there’s no reason why you two shouldn’t be here, enjoying a meal and each other’s company. “Yes, I talk to them regularly, but it’s not the same as seeing them in person.” You sip your drink, you hope the alcohol will stave off sleep, and that the food won’t make you too sleepy.
The waiter comes over. She orders the same drinks again and you order the food. “So, do you enjoy working at Chime?” She asks.
You want to tell her the truth. “I enjoy not living on the street.” You think that is as much truth as she should know.
You finish your meal, and your fifth drink, and you don’t feel sleepy in the slightest. Maybe keeping your attention on Kathryn is what you needed to beat your insomnia. Kathryn is your insomnia cure. All night she’s been interested, and interesting. With each drink, each mouthful she keeps moving her chair closer to yours. As you put the money on the bill plate you see her leaning towards you and you can see her tattoo again, except this time she keeps leaning in so you can see it fully.
She kisses you on the cheek then says “Do you have work in the morning?”
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