Wake Up Call

A tiny sound is softly playing in the back of my mind. As I slowly woke up more, the jingle got louder. It’s still unrecognizable, but now I know that it’s coming from somewhere outside my mind. Eventually, I recognized it as LoveGame by Lady GaGa. A few more seconds of looking around my living room, I figured out that it’s coming from my cell phone. My brain switched on: my Jenna ringtone. I yawned before flipping it open and answering.

“WHERE ARE YOU!?” I had to move the phone far away from my head to avoid getting my ear drums busted.

“Am I ever going to answer the phone without having you yell at me?”

“Not if you keep screwing up!”

I closed my eyes and sunk back into my couch. It’s too early for me to be bothered by Jen’s ranting. “What did I do this time?”

“Kayla! You’re over 45 minutes late for work! I’ve been calling you nonstop for the last half hour!”

My eyes quickly opened as I searched around for a clock. “…What? That’s impossible. What time is it?”

“Uh, almost 10!” I immediately stood up, sending my blanket and dozens of cookie crumbs to the floor.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? OH MY GOSH, I’M SO SORRY! I’M GONNA GET FIRED!”

Jenna sighed, but I can hardly hear her. I’m absolutely freaking out at this point… “Kayla, calm down. I’m pretty much your boss, and we both know I’m not going to fire you over being late.” I let out a huge breath I didn’t even know I was holding. “But you better get here soon before Angie starts asking more questions.”

“More questions?” I asked as I started my shower.

“Yeah. She had one of those random meetings this morning, and you obviously weren’t there.” My freaking out resumed. “But Corbin and I attempted to cover for you. Just hurry up so I don’t have to lie anymore.”

“Oh my gosh, Jenna. Thank you so much! How the heck can I repay you guys?”

“Kayla, we’re your friends!” she laughed. “You don’t have to buy us off.” There was a pause, and she continued. “Actually, bring us coffee. And bagels.”

“That will definitely not be a problem. Tell Corbin thanks. I’ll see you soon!”

“Hurry!” she managed to get in before I hung up. I quickly hopped in the shower, not bothering to shave my legs. That’s what jeans are for, right? Anyway, I put on my most professional-looking pair and a blouse before running a comb through my hair and started to rush out the door.

“Something’s missing…” I muttered to myself, searching every inch of my living room for my keys. Finally! They were on the coffee table. Where I left them last night. Just as I was about to grab them and head out, I noticed a note sitting on my couch. Hayden.

Hey Kayla--
Unfortunately, you were right. After you fell asleep, I was getting mighty tired myself. So I decided to walk home before I crashed. Before you start freaking out, my place really isn’t that far from yours. I had to cut through a few lawns, but a little law- breaking wasn’t going to stop me from finding my beautifully cozy bed. Anyway, I turned off the TV before I left, and any drool that’s on the couch definitely belongs to you.
--Hayden

I smiled before rushing out the door.

I approached the elevator with both hands completely full of bribes for my co-workers, and struggled trying to decide how to push the “up” button. Thankfully, before anything awful happened, Hank the security guard noticed my distress and ran up to help me. I gave him a bagel as a thank you and headed up to the magazine office. Jenna met me at the elevator, and Corbin wasn’t far behind. “So what did you tell her?”

“Uh-uh-uuhhh,” Jenna shook her head and pointed to the bagels in my hand. “Food first, and then we reveal our lie.” I looked over to Corbin, but he just shrugged and nodded along. I handed over their bagels, and patiently waited as Jenna spread cream cheese on hers and Corbin added sugar to his coffee. And I stood by while they took their first bites and sips. But when they started chatting about perezhilton.com, I about lost it.

“Guys, seriously! Friend in danger of losing her job here!” They looked at each other before rolling their eyes.

“Oh, Kayla. Always so dramatic.” I tapped my foot waiting for their response. “We told her that you had a family emergency.”

I stood in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s what you came up with!? That’s so overplayed! I came up with a better excuse than that!”

Jenna turned toward me, “Oh really? Well, if someone came in to work on time, then there wouldn’t even need to be excuses, would there?”

“You already said you weren’t going to fire me. You can’t take it back now.”

“Fine,” she gave in. “So what would have been your brilliant response?”

“Well,” I said, a smug smile on my lips. “I was going to say that my cat died. But I guess that’s ruined now!” Jenna and Corbin stared at me for a while before he spoke.

“Just… say it was your family’s cat. You know, to go with the whole ‘family’ thing.”

“No,” Jenna interjected. “You loved the cat so much that it was like family!”

“That cat was the mother you’ve never had!” he shouted before the two dissolved into giggles. I couldn’t help but smile. Jenna and Corbin are so perfect for each other, but it would never work. Jenna likes nineteen year olds, and Corbin’s the most gay man on the face of the earth. Just then, Angie walked up and said she was sorry about my family’s situation. And then she just left. No questions, no lie detector test, nothing. So much for the cat-is-mother plan.

I left Jen and Corbin to bask in the glory of their humor, and went to my desk to get back to the ol’ grind. I fired up the computer and sent out a few IMs before resorting to my stupid weight-loss story. There are other things I could be writing about, but those stories aren’t due for a few more issues. Besides, the longer I put this off, the harder it will be for me to come up with diet ideas. How many different ways are there to say, “Lay off the candy, chubby!”? Ahh.

I spent the next couple hours really focused on my work. Which really meant that I opened a Word document and stared at it for a few minutes before turning to Facebook. How do I still have a job? Before I knew it, the time came to meet Evan for lunch. I quickly saved the three words I’d written and dashed off to our local mall for Chinese at the food court. We really live it up here in Chicago.

When I arrived, Evan was already in line. I rushed up to tell him what to order for me, and went to grab a table. Suddenly, Lady GaGa interrupted my silence for the second time this morning. I looked at the number: Unknown. Hmm. I stared at my phone for a while when Evan walked up. “Aren’t you going to answer that?” he asked, and I looked up to find a puzzled expression gracing his features.

“Uh, no,” I said, rejecting the call and switching my phone to silent. “Probably a wrong number or something.”

“Could be a telemarketer. I hear they can get your cell number now,” he offered. I agreed and put the call in the back of my mind. “So, in order to pay you back for working late yesterday, we should go somewhere incredible for dinner tonight,” Evan smiled. “Somewhere super expensive where they’ll throw you out for wearing jeans.”

I laughed. “You know Reese’s is good enough for me. But actually, I’ve kind of been slacking off at work lately, so I think I’ll stay in late tonight.”

“You could have just skipped lunch, you know. Then you wouldn’t have to work late.”

Scoffing, I replied, “Do you know me at all?” He shrugged, so I continued. “If I skipped lunch, then I’d be hungry for the rest of the day. And how am I supposed to write about losing weight when I’m starving?”

“I guess you can’t,” he agreed as I shoveled rice into my mouth. “Gosh, you love food way too much.”

“Was that supposed to be insulting?”

“Maybe,” he replied, a coy smile playing with his lips. I feigned hurt and dove back into my lemon chicken. We spent the rest of the hour chatting about various topics, from my new shoes to his brother’s upcoming baseball game. It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve just talked to Evan about nothing in particular. That was one of the things I loved most about him when we started dating. We seemed to be able to talk about anything and everything, no matter how meaningless it may be. We once spent twenty minutes talking about different soaps. The last few times I’ve chatted with him, it’s been about his crazy workload and my pregnancy. It felt good to kind of revert back to the beginning-of-relationship phase. Before long, our lunch breaks were coming to an end and we ditched our trays to walk out of the building.

As we headed toward our respective cars, I called out to him. “You know, I think I’ll take you up on that fancy dinner offer. Busy tomorrow night?”

“Mik, tomorrow’s Friday. We’ve got dinner with your family, remember?”

“Oh. Yeah,” I muttered. He altered his course and headed toward me. “Another fun-filled night with the parents…”

“We don’t have to go…”

“No, I want to,” I defended. And I did. As much as my family drove me crazy, it’s been a while since I’ve seen them. “It’s been way too long since I’ve talked to my brothers or Mary.”

“It’ll be fun,” he agreed and began to walk away. Just before I got into my car, I heard him shout across the parking lot. “We can tell them about the baby!”

I immediately froze in my spot. Damnit.