Who am I - One
I got up and went to the bathroom to take a shower. I started thinking abou my life and how, in terms of romance, it is not as exciting as I would wish. All of my friends were very on track and living the love life. Like Camille Cooper, who was my roommate. We were the same age and had similar tastes so we got along very well. She dated Stewart Bryant, they met at the supermarket. You see, I asked her to do the groceries on the week that I was supposed to do them. That was when she met Stew. I was mad at first, because clearly I missed my chance to have my day at the store with him, but then after we got to know him I was actually glad that he dated my roommate and not me, considering that he has a really concerning lack of interest in alcoholic beverages and a constant knuckle cracking.
Molly Wood, my work colleague and one of my best friends. She met her boyfriend at the office when Roger Wilkerson showed up as the new investigative reporter. Her sudden extravagant interest in work was our first tip she liked him. It took her two weeks to admit they where making out in the coffee room on breaks, but we all knew what was going on by the first day he stepped foot in the office. After a while they were dating and we found about his ex-wife, or should I call her pure-evil-monstrous-money-sucking-life-destroyer-sexually-confused-bitch. Yes, Molly’s love life is a lot more exciting that I wondered mine was.
Ryan Meyer worked with us too, we were very close. One day he got home from work and found his wife, Karen, in bed with Roger’s ex-wife. Apparently they met at the office when Karen was visiting Ryan and the evil bitch was trying to suck more money out of Roger. He was devastated for a few days and nights of heavy drinking, of which I was almost completely supportive, until he threw up on my shoes. Then I told him it was time to get his shit together and back with his life. He did. He went for a job interview in California and never came back. He is now at a great job as chief editor at a big news paper on the west coast and has been doing very well for the past six months. He met a French writer and is happily in love.
Julia Walker, that’s me. I had a relationship. Carter Stevens was my best friend since we were little children growing up in Florida. Then we started dating. And then one saturday night he knocked at my door and told me he was breaking up with me. That was it. No explanation, no excuses, not even an “I’m sorry”. Just like that. Of course I copped like the 26 year-old that I was, I drank. A lot. I drank until Monday morning. It didn’t bother me that the relationship was over. I knew that it would be soon, because I was never really in love with him and he was never in love with me. We were better off friends than anything else. I knew that and he knew that. It was just the way he did it.
He came over, I opened the door and he just started talking.
“Julia, it’s over. We’re not doing this anymore. I like you a lot and have nothing but respect for you, your family, but let’s just stop fooling ourselves, OK? I’m done.”
He didn’t even come in. Just stood there with his leather jacket and old jeans, speaking with his perfect hair and his beautiful nose and looking all like Patrick Dempsey. I have to admit that he was so, very, handsome. He’d always been beautiful, since he was my next-door neighbor in Orlando. We were kids, but I did know that that boy had features of runway models. That is what upset me. Of course loosing him bothered me a lot, because he was my friend and sometimes just to look at his beauty made me feel better, but the way he ended it got me drinking two days straight.
Oh, and I did do something other than drink to relieve my anger. I threw his iPod out the window. Apparently it hit some girl in the head and he took care of her. That’s how he met Erica and now they’ve been going out for a year and a half. And I’ve been single for a year and a half.
As all those thoughts about everyone’s life and my own came to my mind I didn’t eve realize I was dressed just missing my shoes. I reached for the black pair of scarpin when my phone rang. I sat on the bed and picked it up. It was Molly.
“Hey how are you?” her soft but kind of high voice said on the other side. It suited her petite, blonde extra-straight hair, blue eyes beautiful cheekbone design, persona. Sometimes her voice was annoying, but only when she was screaming about Roger’s ex-wife.
“Good. How about you?” I answered.
“Well so far good. The evil monster has given us a break since she is in Cabo for the week with a new boyfriend.”
“New boyfriend? What happened to Kate?”
“I don’t know. It seems that Kate caught her with some girl named Maria so they broke up. But then Maria couldn’t take anymore of her evilness and left her so she decided to go back to men.”
“Wow! She really knows what she wants.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it. And I don’t know why she needs to put Roger in the middle of her mess.”
“Because he lets her.”
“I know. I know. Whatever. At least he doesn’t still have a roommate.”
“What does that have to do with anything? Anytime you don’t have a valid argument you bring up me and Cami being roommates. I don’t get it.”
“Well I try to point out someone’s flaws when I don’t have a valid argument. I know that your particular adoration of alcohol is no subject to address so I address the fact that you and Cami are both successful journalists who work for one of the largest communication company in the world and make a lot of money but still are roommates in a, even though very nice, two bedroom apartment.”
“Right. And that’s bad because…?”
“Hello! You could both be in your own apartment, like me, living your life without having to share space, groceries and the television.”
“Molly we’ve been through this already. I like having a roommate and so does Cami. There is nothing wrong with it. Just let it go.”
“Yeah. OK.”
“So why did you call anyways?”
“Oh yeah. I almost forgot. Did you check your e-mail yet?”
“No. Why?”
“Well, we have a meeting at eight today.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know. They just said it’s some announcement.”
“Wonder what that’d be.” I reached for my shoes when I heard Cami yelling my name in the kitchen.
“Coming” I yelled back. “OK, I’ll see you at the office then.” I told Molly.
“Yeah see you.” She said as I hung up and finished putting on my shoes.
I got up and grabbed my computer, put it in my briefcase, got my purse and walked out of my room and through the sun full living room, where we had a flat screen TV on the wall next to a big window. On the opposite side was the black couch with a la-z boy chair on each side. One was mine and the other was Cami’s. To the left was a counter with marble top, which we turned into our own personal bar. After the bar was the kitchen, were I went.
Cami was by the counter making coffee and bagels with cream cheese, since that’s the only thing she can cook. Cami is painfully beautiful. It’s not even fair. Her long wavy black hair is smoothly in place all the time. Her green eyes catch attention of anything that glimpses at it. Her face is perfectly designed proportionally and she’s got the body out of a Victoria’s Secret catalog. Cami is the kind of girl who’s always had everything she wanted. She’s always had money, but she’s never really made her life about it. She puts her friends and family before anything.
“We got a meeting at eight.” She said as she handed me a bagel.
“Yeah. I know. Molly just told me.” I bit the bagel.
“What do you think it is?” she said grabbing another bagel for her.
“I don’t know. Some announcement. We gotta hurry. Make that to go” I got my coffee cup and filled it as she did the same.
She got her briefcase and her purse. I grabbed mine and we left. It was mid spring, so the weather was actually nice. Cami was wearing a black dress skirt down to her knees, a white silk blouse under a black dress jacket and heels, of course. Impeccable. Anything she wears looks good on her. I wore beige dress pants and a long sleeve striped light pink shirt and a beige suit jacket on top. I have to admit that I looked good.
I never thought of me as gorgeous, but I get my compliments now and then. I got my features. I managed to keep my weight where I don’t have any trouble buying clothes, eating what I want, and have my drinks bought when I go out. I do like my hair, long, brown straight hair. Very beautiful. Oh, who am I kidding? I am a catch.
We lived in a condo in Financial District, right on Broadway. Conveniently located to mass transit, according to the real state agent when we rented it. Our doorman, Rick, was a six-foot tall Puerto Rican, who was always very nice and nosy. We tried to ignore his curiosity toward our lives.
We worked for The Daily News one of the biggest newspaper in the country. It was a good job. We had foosball, air hockey, and ping-pong tables, as well as a video game area.Witch made us very relaxed during breaks. But we had to work too. I was the editor of economics for the paper and website. We had great professionals to work with. One of them, despite her constant meddling in people’s personal life, was Molly, the editor of investigative news. And Cami the editor of politics, is always very efficient.
Of course there were exceptions in the “great professionals” part. Especially the chief editor, Elizabeth Gregory, our boss. She was a very difficult person. Of course it was part of being a boss, but she overdid it. All the time. She was rude to everyone. She always wore neutral color pantsuits with neutral color shoes. She wasn’t ugly, on the contrary, she was very beautiful. She was probably on her late thirties, or early forties, had a slim body and could pass for a lot younger. She always had her blonde hair up in a flawless bun. However, she was so mean and offensive that she might just have been a badass villain from a Mexican soap. Still, we loved our job, so we put up with her.
Cami and I got to the building and went straight to Molly’s office to see if she heard anything about the meeting. We got in, she was sitting at her desk working on her MacBook, which she manage to turn bright pink. I don’t know why, but that pink bothered me. We sat in the two chairs in front of her. Cami started talking. “So what’s this meeting about?”
“I have no idea.” Molly answered still looking at her laptop screen.
“Think Dragon Gregory is leaving us?” Cami asked with a corner smile.
“I wish! That would be a dream come true.” I said smiling at the simple possibility of getting rid of Gregory.
Molly laughed as she got up and walked to the doors as we walked behind her she said “sure ‘cause that kind of miracle would happen to us sinners. That woman is our punishment for our wrong doing in past lives.” we all agreed.
It was almost eight when we got to the conference room. The entire team was there, except for Gregory. Roger was sitting close to the door. He was a very common man. Not unattractive, but not so much as attractive. I never really understood why his ex-wife was so obsessed with him. He was thin, brown short hair and black eyes, nothing more than ordinary. His personality, though, was distinctive. He was a great, selfless person, always ready to help anyone and treated everyone so nicely. Maybe that’s why the Evil Bitch walked all over him.
We took the three seats next to him. Everyone was talking and trying to get any information about the meeting. We waited for about five minutes, when the feared creature opened the door. Elizabeth Gregory was a very frightening person. Sometimes we even wondered if she was human. As she walked into the room silence took over. She sat down on the end of the table as usual and started talking, No good morning or hello or any kind of greeting “our weekly meetings have been transferred from Mondays to Fridays, starting next week. That’s it. Get back to work.” She got up and walked out.
Everybody was trying to process what just happened. All that fuss and chattering about the meeting and all she was going to announce was that we would meet Fridays instead of Mondays? After all we did have an agenda meeting everyday, and a weekly meeting to review what happened the past week and what were the goals for the next one. What was the big deal about changing the meeting day? Sometimes I though Gregory was so into her evilness that she forgot there things in the real world had to make sense. As the door closed people started chattering reluctant to what just happened.
“What is wrong with that woman?” Cami said.
“That’s not a woman. It’s an alien android.” Roger said pointing at the door.
“I agree. She’s gotta have some kind of alien in her blood.” Jane Mills, one of our web designers entered the conversation.
I got to my office to get to work still upset with the meeting that didn’t change anything but the meetings date. It was a very stressful workday. Cami and I took a cab home after work as always, we ordered Chinese food as always, Stew came over as always, we had drinks as always and Molly called after dinner as always. So everything was as it always was.
“Bad day?” Stew asked as he poured the whiskey into my glass on top of our bar.
“No. Just stressfull.” I said taking a gulp. Stew was a good friend. He didn’t drink, but he wasn’t bothered when we drank. He was a 30 year-old stockbroker who had good advices most of the times. He was handsome. He was tall, blonde, very Abercrombie & Fitch, with his jeans and polo shirts. When I first met him I was frustrated that I didn’t go to the market, but then we got to know each other and I realized I couldn’t date someone who didn’t drink. It’s one of my policies. I don’t trust people who don’t drink.
“Well, you know I don’t drink, but it seems to make you feel better so just drink off the frustration.” He said grabbing a bottle of Patron. That was one of the moments he had good advice. “You want some, honey?” he asked Cami
“No. I’m good with my beer.” She answered holding up her can.
“Only this is my comfort.” I said as I took the shot glass to my mouth and drank it. We talked for another hour in which I had five more shots and went to bed.
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