Authors: Cheri Lewis
“Sure,” I reply as I grab a pen and notepad.
I walk into his office, and he’s standing beside his desk looking at the floor. Mr. Samford could be considered an attractive man. His money helps make that more possible. He has dark brown hair and clear blue eyes that sit a little closer together than normal. He has an athletic medium build and is always dressed in expensive tailored suits. I sigh when I see he has file folders all over his floor, in stacks. There are ten piles and six rows of the piles. I look at the mess and back up at him when he says, “I need your help.”
“What exactly are you trying to do?”
“I need a system where we can look up each of these files, but they need to be filed in the same row. Does that make sense?”
“Yes sir. I believe I get what you’re saying.”
“Good could you do this today?”
My stomach pinches at the thought that I might have to stay till 5:01. I look at the clock on his wall, and it’s 3:30 already.
“Do you have plans this evening?”
“No, it’s just… never mind. It will be no problem.”
I bend down, pick up the first stack and try to figure out the rhyme or reasoning behind this task and can’t figure out any.
Oh well I can use the overtime
. I throw myself into my work, once again.
At 6:20 Mr. Samford comes out of his office. “Use my card and order some takeout. I have to meet my wife in about six minutes which means I’m going to be late. Otherwise I would stay and help you.”
“It’s no problem.” I smile at him as he walks toward the back door of the building. I fall back in my chair and slap my hands over my face.
TAKE OUT! Why didn’t I think of that hours ago!
When I get home at 12:30 in the morning Prima is waiting at the door explaining to me, that it’s unacceptable that I’m getting home so late. I agree with her as I walk straight into my bedroom and fall into bed. Thankfully the rest of the week goes without a hitch, Mr. Samford is happy with my system. He even compliments my proposals, and we only have to fix a few mistakes. I am pretty proud of myself for learning how to do them so fast.
Saturday morning I wake up when I feel something heavy fall into my bed. I peek out from under my purple fluffy comforter. I see a blob of blurry blonde curly hair and then I see Jessie’s blurry smiling face. He pulls the comforter away from my face, loudly and animatedly saying, “Good morning sunshine!”
I reach over to my nightstand and grab my glasses as I sleepily asked, “When did you get in?”
“About 2 this morning”
“I thought you were going to call me on your way home, and I thought you weren’t coming home till this morning.”
“Nuh uh. I wasn’t staying there one more minute than I had to. Once they released us, I packed my bag and jumped in the car, plus I knew you would wait up for me. So, surprise!”
He rolls over on his back and Prima jumps up on his chest and starts kneading and purring loudly. “Yes, you missed your daddy didn’t you? I bet your mommy didn’t feed you the entire time I was away,” he baby talks to the cat.
I turn over and lean up on my arm and roll my eyes when Prima meows in agreement.
“What are we doing today?” he asks.
“That’s totally up to you; I kept my entire day free for my best friend.” I smile at him.
“First you’re brushing your teeth. That stuff is kickin’.” I slap my hand over my mouth as he continues, “Let’s get a mani/pedi, go lay out, and have someone bring us drinks all day long.”
I sigh and lie back on my back. “That sounds fantastic; I’ve missed you so much.”
“Girl, you just don’t know. There are a couple of people I get along with but most of them are biotches.”
He sits up holding Prima in his arms and scoots to the side of the bed. “I can tell you missed me too. Don’t you know what a clothes hamper is for? Or a trash can for that matter?”
“Ugh, you sound like my mother.” I sit up and look over at the clock and it’s 9:00. “Let’s get ready and go, I’m already dreading you having to leave again tomorrow afternoon.”
“It’s only five more weeks and then I’ll have a schedule, I’m worried though, I have a 2 hour report time if I’m called in, and as you know it takes four hours to get to Atlanta, so I may have to consider moving closer.”
“WHAT! I thought you were going to fly out of Birmingham?!”
“It’s good to know you still want me around but you know me; I would quit before I had to move. I’m looking at it this way, this is a five week guaranteed paycheck and it’ll keep daddy number two off my case for a little while.”
I shake my head and I know for a fact he means that.
He has the worst time holding onto jobs, if he could find a job telling someone what to do, he would be rich and wouldn’t have to listen to daddy number two.
We do exactly as he said. We go to our favorite nail salon, Hands and Hooves and get manicures and pedicures. Then we go to the country club where his mother and stepfather have a membership. We lay out by the pool all day and people-watch while having our food and drinks delivered.
When we return home I study myself in the mirror. “I think I got burnt today, it doesn’t look like it, but I have some real heat to my skin.”
“You can’t burn already tanned skin. Quit your complaining.” He walks out of the bathroom and yells to me as he goes down the hall. “I’m going to start a load of laundry.”
I walk into the bedroom and drop my towel on the floor; I pull on some yoga pants and a tank top, and go and sprawl out on the couch in the living room.
“What do you want to do tonight?” I shout.
“Hold on I can’t hear you over the water running.”
He walks into the living room with Prima following right behind him. When she spots me on the couch she heads straight for me.
“I said what do you want to do tonight?”
“Let’s order pizza and watch movies. I know it sounds completely ridiculous, but I’m exhausted from lying around all day.”
I smile at him. “I was thinking the same thing, you order the pizza and I will find some movies.”
“Something with Julia Roberts please!”
No problem there
. I pull the app up on my phone and do a search by her name and send a bunch of movies to the queue while I wait for Jessie to get back. He has changed into shorts and a t-shirt and must have taken his contacts out because he’s now wearing his black nerd framed glasses.
“What?” he asks curiously.
“Nothing, I just love it when you wear your glasses.”
“I know right? We totally could be twins.”
We spent the rest of the evening vegging out on the couch watching movies. When I look at my phone and see it is after two in the morning, I push on Jessie and say, “Holy smokes! It’s after 2 in the morning! I can’t miss church tomorrow. Momma and Daddy will kill me.” I untangle my legs from his and start to get up, then look back at him, “And you’re going too. Momma will be mad with me if you're home and don’t come. Which, I still can’t figure out why
I
get in trouble when it’s
you
that doesn’t come with me.”
“I had already planned on going. I brought my suit over with me.”
“Good, you can do my hair in the morning, too.”
As he sits up and starts picking up the pizza box, glasses, and ice cream containers, I say, “Just leave it, we will worry with all that tomorrow.”
He shakes his head. “It’s a wonder you don’t have cockroaches yet. You kill me.” He continues picking up the items and heads in the direction of the kitchen. I shrug my shoulders and start to my bedroom. I notice Prima asleep on the chair as I leave the living room.
I better leave my bedroom door cracked so she can come in when she decides to get up,
which she will and if I don’t leave the door open she will claw and paw the door until I get up and let her in. I lay in bed thinking about today and how much fun it was until sleep finally overtakes me.
****
“Well, Jessie, don’t you look sharp,” my mother says as we are walking toward her, meeting her on the sidewalk in front of the church.
“Mom, he always looks good.”
“I know Kinsey. I was just paying him a compliment, and somebody must have not gotten much sleep last night. You’re a little ill this morning, dear.”
“I risked my life getting her out of bed this morning. It was pretty rough,” Jessie jokes.
“Your hair looks great McKinsey. Did you do that Jessie?”
“Yes ma’am, I sure did.” He smiles then pats himself on the back.
I turn around when I hear my father’s voice and smile when I see he has my favorite black suit on, it makes his blue eyes shine bright. “Doodlebug, you made it.”
He reaches around and hugs me tightly. He then turns and puts his hand out to shake Jessie’s hand as he says, “I ought to have known you were home. She doesn’t believe it, but she still needs somebody to look out for her and wake her up on time.”
I roll my eyes as Jessie joins in on the McKinsey bashing. “Oh, I believe it. She wouldn’t have gotten out of bed all weekend if it wasn’t for me.”
I interrupt them, “Ok we’re at church remember, and it’s not nice to pick on somebody at church, let’s go in and get a seat.”
All three look at me and Jessie grabs my hand to hold it and I pull it away pretending to be mad. He smiles and bumps my arm. I follow my mother into the church down the center aisle. Jessie and Daddy follow behind us, until we reached our pew which is the same place we sit every Sunday. Like it’s the only place we’re allowed to sit and nobody better sit in our place either since it will cause us to have unholy thoughts throughout the entire service.
Once church is over, we go back to my parent’s house, have lunch and spend the afternoon hanging out. Sadly, before I know it, it’s time for Jessie to leave. We have to go back to my house to get his suitcase and I help him get packed and loaded in the car. I give him a long hug, “Still no phone contact all week?”
“Yep, from Sunday evening till Friday whenever we are released.”
“That’s the dumbest rule I have ever heard of.”
“I won’t argue with that, but I do have to go. I'll see you in a week, sunshine.”
“Ok, I guess I’ll get ready for work tomorrow to fight the boredom.”
“You could always clean your room.”
I pretend to glare at him. “Ok, now it is time for you to go.”
I hug him one last time and watch him pull out of the driveway until he is completely out of sight. I know in the world of therapists and psychologists, it’s probably wrong to only have one friend that you do everything, with but since the day he dumped baked beans on me in kindergarten we’ve been inseparable. I don’t remember much from kindergarten but I do remember that day. We were at lunch and I wouldn’t leave him alone. I would do things like tug his hair, thump him, or touch his ear. He was always so quiet and shy, the exact opposite from the way he is now. Anyway, he told me that if I messed with him one more time, I was going to regret it, and boy did I. He grabbed a handful of his baked beans off his lunchroom tray and smeared them right down the front of my beautiful pink dress. I remember crying and having to sit in the office waiting for my mother to pick me up. Jessie came out of the principal’s office a few minutes later and sat down right beside me even though there were several empty chairs. My mother arrived shortly. We went to the bathroom to change. Then we went back to the front office so she could check me out of school. I pointed at Jessie and told her that he was the one who did it. My mother went to Jessie and squatted down in front of him and said a few words that I couldn’t hear, and then she asked to see the principal. Once again I found myself sitting next to the boy who traumatized me. Years later my mother admitted to going to the principal and asking that he not be suspended and I realized then, she probably saved his life. He doesn’t talk about it much but before his father died, he used to get knocked around a lot. He always had bruises on him. My parents recognized this and let him stay with us as much as his parents would allow him to, even on school nights, and that was a big deal. When we were in the third grade Jessie’s dad died. I don’t know how Jessie’s mom landed her next husband but she did, and she hit the jackpot. He is rich and treats her and Jessie well, too well sometimes. But in a sad way, he has earned every nice thing that has come his way.
I walk back inside and go straight to the laundry room that is attached to the kitchen. I smile when I see the hamper from my room was sitting in front of the washer full of my dirty clothes.
He is such a neat freak.
I program the coffee maker so it will be ready to brew in the morning and decide to do a little straightening in my bedroom. I work most of the evening, getting two garbage bags full of junk thrown away. Prima is happy as I rescue sixteen cat toys that have been lost forever under my bed and dressers. I have two more hampers full of clothes out of the bottom of my closet and I throw them in the laundry room floor. I quickly make myself a sandwich for supper and one to take to work the next day. I grab the green food coloring out of the cabinet and dropped a few drops in different spots onto the sandwich bread.
HA! I bet that will stop them from stealing my sandwich.