Chase Me (4 page)

I filled up a bowl of ice water and walked into our little lilac bathroom and poured it over the white shower curtain that had butterflies all over it as she screamed.

“You bitch,” Brooklyn yelled as her teeth chattered from the chill she felt and I smiled.

“Bet you won’t sing it again,” I laughed, but then she started singing louder. The song made me think of old people doing some kind of wheel chair sex or a horizontal polka.
ICK!

When Brooklyn left for work and I was stuck pacing our apartment. The hardwood floors were ice cold as winter had decided to return once more and allowed snow to fall. I sipped my coffee as I stared at a wall wondering what excuse I could use to get Henry to stay away from my mom’s appointment.

The man never wanted me anymore than I wanted him to play the part. My mother and him had separated before she even found out she was pregnant and never told him about me, so when I popped up on his radar he was getting ready to marry a cheerleader and I wasn’t exactly a welcome sight, and working for him was not appealing given our short time together.

I took my shower and straightened my long blond hair and then put a few curls in the bottom so he thought I looked professional. Then I rummaged through Brooklyn’s closet and found a black pencil skirt a red silk blouse and a black blazer. I was set to pretend I had already found a new job.

I filled my black coffee mug that read “If coffee is laced your safe. If coffee is not done you better run,” and walked out the door to catch a cab when Brooklyn called me.

“Kate,” Brooklyn started talking, but had a bunch of voices in the background. Her voice sounded angry and muffled till she clearly said my name again. “Kate, the man with no name sent flowers to my office. Seems he thinks I am you and was waiting here for you this morning.”

“Oh. My. God. Are you serious?”

“Oh yes, my boss is thrilled with an office full of I still want to fuck you flowers. Even better he must have been so drunk he didn’t remember what you looked like because he didn’t notice I have black hair and you have blond. Took me the last twenty minutes to convince him he didn’t know me.”

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking going out drinking alone and bringing back strange men. I really don’t remember why he thinks I am you.”

“Kate, I don’t need an apology. I know you needed to vent, I just wished you did it in a healthier manner, and left me out of it if I wasn’t included. I want to keep you around until we are old and grey, but your choices are leading to an early death.”

“I love you, Brooklyn. You are the only family I have that hasn’t disappointed me, or been disgruntled because of me.”

“I’m a little disgruntled now, Kate, but to be honest I think it needed to happen. I think you needed a wakeup call.”

“You are the one for me,” I joked trying to lighten the situation.

“If we never marry by the time we are forty do you think you would want to be my wife?” Brooklyn quipped.

“Only if my allowance has four digits monthly, and you allow me a bi-weekly one nighter with a real penis. That is the most I can stretch it. I need my bean flicked daily.”

Brooklyn laughed and agreed as we joked through my cab ride. She always knew when I needed a friend and exactly what to say to put me back on the straight and narrow path I needed to be on.

We were wild together in our younger years, but law school and the loss of Mark the man she secretly loved had taken all her spontaneity from her. I truly believed she lived vicariously through me while trying to get me to grow up like her.

“I have to go. I’m here at Satan’s door.”

“Good luck, I will be in court till noon, but if you need me the bailiffs will get me. I will have Skittles, Snickers, and wine flavored ice cream ready for you when you get home. We can even sneak up to the roof and cook s’mores since the last bit of snow stalled. Whatever you want it’s yours,” Brooklyn replied and I got out of the cab and tilted my head back to look upwards and saw the building where Henry worked.

“Those are magic words, Brook. I am going to take you and Henry and stick you in a mixer so he gets a little of you in him.”

“What do I get out of that?” She laughed.

“Another man’s balls to hang on your wall,” I replied as a passerby fell into me knocking my phone from my hand. The screen shattered on the sidewalk.

“Perfect,” I shouted. “Everyone is taking my lifelines. My job, my money, and now my phone.”

“Sorry, but I need the cab,” the man called out and I ran and grabbed my phone off the sidewalk and instantly threw it. It bounced off the cab and landed on the street as I watched it get ran over by another cab that was behind it. I groaned loudly as nothing seemed to be going my way.
Someone should just shoot me and get it over with.

I was not far from the shopping district so I just started walking. I was going to replace my phone, deal with Henry, go work on the cars and take my mom to the doctor. This was the plan. I would etch my schedule in stone, but I think Murphy’s law would find it funny that I made plans and roll my stone into the ocean to drown and never be seen again.

Four blocks later, I was standing in line at AT&T. Some new phone came out and people flocked to the store like it was the zombie apocalypse and they were the only place left with ammo.

It seemed as though no one in the world near my age bracket knows how to use a wash board, and clothes line. They have forgotten how to even grow their own food, but a new phone comes out and they are all candy crush geniuses and never looked up when they walked.

“Hello, and welcome to AT&T. I am Darby, how can I help you?” The tiny little round woman asked me and I nearly sighed out loud that she had manners.
Thank God someone in this city was still nice.

“My phone got ran over.” I told her and she led me to the computer. I was thankful she didn’t ask many details and was quick to get everything shut off on that phone.

“I’m sorry Ms. Huntington it seems we don’t have any more IPhones in stock. If you want to wait we can order it for you and have it delivered in a few days, or you can transfer over to the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge,” the sales woman spoke sweetly.

“I have to have a IPhone.”

“I’m sorry Ms. Huntington we just don’t have any. The closest one in store is in Albany,” the sales lady replied and my irritation grew. For a split second I felt like a toddler being denied a piece of candy.

“You don’t understand I need a phone I know how to work. I have always been an Apple girl. It is like driving a Dodge and then going to a Chevy, it might have been acceptable in the 1990s, but since Ford bought them it is no longer something that you do. It is like the difference between rich and poor, foreign and domestic, or even skirts and jeans. I need my Iphone.”

The woman scoffed and walked over to talk to her supervisor. I watched as they conversed and knew I wasn’t getting a new IPhone and was about to go to the android side. As she returned I listened to the same customer service speech I had given a thousand times working at the mall thru high school. No matter how I aged the I-am-so-sorry-but… speech would never change.

I wound up getting a new Samsung, against my better judgment, but they discounted it and showed me how to use it. I guess it really wasn’t completely different, but ITunes would be the biggest thing I missed.

“That will be $245.54.” The sales woman smiled and I went to reach into my purse to realize it and my coffee mug were still in the cab. I tried to explain to her, but no credit card equals no new phone so I did the only thing I knew to do.

Brooklyn was in court and I didn’t remember her assistants number without my contacts. My mom couldn’t afford it and it would take Mike an hour to close up shop and come help when Henry was four blocks away. I was going to have to call my dad for help.
This was going to suck.

I used the stores phone and then waited on a bench inside the building. I watched the people go by for over an hour when Henry’s driver finally pulled up. Then his scruffy body builder of a driver walked inside and paid for my phone.

“Mr. Huntington expects your presence to thank him. Please come with me to the car,” the driver spoke. I rolled my eyes, but walked out the door and climbed in the car.

I arrived back at his office building and took a deep breath as I walked inside. I took the elevator up to the seventy-second floor and walked out to see Henry’s blond secretaries jump up to greet me. I had a bottle of water, a coffee, a neck rub, and brownies before I could breathe.
Why did anyone need three assistants?

“Send her in,” Henry’s voice called out and I was thankful that his barracudas stepped away.

I swallowed hard and closed my eyes with my new phone in my hand and the shortest assistant, his errand girl opened the door and I stepped inside. I looked to his desk to see my broken phone, purse, and coffee mug.

“How did you get those?” I asked with confusion.

“I had my security team go after it,” he replied as he hurried into his jacket.

“That doesn’t tell me how,” I retorted with my attitude showing as I placed my hands on my hips.

“I had them review the footage to find the cab number, then they called the cab company to have the cab return. The man who knocked you out of the door no longer works here and you have your things back. The end.”

I walked over and grabbed my things. I was going to say thank you, and tell him it was a bit overboard, but Henry started talking before I could.

“Kate, I had the ladies wash your coffee mug and refill it. You and I will need to have a discussion when we get back about your future here, but if we don’t go right now we will be late to pick up your mother.”

Oh shit, how could I forget my mom?
The hours had flown by as I walked and waited at the store. I had completely forgotten, surrounded by feeling sorry for myself
.
I was chomping at the bit to be the worst daughter of the year.

Chapter 4

“Mom, are you nervous?” I asked and she shrugged her shoulders as she changed into a gown and climbed up on the table. She was so thin that I could see the outline of her bones. Her skin was nearly translucent, and she could barely keep down anything. Everything seemed to hurt her. She winced when I got her up on the table and I pushed her graying brown hair off her shoulders and wrapped my arms around her. “Just us soda pop girls,” I whispered as I hugged her to me.

“I’ll be cherry and you be coke, cause no one needs a root beer float. As long as I have you and you have me together we will be sweet as iced tea. Sing out loud and give it a whirl, no one can defeat a soda pop girl,” my mom said in a sing-song voice as we finished a creative hand jive and interlocked our pinky fingers as we did when I was little with pigtails.

“You okay?” I asked as I turned to open the door and let Henry in.

“Kate, I’m sick,” she said out loud and chills covered me. I turned and looked at her with my arms crossed to hide my chest quivering with a need to cry at her words. Henry walked in silently and sat across from my mom with a look of worry on his face which did not help ease my fears. “We both have to face it. I have been sick a really long time. When a doctor calls and says to bring in your family it is time you get your affairs in order.”

I walked over to her and wrapped her in my arms again and told her I loved her over and over again. I didn’t even notice when the doctor entered the room.