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“I don't want to talk about it.”
“Oh, okay. Well, here's how my day went… first, my new boss, Giorgio, was all excited about —”
“— why are you always late?” I interrupt her.
I feel her eyebrows go up, but I don't bother to look over at her.
“I wasn't late,” she replies irritably. “Were you early or something? I got off right at five, like I always do.”
“Well, maybe you got off at five, but you didn't come outside at five. I wasted ten minutes of gas sitting outside the diner while you were laughing it up with those guys.”
“No you didn't.”
“Yes I did!” I huff, getting irritated now. If she wants to argue the details, I'm all for it.
“I wasn't laughing it up with anybody.”
“I saw you!”
“Whatever,” she sighs, waving her hand in front of her face. “I’ll be sure to rush right out next time, okay? I didn't realize that finishing a sentence was going to set you off like this, Dahlia, geez.”
“I'm not set off,” I mutter, realizing I sound fairly petty.
I should not say anything else. I've already complained, and that should be enough. I should let it go. Try to do some deep breathing or something for the few blocks I have before we get back to Bunny's house. I hate leaving her on a bad note like that. It’s kind of a superstitious thing, but I always want to be able to say goodbye on a positive note, just in case, you know. Sometimes people don't come back home.
But as I pull into her driveway, I finally feel my irritation sink below the full mark. I'm only at one third of a tank of irritation, so I twist toward her and smile before she gets out.
She pauses, her hand on the door handle. “I'm sorry I made you wait,” she mutters grudgingly. “You want to come in? Have a beer?”
“I should head on home. There's dinner… maybe some vacuuming…”
“Maybe some white wine?” she suggests. “Perhaps some aimless venting of internal frustrations that you are clearly having and yet not willing to admit?”
Her big brown eyes bore into me, like a tractor beam. She doesn't want to let me go, and maybe she's right.
“One glass of wine, maybe,” I mumble.
“Whatever it takes!” she quips, flinging open her door and climbing out of the car. She crosses the grassy hill diagonally instead of sticking to the concrete walkway, opening the front door and dropping her gym bag and purse unceremoniously next to her old-fashioned waitress shoes under the hall table. I follow behind, feeling slightly better.
“So, what's on your mind?” she asks as she unscrews the gold colored lid on the bottle of a suspiciously pink wine. I know everybody's drinking rose these days, but I don’t know if this qualifies.
“Actually…” I start, trying to think of how to put it all together. I plop down in a stool next to the kitchen sink and accept the small glass she hands to me, the one printed with painted yellow daisies. The wine is way too sweet, but it's nice
and cold. I feel it trickling through my insides on its way to my stomach.
“Just spit it out,” she suggests. “You said you were only staying for one glass of wine, so you gotta pace yourself. Just in case it's a long story, you should start now.”
“Okay…” I start, feeling myself smile wanly, “well, first thing this morning Lori said that we lost a few contracts.”
Bunny shrugs, wrinkling her nose and sniffing her overfilled glass suspiciously. “Does that happen a lot? Is that normal?”
“It didn't seem normal. She seemed pretty upset about it,” I explain. “She said if we don't get replacements for that income, we will have to make some changes around the office.”
Bunny's eyes go wide. She blinks several times. “Oh my God, did she fire you?”
“No, nothing like that,” I shake my head. “She said we have options, whatever that means. I think she's offering me a chance to save my job… but it means coming up with something creative. Maybe taking over somebody's workload? I'm not really sure.”
“Wow, are you ready for that? You're so new there.”
