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