start her coffee. Instantly, the wonderful smell filled the room. She inhaled slowly.
The rescue of the alarm clock turned what should have been a ten-minute snooze into twelve minutes of frustration. Celia was now late. She turned on the shower, dropped her nightgown to the bathroom floor, and rubbed her eyes. After the two-minute wait period, the length of time it took for the water to heat up, she stuck her hand through the shower curtain and checked the temperature. Finally. Every day, the water took at least two minutes to heat up, and every day, Celia expected it would be faster.
She showered and then savored the warmth from the hot water that poured down her body. She turned the shower off and reached for a towel. Although the shower was off, she still heard water dripping—it came from the kitchen.
With the towel wrapped around her soaked body and her feet still drenched, she raced into the kitchen. Hot coffee coated the countertop and dripped down the cabinets to form a small puddle on the floor.
“Fuck!” She gazed at the empty space where the coffee pot should have been placed. “You idiot! How did you do this?” She looked at the coffee pot in the dish strainer.
Celia grabbed a cup and placed it under the lip of the counter. With her bare hands, she pushed the residual pool over the edge and filled the cup halfway. She gulped it down and shuddered. Ugh! This second mishap of the morning further delayed her. There wasn’t time to brew a second pot. She clutched a fistful of paper towels and haphazardly wiped the cabinet doors and the floor.
“How was your weekend?” Emma walked into Celia’s office and plopped down in the chair across from her desk. “Why’s your hair curly?”
“Didn’t have time to dry it.” Celia raised her hand to her head and twisted a cluster of curls.
“It looks good. You should wear it that way. Look at MY curls.” She shook her head back and forth. Emma’s jet-black curls danced around her face.
“My weekend was stupid.”
“Why was your weekend stupid? No, let me rephrase that. What constitutes stupid?”
“I don’t know where to begin. I went for drinks with Ramona and her brother.” What was the booper’s name? Why can’t I remember? Think. It’s not Booper Boy. I can’t remember. “A total disaster. Why don’t you tell me about your weekend instead?”
“Nah. I’d rather hear about Ramona and her brother. Go on.” Emma put her elbows on the desk and placed her hands under her chin. “Start chirping.” She lowered her hands and wiggled her fingers toward her face. “I’m all ears.”
Celia began to recount the evening with Ramona and her brother. Emma’s cell phone rang and interrupted her a second after she began to describe the booping fix up.
“Hello?” She glanced at Celia and crossed her eyes. “Hello? Hello? Hello?” Emma was visibly annoyed.
Celia picked up a pen and doodled on a pink sticky pad. A. B. C. D. I think it began with R. Was it R? Ralph? Richard? Roy? What WAS it? R. R. R. Walter. That’s it! Walter! So, it ends in R. Same thing. Glad I remembered.
Emma put the phone down on the edge of Celia’s desk. “Sorry. Go on. Tell me about the brother.”
Celia began to speak. Again, Emma’s phone rang.
Emma glanced down at the phone and pressed the Decline button.
The phone rang a third time, and Emma once more pressed Decline. “I’m sorry. I want to hear your story.”
“Who the hell is that?” Celia nodded her head toward the phone.
“Don’t ask.” Emma shrugged. “It’s no one. Now tell me about the night out with Ramona. Why was it stupid?”
Celia put her pen down. Something’s up with you, missy. She chose to respect Emma’s privacy. “He was cute, but he was strange. He did this thing that—” The ring of Emma’s phone interrupted Celia yet again. Celia stopped speaking and frowned at Emma.
Emma picked up the phone and turned it off. “The phone is off. No more interruptions. I’m very sorry.”
“Emma, now it’s your turn to start chirping, as you say.”
“It’s no one. Honestly.”
She tilted her head and furrowed her brow. What is going on with you, Em? “Emma, I was in your office last week when this phone game happened. Why does someone keep calling you? And why don’t you accept the call?”
“Trust me, Celia, it’s no one.”
“Come on, Emma, it’s me. You can tell me.”
Emma breathed in deeply. “Okay, I’ll tell you.” She banged her knees as she pulled her chair closer to Celia. “This has to be OUR secret. Can you keep a secret?”
“I can keep a secret. It’s the people I tell who can’t.”
“Ha ha ha.” Emma took another breath, this time more deeply than before. “It’s my ex-wife.”
Celia peered at Emma. “What?”
“It’s my ex-wife.”
“Yeah, I heard you. Your ex-wife? What does that mean?”
Emma moved in closer to Celia. “It’s Fredric’s ex-wife, but she annoys me as much as she annoys him, so I claim her as my ex-wife too.”
“Fredric was married before?” Celia shrieked as softly as anyone could shriek—she was shocked.
“Yes. He was married before. It was years ago.” She reached over and picked up the pen Celia had put down. Nervously, she flipped it back and forth from hand to hand.
“I’m totally flabbergasted. How have you not told me this?” Celia moved both hands to her face, stretched her fingers out, and covered her cheeks. “We’ve worked together for more than three years. We talk so much. We talk too much. How has this little surprise ex-wife not made it into our conversation?”
“Celia, it’s not important. I don’t talk about it anymore. It’s off my topic list of things to discuss.”
“So, that’s it? You don’t talk about it?”
“Nope, not anymore. I used to tell my cousin Jillian everything. She would call me every Monday morning, excited to hear some crazy story that happened over the weekend. We’d laugh for hours as I detailed the pathetically unbelievable actions of my ex-wife. I talked about the stories as a sanity check for me. She always agreed they were crazy. Not sure if it was out of loyalty or if she honestly thought the situation was nuts.” Emma’s lips turned downward, and her chin quivered slightly.
“I’m sorry.” Celia reached over and touched Emma’s hand. “I remember Jillian came in for lunch occasionally. She was hilarious.”
“Do you realize she’s been gone over a year? She was more than my cousin—she
