“James? Can I get your help in the kitchen?” I half-hollered. I was annoyed because our sink drain was clogged. It happens all the time and, of course, the landlord wouldn’t fix it. It was such a frequent occurrence that I didn’t even have to tell James what the problem was.

I heard him walk into the kitchen as he made a dismissive wave at the sink. “Just leave it. You’re running late for work. Besides, I need to finish my cereal before it gets soggy and ends up tasting like recycled frog turd. Seriously, why can’t you just get up ten minutes earlier every day? It would save you so many headaches.”

I hate to admit it, but I’ve been late my entire life. Even if I got up really early, I would lollygag and still end up late no matter what I had to do. Sometimes when I was late for work, my coworkers would hear my thudding footsteps and laugh because they knew it was me before I even entered the room. Embarrassing, I know.

“Are you coming to the show tonight, Maya?” he said as he looked over at me with pleading eyes. He made himself look like he was begging even with just his eyes.

I had forgotten about his show. Damn. James had a drag act that he had been working on for months. It would be one more thing I would just have to cram into my schedule. I had promised him I would attend. I feel like I break enough promises in my life so I couldn’t say no. “Of course I’ll be there. What time is it?”

“You forgot about my show, didn’t you?” He huffed with a touch of anger in his voice.

I grabbed my keys and sighed deeply. He was able to sense when I was lying. I confessed the truth. “I’m sorry, James. I promise I’ll be there though. Where is…”

“Jinx’s down the road. 1846 Blazer Street” he interrupted and pushed out his tongue to make a nasty face at me.

That kind of pissed me off. I don’t have many pet peeves, but I don’t like when people treat me like a kid, or like I’m a moron. “I know where it is!” I protested as I extended my middle finger at him.

I said goodbye and slammed our door shut. At least the weather was nice. It felt like it was about seventy degrees with a slight breeze. I clicked myself along quickly because I was already late. I knew my boss would probably throw a fit, but I would deal with it when I got to work.

When I got out to my car and started it, I heard the familiar squeaking and squealing under the hood. I didn’t know what it was. I knew it wasn’t great, but the car still seemed to be running, and I didn’t have the money to take it to the mechanic.

I shifted my car into reverse and slammed on the brakes as I saw James right behind my car. “What the hell are you doing?! I almost ran you over” I shouted at him. I felt my face get a little flushed with anger and embarrassment.

“You forgot something” he muttered as he slowly handed over my cellphone. God, I forget that thing all the time.

“Thank you, James” I said to him as I cocked a half-smile. I was grateful he was nice enough to do that for me. That’s for sure.

I put it in drive, and my car puttered and stalled. “Mary, mother of God. I’ll never get to work” I panted with a half-whine that was a cross between angry and desperate.

James walked up to the rear of the car and finally approached the driver’s side. His parted and greasy hair showed up when he bent over to talk to me. His skin was oily, too. His eyes weren’t bloodshot like mine, though. He always made sure that he got enough sleep.

I could tell that the little jerk was holding back laughs. I could both see his face and sense it. His lips were tightened and he stood tall and still. “Do you want to just borrow my car?” he finally asked me.

Well, how could I say no? My employer probably didn’t want to hear excuses about why I was late – very late – because I always gave them excuses. I overslept because I didn’t set my alarm right. I was late because of a traffic jam. I accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up going the wrong way. I lost track of how many excuses I had given them – and my employer probably did, too.

“Well, if I borrow your car, how are you going to get to the show tonight?” I asked him as I made eye contact with him.

He pushed out a groan and tightly shut his eyes while holding his head. “The show is not until 6 p.m., and you get out at 5 p.m. If you ever paid attention or tried to remember what is important to me, you would know that.”

I angrily got out of my now-dead car and slammed the door closed. I pointed my bony and nimble index finger at him and gave him a piece of my mind. “Hey, don’t be an asshole. I’m just stressed because I’m late for work. I just want to be sensitive and make sure that you have enough time to perform your Shaquille act. Okay?”

“Shakira” he scoffed and burst out a few roaring laughs.

I was done talking to him and playing games. I just needed to get to work and do my job. Even though it was early in the morning, I already had a full ‘James dosage’ until at least tonight at the show. “Thank you for letting me use your car. I just need to go. Where are your keys?”

He pointed back to our front door and turned to walk in that direction. While he was pacing himself into a powerwalk, he replied: “They are inside. I didn’t expect I would need to bring them out.”

I looked at my recently-retrieved phone and saw that I was already going to be five minutes late – and that was if the driving was smooth with all green lights, which I knew wasn’t likely. I irrationally cursed the clock on my phone, and started walking over to Jeff’s car.

I stood by the driver door and looked inside. It was mint, from a tidiness standpoint. He’s always been a particular and clean guy. I guess that’s no surprise from a guy who gets up early every day, always has clean clothes, and is always punctual. I’ll never admit it to him, but I do envy him sometimes.

He came out less than two minutes later and started jogging over to me. ‘Even the way he jogs in loafers is smooth. I hate that guy’ I said quietly to myself.

He took a deep inhale as he approached me, and handed over the keys with his soft, well-manicured hands. In that respect, he was still female. “Here are the keys. You’re going to need gas though. There’s a rewards tag on my keychain, so you can save four cents a gallon. Just a tip, but it’s your call.”

I hugged him quickly and thanked him for his kindness. As much as he got on my nerves at times, he still had a big heart and always found a way to help me out. I guess there are worse roommates in the world.

I put the car in drive, and zoomed off. The car was fast, too. It was a Mercury Grand Marquis and it accelerated with no struggle. I’m not sure what it has for an engine, but it’s probably a big one that can move.

What happened at the first traffic light? It was red. I tried to remember that I was at least on the road and making my way to work. That was a major improvement from just five minutes ago – when I was stuck in the parking lot with a dead car.

My luck started to get a little better, though. Not a lot, but a little. I went through five more traffic lights, and the only red one I got was the first one. I glanced over at the gas gauge and saw what James meant – the car looked like it had about one eighth of a tank.

I chanced it, and I made it to work. I pulled into a parking space and closed the door – a little more gently this time. I wasn’t angry, so much. I was more desperate and worried about what I might get from my employer.

I walked briskly, but didn’t run. Running isn’t a good idea when wearing high heels like I had on. I put my proximity key up to the door and it chimed as the door unlocked.

I let myself in, and darted my eyes up to a wall clock in the room. I was pleasantly surprised to notice that I was only four minutes late. After a dash into our makeshift meeting room, I grabbed a seat on the steel, foldable chair that was closest to the door.

“You’re late!” said Alessandra, my Brazilian coworker. She appointed herself as the princess of punctuality. That wasn’t the only thing she had to offer, though. She is a person who just happens to be blessed with a gorgeous appearance. She looked a little like a real Barbie. Her hair is perfect. Her skin is perfect. Hell, her entire body is perfect.

I used to hate her for a few different reasons. First of all, I had (and still have) a deep-seeded jealously about how beautiful she is. It’s not fair. Most women don’t just get born with that type of body. She did. Lucky thing…

I also hated her because she was always a hard-nosed person who came across as condescending. In the three years I have spent working for my company – Nova Designs – I concluded that she treated everyone that way.

I initially thought that her condescending comments might have come from the fact that I’m the youngest employee, with only three years of experience. Granted, there are only three of us that work for the company.

Then I thought she might be looking down on me because I’m the person low on the totem pole. I’m an assistant, and not a corporate entrepreneur.

Bottom line – she talked like that to everyone. She talked like that to her coworkers, and even her romantic partners – all of which didn’t last long. I’m not surprised they didn’t last long, because a lot of men like a submissive woman who is sweet and polite. Bless her heart, but Alessandra is not that type of woman.

Needless to say, I don’t hate her anymore. That’s not to say that I like her. That would be a major overstatement. Her imagination and creativity for creating awesome designs for our interior design company has always been breathtaking. When all is said and done, she pulls through and gets results. That’s obviously important in the business world.

After I took a few seconds to catch my breath, I looked over and saw Franca enter. She is the ‘head honcho’ and founded our company. She’s got the traditional, storybook account of starting a business and building it into glory.

She started by running the business out of her loft apartment – which was converted from a warehouse. It doesn’t look like a warehouse, which I guess makes sense. Why would an interior design company work in a place that looks ordinary and ugly? That would arguably be hypocritical.

This ‘warehouse’ is where we still work. If it was me, I would get a place a little classier, but Franca and I don’t always see eye-to-eye. She’s stingy. She’s the type of person that would drive an extra five miles just to save a dollar on a box of staples.

Despite the fact that the business is doing well and that we keep getting wealthy clients from places like Bellevue, nothing has changed from an infrastructure standpoint. Franca’s model is simple – if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. She quips that the government will take something that isn’t broken, and will fix it until it’s broken. Then they nod with approval and walk away.

That’s another thing that’s interesting about her – her language and how she talks. She’s a native German and has a thick accent, but speaks very clear English. Many Germans – including her – really pride themselves on being clean and orderly. Our office would pass the ‘white glove’ test. My home wouldn’t pass the ‘brown glove’ test. Ha!

Sometimes she makes me skittish because she’s a highly opinionated woman who is blunt and strong-headed. When she’s wrong about something, she doesn’t have the humility to admit it. Naturally, not many people with her type of personality have that asset.

“Good morning ladies. We’ve got a lot of important stuff to talk about, so I’ll try to get through the bullet points efficiently” she began her speech with a bit of hoarseness. She took a sip of coffee and had a small cough.

I remember that she once told me that she normally drinks between three to five cups of coffee every day. I think that’s a lot. Sometimes I wonder if she has any problems with her ticker. I never bothered to ask because it’s really none of my business anyway.

I politely raised my hand because I had a question. The first meeting I had with her, I just spoke and asked a question. She scolded me and informed me that nobody talks during one of her meetings without asking permission first. I never again made that mistake.

She half-smiled and then called on me to see what I had to ask. “Question, Maya?”

I swallowed a lump in my throat and asked. “I just want to take accurate notes as I listen. Is this about the hotel project that we discussed previously?”

She flipped over a large sheet of white paper on her speech presentation board. “Yes. This will be our largest project yet, so I need you to pay close attention, okay?”

“Okay” I said and followed my answer with a smile. I’m a person who gets easily confused, so I just needed to make sure that I was on the ‘same page’ – both literally and figuratively. That’s yet another mistake that I learned from in my time that I had spent working for the company.

I clicked my pen and readied myself to do a lot of scribing. I was tired and just hoped that I didn’t miss any key facts. I crossed my legs and kept my eyesight directed to the front of the room. It was game time.