Karen heard a hysterical mother behind her, repeatedly screaming “Suzy Q” just as a little girl brushed past her and ran into the street. A car screeched and swerved all over the place in its attempts to avoid what would most probably be a fatality.
Karen didn’t bother to watch the outcome. She was busy on her phone, as boldly as possible offering sex to her old boss if he’d take her back after her very-long unscheduled absence…while dragging her suitcase back to her fuckin’ storage unit so she could pick up the rest of her shit.
She heard a thud, suggesting impact.
“Fuck you!”
“What?”
“Not you, sir! So sorry!” Karen tried to think of a lie to cover her outburst, which had been directed toward a jealous ghost of Frank that she’d imagined was protesting her offering her old boss sex. Just then the hysterical mother, now sobbing, pushed past her. “Some fuckin’ asshole on the sidewalk just about knocked me over.”
“But your language, Karen! I don’t ever recall your using such language! Or being so…er…forward.”
“That Karen’s lost and gone forever, sir! And I think you’ll find this one is a whole hell of a lot more fun.”
“But you know ours is an ultra-conservative investment banking firm. ‘Old sport’ and all that. Honestly, my dear, you never before showed the slightest interest in the business itself, let alone any of the ‘stuffy’ people involved…like me…or the clients. Which is why I had you doing due-diligence number crunching in a back office.”
“So you know how demure and discreet I can be. Doesn’t mean you, and maybe some of our very best clients, wouldn’t like to…er…enjoy themselves a bit from time to time.”
“Karen!”
“Come on! What’s a little unscheduled time off? I remember how you used to look at me. And I’ve changed. I can still crunch numbers for you, but you’ll also see I’ve learned a whole hell of a lot about things that have nothing to do with crunching numbers. Think about it. I’ll call back soon.”
Fuck you! But this time she only thought it silently at the now-apparently-apoplectic ghost of Frank as she got off the phone with her old boss. Then she pushed her way through the door to the storage space building, ignoring the siren she heard behind her…probably an ambulance…possibly more accurately referred to as a meat wagon in this case…and totally ignoring the stupid exposed wood carvings around it that she vaguely remembered liking at one point.
She was immediately assaulted by alien thoughts, not her own: Enter Center Stage: The Consummate Appalling Creature. Whilst I now concur completely about all that appalling old-theatre rubbish, there is one thing in this miserable world that is even more “stupid,” and that is you!
Fugettaboudit! Karen had had enough with her imagined Frank ghost without still imagining she could hear the thoughts of a building. Next she’d be communing with that Irwin she’d killed.
Murderer!
“Fuck you!” Karen had screamed it aloud this time. To a fuckin’ building! The smile that had greeted her from that homeless bitch Amelia now wavered.
