Nudity For Fun and Profit Chapter Thirteen: Off the Grid
“Alicia.”
“Um,” I reply from under the covers. My mouth is sticky and dry.
“Alicia, wake up.”
I push the comforter off my face and open one eye. Heloise is standing over my bed, holding the telephone. I turn my head to look at the clock, and notice with little surprise that it’s after ten AM.
“It’s your boss,” she mouths.
I sit up in bed, rubbing my knees, which ache profoundly from last night.
The thing is that I can’t keep doing this. I’m into my third week of this insane moonlighting experiment. Three hours of sleep per night is just not going to cut it on a permanent basis.
What this all comes down to is simple economics. Five days at Winston Global equals about three hundred dollars after taxes. But five nights at Angels nets me three grand in cash. There’s absolutely no contest.
I take the phone from Heloise. I gaze at the receiver thoughtfully for a moment. Then I hang up on Rob.
“The hell with Winston Global,” I proclaim. I curl up under the covers again. “And now I don’t have to be up till about three this afternoon. Could I ask you not to wake me for any reason before then?”
Heloise giggles. “Sure.” She takes the phone back. “Damn, hon. It’s about time!” She’s still grinning as she walks out of the room, closing my door softly behind her.
The second the latch clicks back into place, the phone begins to ring again.
“Don’t answer it!” I call through the closed door.
“What?”
“Oh, for the love of God,” I mutter. I climb out of bed, throw my bathrobe on, and head into the living room just in time to hear the answering machine’s beep.
The tape begins to roll and then Rob’s voice takes over.
“Alicia, where in the freaking hell are you? Do you have any idea what time it is? There are clients outside my office, and I have no receptionist! I am ANSWERING MY OWN PHONE HERE, ALICIA!”
He sounds like a maniac. I’ll bet his face is turning purple.
I push a button on the machine. The tape stops.
I rip the tape out of the answering machine’s jaws and palm it like a jewel.
“You’re very observant, Rob,” I say to the mini-cassette in my hand. “It’s something I’ve always really admired about you.”
I open our big bay window.
“By the way, Rob, I forgot to tell you.”
I’m talking to myself and I don’t even care. I fling the tape out into the street. It shatters when it hits the pavement.
“I quit.”
Then I pad into my bedroom, toss my robe onto a chair, and crawl back into bed.
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