Shaking my head, I realized that I had been wasting valuable time reminiscing when I needed to hurry my ass along. When all was said and done, I was in and out of the shower in ten minutes, which was remarkably fast for me. My morning shower was as essential to me as coffee was to Dante. I could function without it, but it wasn’t pretty.
I dried off quickly and put on my bra, panties and stockings before blowing my hair dry in record time. I was proud of how quickly I accomplished that, considering that my hair was currently longer than it had ever been, reaching down past the middle of my back.
I wasn't operating at my highest level and when I went to put my hair up into my work chignon, I knocked the bobby pins off the counter and into the toilet. Stomping my foot I yelled, "shit!"
It meant that I was going to have to do something I’d not done even once since starting, which was go to work with my hair down. I didn’t think of it as a professional look for me, which was something I strived for when at the office. Unfortunately, the hair decision was out of my hands. I had to wear my hair down, unless I wanted to go toilet fishing – something I knew I was going to have to do later, but had no time to do right then, late as I already was.
I raced into my bedroom at high speed, thanking my lucky stars that I had laid my clothes out the night before. I slipped into my black pencil skirt, pairing it with a white sleeveless silk blouse, a belt and my black Jimmy Choo crown shoes. Once I was ready, I ran to the kitchen to grab a breakfast bar and a bottle of water.
At the front door, I reached into the bowl on the entry table for the keys to my car—a beautiful Jaguar XJ that I suspected was the best company car on earth. My hand hit the bottom of the bowl sans keys, which meant that Brooke had my car and I needed to drive hers. It wouldn’t have been a problem to drive Brooke’s car if I had known where the keys were, but they weren't in the bowl, which was something that made my agitation grow. I stomped down the hall to Brooke’s room and flung open the door, breathing a sigh of relief when I spied the spare key on her dresser.
I was running back to the front door when I heard that my iPhone was ringing. Since it was playing the theme song to “Family Guy”, I knew it was Dante. He loved the show, and he made the theme song the ringtone on my phone for his calls. I didn’t make it to the phone in time, so I grabbed it as I ran out the door, locking it before slamming it behind me.
I had raced to Brooke’s car, a black Mercedes coup that our mother had bought just weeks before she and my father had died. It had become my car until I’d gotten my work car, and I still loved to drive it when I had the opportunity. It always reminded me of how happy my mother was when my father took her to buy it. It was the first car that she'd had since we were born that was a two door, and she had been ecstatic.
It was blazingly hot out, absolutely over-the-top sweltering heat. I started the engine and cranked the AC, secure in the knowledge that the car would cool down quickly because it was small. The temperature display on the mirror indicated that it was ninety-five degrees out, and I sighed in frustration that I didn’t have my hair up.
Dante and I were scheduled to walkthrough a building site in the afternoon, and I knew that I was going to be miserable with my hair down. Resolving to drink plenty of water before we went, I threw the car into reverse and headed toward the freeway.
By then it was almost nine thirty, so traffic wasn't as severe as when I normally drove to work. I breathed a sigh of relief when I merged onto the freeway, and I had hope that the craziness of the morning would be behind me.
I was just starting to relax when I noticed that the gaslight was on and I realized that was why Brooke had taken my car. Letting out a loud curse, I had no choice but to pull off at the next exit for gas.
Once at the station, I pulled to the pump and reached for my purse… only to realize that, in the rush to get out of the house, I'd left it on the kitchen counter. I wondered if the day actually had it out for me, and I even considered calling in sick and hiring a locksmith to get me back into my house so that I could hide from the world until my bad luck passed.
I sighed, knowing I couldn’t take that option because it would be extremely irresponsible. Dante insisted that I was with him whenever he went to check a site. The one we were set to tour was the biggest build the company was doing in America this year, a super exclusive high rise in Century City. The minimum buy in for a condo in the building was four million dollars, and there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen as more and more buyers came on board with different requests. There was no way he would go if I didn’t, which meant he would reschedule the walk through. That was something that I just couldn't abide. It would be rude to inconvenience everyone because I was having a lousy day.