Cologne and
Cheerios
by Erin Theisen
The first
thing I notice when I wake up, before I even open
my eyes, is that it’s sunny. I squeeze my
eyes shut to see if that fixes the problem, but
it doesn’t. All it does is alert me to the
headache resting somewhere behind my eyes.
I open my eyes
and narrow them at my offending window. My blinds
are flush up against the top of the window frame.
I never forget to put my blinds down before I
sleep. For this reason. Morning sun isn’t
kind to light sleepers. Or to those who had a few
too many the night before.
I roll over
and groan, and notice that the other side of my
bed is rumpled and smells suspiciously of crisp
cologne and perspiration. Sandalwood and sweat.
Ew.
I roll over
again and my cell rings. It’s absurdly loud
for this hour of the morning, and my custom ring
tone – which I shelled out $2 for –
sounds like bleating sheep. I knock it off the
nightstand instead of grabbing it, and then lurch
down to snatch it from the floor. Bad idea. I
wind up falling out of bed and swear before I
flip open the phone.
“What?”
I say rudely, because I saw the caller ID and
know Tammy won’t mind.
“Morning
sunshine. How’d you sleep?”
Ugh.
There’s a little giggle in her voice and I
know she’s mocking me.
“That
good huh?” she says, and I realize I
didn’t answer out loud.
“Umph.”
“Right.
Well, you left your camera over here last night.
I think Ryan stole it and took some pictures.
There’s some really special ones of…well
you’ll see when you get it back.”
“What
happened?” Flashes of Tammy’s party
come back to me. A going away party for one of
our mutual friends, which included lots of
friends who weren’t so mutual.
“You and
Pete hit it off.”
Oh. That
explained the cologne. But where was Pete, if we
got along so well?
“He’s
not here.”
“No.
He’s a douche. I meant to tell you but
you’d already left.”
“Thanks.
Who invited him then?” I manage to get to my
feet and stumble across the stained carpet in my
bedroom, the padding of which has long since
disintegrated. No sounds of life from the rest of
the apartment beyond the door. I skulk around
like I’m afraid of someone – I
don’t know who – jumping out with a
steak knife.
“I dunno,
friend of a friend. Wanna get lunch? I can bring
your camera.”
“Huh?”
I’ve already forgotten about the camera.
Almost forgot about the phone, too.
“Lunch,
you know, that meal people eat halfway between
waking up and collapsing.”
“Let’s
skip to the collapsing,” I say as I round
the corner into my kitchen.
Tammy laughs.
“Usual place at noon?”
My kitchen
looks wrong. A cupboard is ajar, and there’s
a half-eaten bowl of Cheerios on the table. The
rest of the box is tipped over and dotted with
milk splatters.
“Son of a
-!”
“What?”
Tammy says, confused.
The bastard
seduced me, ate my food, and then left a mess.
Literally.
“I’m
never going to one of your parties again.”
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