Chương 5: Impotent Advances

"Zzrrr, zrrrrr!" The antique alarm clock next to Imelda buzzed repeatedly as she struggled to open her eyes fully, while improvising her fingers towards the clock to shut its mouth.

Imelda lived in a one room apartment which was decorated scantily with vases containing beautiful flowers that hadn't been looked after in a while. The most part of her room was scattered, with paper sheets, clothes and junk food cartons littering the floor and part of the bed she was in.

"Dddddd!" Imelda uttered with her upper teeth gnashing against the ones below. With a grumbling posture, she found her way out of her bedsheets and yawned, running her fingers into her scattered and tangled blonde hair.

She sat down on the chair by the other end of the room and opened her laptop. Imelda was an author, not one of the popular ones, but she considered herself a good writer despite her inability to persuade any editor to give her books a chance.

She unlocked her laptop and with her fingers manoeuvring the cursor, she opened her Gmail address hoping to get the response of the most recent editor she'd submitted her manuscript to.

She didn't know whether to be optimistic or to be numb towards whatever response she would be seeing.

"Phhheeew!" Imelda sighed and clicked on the message from the editor, Clark.

"Imelda, it was a pleasure reading your book and I count myself lucky to have witnessed the potential you possess. However, I can't be of any help besides that. The book is great, but it's not much phenomenal to create the buzz we'd be needing. It can use more work to completely leave the shores of partial mediocrity. Warm regards, Clark."

Imelda wasn't breathing in an even pattern anymore as she read this words. She had really hoped she'd clinch something worthwhile this time, but that wasn't the case. She admitted to herself that she was nothing but a mediocre author who needed to find another source of livelihood.

She didn't move, with her head buried in her palms and her fingers shuffling places in her hair, she stayed there, calm but disturbed.

She extended her hands towards the back of her laptop which she shut without much care and unlocked it. She opened the FliK Air app and made a flight reservation from New York where she was at to Los Angeles, California.

She couldn't be alone right now, so heading over to her mum's to get her head straight and her heart right was what she decided.

After making the payment with her saved Credit Card on the app, she got up from the chair, threw her phone on the bed and began to arrange her room.

"Hey, Imelda, it's 26th of April, and guess who just got turned out again, you, yes, you. It's okay. You're just going to need a new career.. maybe in the next life, you might be lucky." Imelda said out loud to herself with a breaking voice while facing the wall where her bed leaned on.

*******

At Bruce's Company, he was seated in his office, with his eyes which he wore a recommended spectacle over, fixed on the laptop on his table.

He heard a one time knock on his door, and he knew that was Melissa. In haste, while she opened the door, he put off his glasses and hid it in the opened drawer next to him.

"...uhmmm.. hey, Melissa." Bruce said with a weird face that expressed weirdness to her.

"The MacAnthony CEO called a few minutes ago, and he'd like to schedule a meeting with you sometime this week. What date would you like that to be?" Melissa said without a smile on her face. She hadn't worn much of a smile around Bruce ever since the dinner incident two weeks ago.

"Friday noon would work. Thank you." Bruce said with all politeness.

"All right." Melissa said as she turned her back to leave his face.

"Melissa, I don't think I said this before, but thank you for all you do. And I'm sorry about how dinner turned out the other day. I really am. " Bruce said with utter remorse evident on his face.

"It's okay. I understand." Melissa said as she forced a smile on her face to convince Bruce ghat it was cool and she had no hard feelings regarding it.

"How about a do-over? Like dinner or something?" Bruce said as she looked at his face calmly.

"Yeah, but only if I get to pick the place." Melissa replied and Bruce burst into a wide smile that she couldn't not reciprocate.

"Sure. Let's do it." Bruce said with a warm smile of shock regarding her statement.

Melissa walked out of his office with a beaming smile on her cheeks and Bruce had one on his face, too.

"Kreeen, kreen." Bruce's phone's notification chimed and he opened it and saw a message from Georgina. He had a thread of about twenty messages from her which he hadn't replied and this one, "Bruce, talk to me. We both know you adore me as much as I do too. Call me."

Bruce scoffed as he locked his phone's screen and stretched his hands towards the drawer where he'd hid his glasses.