Friday Night

The dizzying chirping of her cell phone ringing jolted Miya out of the spreadsheet that had been blurring in front of her eyes. Her hand darted off the keyboard and silenced the ringer, shoulders relaxing when she saw Kali’s familiar name and grinning face on the screen.

“Hey,” she whispered, conscious of her place in a cubicle among other cubicles, even though by 6:30pm on Friday most of the other research assistants had left.

“Hi! What are you doing tonight? Want to come to Jelly Bar with me and Lea and a few of her friends? She went last week and said it was really fun and there were TONS of cute finance bros,” Kali bubbled, sounding like she had started drinking already even though it was probably just her baseline level of perkiness coming across.

“Aw thanks for the invite. Honestly though I’m so excited to finally be home, and I’ve been here late every day this week trying to get the data from this project cleaned up. I just want to sit on the couch with a glass of wine and watch the Bachelor from Monday.” Miya knew how lame she sounded but didn’t care. Kali had to understand that after everything she had gone through with Morris recently – the hundreds of phone calls, the sample wedding invitation with their names ensconced in hearts arriving at her house, the terror of seeing his face at window two weeks ago, the bouncing around between different friend’s couches to make herself feel better than she did alone in her basement apartment while tearing herself apart with the gnawing feeling she was putting them in danger – Miya just wanted to go home and enjoy feeling safe again. 

“Are you sure? Her friends are fun, I meet them at Rebar a few weeks ago. You deserve a night out after finishing this project! Well, this part of the project…” Kali, despite her flitting gaze in public spaces, derailed trains of thought, and penchant for interrupting, somehow kept track of every milestone and detail related to financial modeling projects Miya did.

“I’m sure. Maybe next weekend when I’m feeling settled again.  You want to grab brunch Sunday though?” Miya offered, ignoring the shooting pain in her neck while she pinned her phone between her ear and her shoulder, pulling up a new email and typing her boss’s address. 

Kali sighed dramatically but knew better than to push Miya when her mind was made up. “Okay yeah brunch Sunday sounds good, because you know I’ll still be in a bed with a finance bro tomorrow morning,” she giggled optimistically.

Miya couldn’t keep from smiling, “Yeah good luck with that! I’ll text you tomorrow.”

“Bye girl, love you, let me know if you change your mind,” Kali trilled.

Miya hung up, quickly scanned the email she had written, attached the spreadsheet and hit send before she could be tempted to re-check the formula in Column V that she had already checked three times. She locked her computer, grabbed her purse, said quick goodbyes to the few people she passed on the way out, and after navigating the maze of back corridors and clunking service elevators, burst out onto the sidewalk at the bus stop. 

As she had every day for the last 6 months after leaving work, she put earbuds in to signal that she wished to be left alone and not asked for directions or engaged in small talk but didn’t put any music on.  With a nonchalant posture masking her hypervigilance, she first scanned the sidewalk on either side of her, then the other side of the street, then into the visible areas of storefronts and office lobbies, finally settling on the people in the cars and bikes that rushed past. It was such a deeply ingrained habit that it took the blaring wail of a police siren to freeze her eyes on the irate woman yelling into a cell up the sidewalk and make her realize that Morris wasn’t out there. He wasn’t out here looking for her because he was in jail. Sargent Leland, the hard-faced woman of indeterminate age who had helped expedite the approval of her restraining order petition, had left a voicemail on Sunday night telling Miya that he had been arrested for assaulting an elderly Chinese woman on the street. “Calling you is the last thing I’m doing before going down the shore for the week and, off the record, I could not be happier that he did something so stupid to give us an excuse to get him off the street. You take care Miya,” she had added, her words conveying what her raspy, monotone voice did not. Miya smiled to herself thinking of the Sargent at the beach, probably sitting up stick-straight in a chair under an umbrella glaring at everyone around her. 

The bus lumbered up and opened its doors with a hiss. Miya tapped her fare card and practically bounded up the steps to find a seat in the back row, another old habit that she hadn’t shaken in the last week. She stared out the window and in 20 minutes was home unlocking the three locks on the front door to her basement unit. Slipping inside, she then re-locked the door, checked the two window latches, and jiggled the lock on the door at the top of the stairs to the shared back hallway. Reminding herself that Morris couldn’t come over again, she finally felt some of the tension she had been carrying leave her neck and shoulders as she looked around her small living room. Almost triumphantly, she kicked her shoes off, slipped her bra out from under her shirt, grabbed Thai leftovers from the refrigerator, and poured herself a generous glass cloying sweet Riesling before flopping down on the couch.

Later, a scratching noise permeated the dream Miya was having about being trapped in a jail cell only wide enough for a treadmill, with the guard rubbing his baton on the heavy metal bars as the belt spun faster and faster. The noise grew more insistent as the scene from her dream faded and suddenly she jolted awake, heart racing but thoughts still jumbled with sleep and wine. No! She panicked. How was it possible? Morris was supposed to be in jail! Her eyes darted to the dark but empty window high on the wall behind the TV before a different banging noise at the front door almost made her jump off the couch. Inching towards the door, she heard the jingle of her phone, buried in her purse where she had dropped it. Miya reached for her phone, planning to call 911 immediately, but as she lifted it out of the pocket, she heard someone say her name through the door. A decidedly female voice. A female voice she recognized. Kali’s name and grinning face lit up her phone screen when she turned it over in her hand.

Sliding the screen to answer, Miya yelped, “Kali? What the hell?”

“Mi-ya!” Kali slurred back, her drunk voice audible through both the phone and the closed door, with Lea’s voice in the background trying to shush her.

Every muscle in Miya’s body loosened. She unlatched the door to find Kali, mildly disheveled but grinning, and Lea, standing back sheepishly.

“You guys nearly scared me to death! I thought you were Morris!” Miya exclaimed. “Come on, come in.” She bustled them inside, closing and triple locking the door behind them.

“Miya I’m so sorry,” Lea murmured as Kali dove onto the couch. “I tried to talk her out of coming over, and I thought we were Ubering back to her place but she apparently changed it to your address when I wasn’t paying attention. An hour before we left the bar, she started insisting that you needed her, that she needed to come over. I tried to reason with her but you know how she gets when she’s drunk. I’m so sorry though, I know we scared you.”

“Mi-ya needed meeeeee” Kali sing-song mumbled from the couch.

Miya felt her heart rate slowing. “Yeah, you scared me but it’s ok. Let me get you guys some water. You want to sleep over? What time is it? I must have fallen asleep…” her voice trailed off as her gaze caught on the large empty wine glass on the coffee table.

“Yeah, can we? It took us forever to get that Uber,” Lea said with a smile, tucking a blanket around Kali, who had started snoring loudly.

As Miya turned the lights in the living room off and dug through her dresser for a t-shirt and shorts for Lea to borrow, Morris slunk away from the window, blood rushing back to his feet after being crouched in the alley for the last hour. It had been so easy to catch the window latch from the outside yesterday during his trial run while Miya was at work, why had he made so much noise doing it tonight? Stupid stupid Morris, he thought. It was for the best though. He had been sure he waited long enough to prove she was alone for the night and soundly asleep on the couch, but then those loud obnoxious girls had come over, and they would have ruined everything. He certainly wouldn’t be able to get back out on parole if he was caught violating the restraining order within a week of his release, and if he was back in jail there was no way to be with Miya.  At least she had said his name, it sounded so sweet in her voice around the corner.  He would have to be patient until he could have her all to himself.