From Sleep May Come: Contemporary Romance

by Julie Miller

  He politely asked for two shots of tequila. The bartender was a young woman with her brunette hair down past her shoulders. She asked to know his problem. Michael responded with hesitation to provide a short summary about his life. The bartender requested to be called, Kimberley.

  She said in a delicate tone. “Listen sweet pie. Everybody that comes in here has some sort of problem. What’s yours?” Kimberley asked with curiosity. Her eyes starred intently at the muscular guy with the light blue eyes. She thought that he had a toddler baby face.

  “Well… where to start? My wife can’t conceive and now she’s…” Michael warded off.

  “Yes?” Kimberley needed to hear the rest. She thought, one interesting looking guy with marital problems, coming right up.

  “Sorry. I have to leave.” Dr. Randall said without completing his alcohol beverage before leaving. Thinking could be one’s enemy. The mind wanted control even when it was incapable of handling everything at once. Temptation was also a man’s worst enemy. An urge to flirt with other woman until Samantha came in mind. Michael found himself near a public trash can and just puked what little he could. Two girl friends walking by expressed disgusted expressions. Samantha would not accept his apology if he cheated. And he did not want to anyway. He could not betray his wife. Life could not go on like this. Life had to get better. A new chapter had to unfold and along with it, good events. She can’t torture him like this forever. She will want to eventually talk. She will eventually need to stop staring at her window out to the snow. Samantha needed to rescue her loving husband. Or else other alterative plans would be taken into action. Michael washed his right hand all over his mouth to get off any puke. His white professional medical coat reeked of throw up. He quickly snapped off his medical coat and held it like a soaking towel. Now, his brown coat was visible as it kept him warm.

  Doctor Michael Randall had been moved to a different location.

  Circumference of a Rose

  The circumference of a rose was given to Rachel Abram. This time was different from all the other times. When men asked her out she would gladly decline. Making some kind of excuse that was not honestly true. Her two favorite pick- up lines used to avoid communication with men were double- double scrabble. It hurt but it was necessary. ‘Sorry, but my mom is in the hospital and I need to watch over her’ or ‘It so happens that I’m married’ finished with a genuine smile. It was definitely not her fault that men were naturally attracted to her. She tried to be ugly by not wearing any make- up. During one summer break season, it was crazy to throw away all of her expensive cosmetic products just because she hated when married men flirted with her. They did not even bother to hide their wedding rings. What was it with dumb men? Sometimes they can be the hottest looking creatures in existence with the sweetest manners of how to treat a lady correctly. On the other hand, some men had been kind only when they wanted to be. The adventure was not personally admired neither. Last Saturday, out with a girlfriend when one adorable handsome gentleman confidently marched to April. Rachel was proud to finally witness her friend get some attention.

  Unexpectedly, the Italian man was not interested in April. He wanted to know the hot woman standing right by April. Rachel was sick to her stomach. Did she break a best friend law from accepting his invitation for a beverage? April expressed her disappointment by rushing to the exit door and out. The club was massively crowded and the techno music played repeatedly without any breaks in between. Rachel stared at the gorgeous man who had purchased her a martini.

  He said, “My name is Kevin. Would you like my number? Sweet thing.” Finished with a nasty wink.

  Rachel felt ashamed for choosing the bastard over her best friend of four years. What was the matter with her? Politely, Rachel excused herself from the bartender and made her way towards the exit doors. She hoped that her best friend would still be in sight once she got outside but April was nowhere to be discovered. Her car was gone and this meant that Rachel needed to take a cab ride home. It was a miserable ride in the filthy cab. The seats were leather so her thighs were sticky against the material. The cab driver seemed to not have cleaned his vehicle in the last decade. He spoke in some kind of Indian accent. Rachel took out her mobile phone, as she wanted to check on April. Two phone calls amounted to nothing. One text went unreceived for eight hours. Rachel was getting irritated, that Indian music was pulling her chain. “Can you turn that down please?” She demanded. Unfortunately, the taxi driver ignored her with complete awareness of what she had asked.

  The next morning proved to be a better hour. The optimistic gal woke up with joy as she spread her two arms in the air for a stretch. That stretch was what one motivational cheerleader may perform to encourage her crowd. She opened her eyes to see that the morning sun had just entered into her master bedroom. There was two master bedrooms in her parent’s home. She had grown up in a different house when she was younger than eighteen. The landowner of Rachel’s recent apartment had proudly kicked her out for making too much noise. Although, the truth was that the apartment community in Rose del So apartments consisted of too many elderly residents. The high volume of noise was never an issue. A main issue that caused the residents to develop anger was that she had visitors. It was obvious to know that the old people never had any visitors from their friends or family members. Every week usually would mean a new friend coming over as Rachel invited this source of events. Friendships meant a lot to a person like Ms. Abram. Her friends would always be welcomed into her tiny home.

  Mr. Abram demanded that he would not accept no for an answer. His only daughter was going to be staying with her parents until she found another affordable apartment. It was settled. The Abram family were not wealthy but were a middle- class family. Even though they earned a decent amount of money. Mrs. And Mr. Abram had spent all of their retirement money covering the cost for Rachel’s student bills. Only one more bill of 2,354.00 needed to be paid until Rachel would have no more student bills to pay. The bright young twenty- two year old was reasonably decent. She took photography courses at her local community college. In hopes that beginning her own side photography business would allow her to make more cash.

  Currently, she was working as a dental assistant for the Mountain Winter dental office. Three years of journalism education paid to be useless. Every journalism opportunity located in her home state of Illinois offered about eight dollars per hour. That was like minimum wage and she refused to work hard for little money. Sarah Peterson, her boss provided her with twelve dollars per hour though she never received proper education on being an assistant. Quite frankly, she was good at the job. Her organizational skills were finally being put into good use. Calls, email sending, confirming appointment dates and voice handling was based off of her work as she sat at a large desk from 6 AM to 5 PM.

  Somebody knocked loudly on the master room door before entering. It was Mrs. Abram. “Hey honey. Good morning my pumpkin. My little pride of joy has woken up from her beauty sleep. I remember when you were just this small.” Mrs. Abram demonstrated as she made a small shape using her thumb and index fingers. Now, the mother was sitting on the comfortable bed beside her child, encouraging her daughter to get up.

  “Hi mom. Did you cook breakfast yet? I smell blueberry pancakes.” The passionate daughter spoke as she ignored her mother’s embarrassing actions. Hoping that pancakes would be for breakfast with a side of orange juice.

  The delighted mother continued to exchange dialogue. “Yes. I cooked your favorite. I was going to do some errands today. And I want you to go. Hurry up and get dressed. We’ll leave in thirty minutes.” Mrs. Abram declared with a big cheesy smile. The mother of only one daughter was happy to be able to see her daughter on a daily basis during her stay. It seemed that it was impossible to go out for a cup of tea when Rachel was living in that elderly residential home.

  “Mom? Really? You know it takes me like an hour to get ready.” This was remarked with flattery.

  “Rachel, you are my
beautiful daughter. Just like your grandmother, you have natural beauty. I don’t know why I don’t have it too.” Mrs. Abram responded as she began to walk towards the bedroom door.

  “Ash… I’m too tired.” Rachel argued.

  “Stop being lazy. Get up my little princess. I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Rachel, I love you. I wish that you stayed with us until death. You need to visit more often.” The delighted mother blew her grown child a kiss before entering into the hallway and closing the second master bedroom door.

  “I’ll be sure to remember that. I love you, mom.” Rachel said quietly. Not getting up, she said out loud “I’ll get up after five minutes, yes!”

  Two hours had passed by and Rachel asked her mother if she wanted any tea. Tea was one method of exciting the spirit. It also helped with certain health preventions such as clearing skin for acne, weight loss or maintaining the desired weight, and the throat also received a warmth benefit from green tea and honey too. Rachel began to stare around the post office store. Four people were in a long line. Her mother was third in line. Mrs. Abram replied in a whisper tone as to not make too much sound, “no tea for me.” The old woman third in line smiled to Mrs. Abram and complimented her shirt.

  Rachel laughed as she received a text from Mark. Mark was her former boyfriend of two years. Their relationship was a on and off event that involved the highs and lows. He would often win her back by texting her humorous poems from the Bailey collection. The Bailey Collection was a monthly literary package for poem lovers. It costed fifteen dollars each month for the arrival. And every month, a new magazine with ten new poems on three pages amused Rachel Abram. Feeling her cheeks blush, she turned away from her mother. Then she had texted back a smiley face with a tongue sticking out. But she had learned her lesson-learned experiences from falling so hard on the ground. She only searched for a healthy friendship with Mark. After sending the text, she walked out of the post office as she headed for Starbucks. It was convenient to live in a popular area. All of the top name brand stores were within walking distance in the same plaza. Starbucks was only two stores down on the right from the post office. Automatically no longer interested in a cup of tea as she spied the line going as long as out to the entrance door. The line was too long. The waiting period would be nearly twenty minutes or more. She let her hopes go out of the window. Walking back into the post office store.

  Mrs. Abram stared back behind her shoulder to check on her daughter. At last, she was first in line. The post office register employee asked, “what can I do for you today?” The employee was a blonde female who could have been in high school still. Her shirt showed a likeable abstract painting that had one Art and Myself title. Thinking that it may be in connection to some kind of charity.

  Mrs. Abram replied, “Hello. I just need to send this out to my job. Please.” The employee inspected the countless number of pages that defined a script of some sort. She produced an expression of wonderment.

  “Do you know how many pages? Never mind.” Susan, the blonde behind the cash register asked before she spotted the number of pages on the back sheet. An approximate of 309 pages of creative writing based upon suspense thriller content.

  “Okay. That’s going to be $25. 17 please.” Stating as the cashier looked at one more person entering the store who immediately smiled to Rachel. The brown haired woman gave the man a small smile right back. Now, there were four people in line that needed to be taken care of. An old man who was third in line asked where the postcards were. Susan pointed to the mug cups where a vast variety of postcards sat partnered by the mug cups.

  Mrs. Abram passed over her mastercard and requested for the cost to be charged for credit. The mother stared back once more at her daughter who had her eyes glued to a mobile screen. She thought, ‘youngsters with their technology’. Rachel and her mother walked out of the post mail store five minutes later. Mrs. Abram spoke up to let her daughter know that she was working on a new contract. The creative suspense author was very creatively bright.

  “So what is the book about exactly?” Rachel asked with interest as she looked up to her mom.

  It was a fast response that displayed excitement. “It is about a murderer. Two families go to the woods for a pleasant lake venture. And the next day, they find the husband of the bigger family dead. The murderer lurks as he pretends to be one of the family members. His secret… identity, I should call it.”

  Rachel shook her head as to confirm mutual understanding.

  They both made their way in front of the mega large grocery store with no particular name. The store was known as just the Grocery Store. Rachel noticed that she was not aware she had been walking towards the food and drug store. She was simply following her mother’s footsteps. “Hon, I need to also go grocery shopping for our Fourth of July celebration. The shopping will take a few hours or so. Are you comfortable going along? I can give you my keys. Just pick me up in three hours.”

  “Yes! I have freedom from these boring errands. Mom, I’m totally joking but I am going to take option two. Thank you very much.”

  Diane Abram smiled at her daughter with doubt. Are you sure? She wanted to ask with desire for her daughter to stick along. What would happen after Rachel found another apartment? But the mother knew what to expect. Once Rachel found another apartment, she would have almost no contact with her parents. She wanted to enjoy the time she had left with her only child. Diane searched through her white colored Coach medium sized purse, searching for her car keys. The key chain carried three different sets of keys. One key for the house, the second for the car and the third for her storage room she rented because Rachel was taking up so much space that the Christmas decoration boxes had to be put outside of the house in a rented storage space.

  Having difficulty in finding her keys within her crowded purse, she said, “maybe you should just stay with me.”

  Rachel grinned then slowly showed her front white pearls, she knew what was up. Rachel knew her mother like no other person on the face of the planet. She giggled quietly and got the keys from her mother’s butt pocket. Mrs. Abram predicted that her daughter would discover the keys with her little spy powers. Both the joyous mother and the little detective daughter laughed and then hugged one another. Diane headed inside of the grocery store, which had been one store away from the post office. The mother looked back to see her daughter playfully jogging to the Wrangler Jeep.

  The young optimistic gal opened the front door and sat down. Needing to adjust her seat for more room. Her mother was two inches shorter than her daughter. At 5’5 tall, Diane stood at 5’3 short. It was clear that she got her height from her father’s side of the family. Though, 5’5 was still known to be for a short statue for a person. Fixing the drivers side mirror for better sight seeing, Rachel turned on the engine then pulled out. A metal rock song played, and Rachel turned the radio off.

  Making her way to the traffic way. The light turned yellow and one outdated vehicle still passed the street light in a rebellious manner as he shouted “boohoo!” Rachel observed the car on her left side. A business woman with a bull dog on her lab. A little bull dog who was enjoying the fresh wind as he stuck his tongue out of the drivers window. The dog looked like he was dealing with a cold so his mouth was wide open searching for oxygen. She had to quickly catch her breath as she was beginning to feel overwhelmed. Her last afternoon in what would be a long time had gone exceptionally well until the seizure occurred. Trying to calm down as the light turned green. Rachel was finding it tough to drive forward. A yellow old fashioned farmers red Chevy honked the horn four times in annoyance. Rachel pressed on the gas pedal and moved slowly ahead to the correct direction to her destination. She told herself out loud to relax. “Relax. Relax. You’re almost there.” Without any clarity, she took her eyes off of the road as she evaluated the back seat for her inhaler. She thought that she had thrown the inhaler on the back seat a couple of hours ago but it was not on neither seat. There sat a Kleenex box on one of t
he seats. This was really not good. A huge pick up gasoline tank truck carrying natural fuel gasoline was going in the same direction that Rachel was driving forward to and the truck hit the Wrangler with all its rough might.

  Rachel Abram was now quickly paralyzed from head and toe. The man in the pick up truck did not receive one damage, so he thought. He rushed out of the truck. He had to jump from the drivers seat because the truck was that big. He noticed that the tiny silver Jeep Wrangler held a person inside of it. His truck got a little damage that could be easily found on the front. Nothing much besides a few scratches and dents. He ran around the crushed Wrangler and wanted to open the front door. Unfortunately, it refused to open.

  “Oh shit! Crap. Somebody help!” The hillbilly driver shouted for any assistance. His shouting sounded screechy. Two other people came rushing to the Wrangler. One passenger from the yellow Smart Car followed after the woman who had just started to run towards the injured woman. The teenage boy with a green colored MO- hulk pulled out his phone from his sweater pocket and dialed 911. He took out his phone as if he were in a fast paced race. Go!