The Right Side of the Wrong Bed || Bruno Mars

Chapter 2

Faye

In the small bright-yellow kitchen of the flat, Bruno stood leaning on the counter with his head tilted down. I stole a final glance of the living room where the little girl was sitting pretty on the couch still with her teddy bear in hand.

When I turned to him, my hand was on my forehead and the other rested on my hip. “What is this sorcery?” I blurted out and heard him sigh. “What do we do? Do we leave?” I asked. Desperation was clear in my voice.

For a moment, he just stayed silent. Then I sensed him leaned away from the counter and walked towards the kitchen wall on the right. “I think you have to see this,” he said without looking.

My eyes flickered to what looked like a calendar which hung on the yellow wall. I joined Bruno as he stared at it. My eyebrows arched when I read, “Year 2018.” To my open mouth my hands flew. I can feel Bruno’s eyes buried on me as he observed my reaction. “What is this? Did we just like time-travel?”

We exchanged stares.

The ringing of a telephone broke the silence. It was coming from the direction of the foyer. Bruno looked away and said, “I’ll get it.” I made way for him as he stormed away.

I turned my attention back to the calendar and stared at it once more. I tried to process everything that was happening but my mind seemed to be whirling and was completely clouded. “This is not happening,” I kept murmuring to myself.

“I think it’s for you,” Bruno’s voice disrupted my thoughts. Our eyes met and he had a straight face. I dragged my way to the foyer, preparing myself to be smacked with another bolt from the blue.

“I thought it’s 2018. We still have telephones in the future?” I wondered out loud. I picked up the phone that was lying on the small table. Displayed next to it was a picture of a family of four, having fun in the snow. It took me a second before I recognized who were in the picture. “This isn’t me,” I demanded pointing towards the picture, my voice shaking.

In the picture, I seemed very happy with Bruno. The little curly-haired girl was there too, as well as a baby boy whom I’ve never seen before, being carried by Bruno. But no, I didn’t remember taking a picture with these people. Plus, I didn’t remember dying my hair light brown!

“Uhh…” I bawled. “What happened to my hair?”

“Just answer the phone. Maybe the person on the other line can help us,” Bruno said.

“Who is it? Did you ask?”

“She said she’s ‘Madame Amy—Alma—Am—Annalisa—’I don’t know,” he grimaced, getting all tongue-tied.

“Who?” I frowned.

“You’re Faye, right?” I nodded. “She said she’s your boss.”

My mouth opened in a startled O. “I have a boss?” I scowled and he shrugged. I put the phone to my mouth and talked. “H-Hello?”

“Faye, what happened to you?” I heard a woman speaking on the other line, her voice flat and monotonous. But despite the calmness in her voice, I can’t help but have a gut feeling that something bad was coming for me again, for us. “I kept calling you on your phone and you never answer. So I decided to call you on your residential number.”

“Um, I—”

“Why am I explaining this to you? Anyway, I don’t want to get mad. I just want you to arrange a meeting for us this morning. I want everyone to be there at nine o’clock sharp. Tell Debbie to be ready when I come…” She started talking rapidly that it was hard to catch her words. I felt the need of grabbing a notepad and a pen so that I could jot down everything she says. “Do I make myself crystal clear, Faye?” was her final words.