6
“What do you mean, you’re not at work? Did Seth fire you?” Sofia asked.
“No. Why would he? I haven’t done anything wrong.” Haven’t done any right either. “We left a meeting with a client and he offered me the rest of the day off.”
“That’s so…strange. Guess that means you’re free to come and spend some time with me today. Just girl time.”
“Although that sounds wonderful, I can’t. I’m trying to clean my apartment and cook.” She hadn’t lived there very long, actually only two weeks, but somehow things still looked messy. And now with just about every pan she owned out and dirty, it looked a lot worse.
“If you came over, you wouldn’t need to do either. Sounds like a win to me,” Sofia said, still trying to lure her over.
“Can’t. Sorry.”
“Charlene, please don’t tell me that you’re tired of hanging out with me just because I’m not fun anymore.”
Charlene knew Sofia wasn’t joking. She needed to reassure her friend that wasn’t the case, without letting on what her true plans were for this evening. It wasn’t like it was a date or anything. They needed to eat, and she was cooking for him. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
“You know better than that. I love you guys. But I can’t be there every night. And if you forgot, you just saw me yesterday.”
“Ha. Back home we saw each other just about every day,” Sofia added.
“Well it was hard not to. We lived in the same apartment building. And besides, you bribed me with your mother’s cheesecake. Do you have her cheesecake?” Not that she was about to cancel her plans with Seth, but Mama Marciano had the best cheesecake in the world.
“You’re horrible. You won’t come see me and Liliana, but you’d come for cheesecake.”
“No. But I had you believing I would, and that is almost as good. How about if I promise to come by and see you guys over the weekend?” Charlene offered.
“I’d love that, but Rosslyn and Charles are coming over so Penny can play. Actually I think I’m babysitting and they haven’t broken the news to me yet. I wish you’d have a baby so Liliana and…hey what are you going to name your baby?” Sofia asked.
Charlene burst out laughing. “You need to get out more Sofia.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not even dating anyone, never mind pregnant. Why on earth am I supposed to be picking out baby names?”
“You need to be prepared for these types of things.”
“So you’re telling me you had picked out Liliana’s name even before you met Dylan?” There was no way Charlene was going to buy that crap. She knew Sofia too long for that.
“Well no.”
“How did you come up with the name? Someone in your family or maybe Dylan’s?” she asked.
“Do you remember the part in the play I was trying out for when I met Dylan?”
“Vaguely,” she replied. Sofia had tried out for so many that they were all a blur to Charlene.
“Well the character’s name was Liliana.”
“You named your daughter after a role you played in the theater?” Charlene chuckled. “Why am I just learning about this now?”
“I would guess because you never asked before,” Sofia stated.
“Good point.” She was just about ask what else she didn’t know when a loud blaring alarm sounded. “Damn it. Look at what you made me do. I’ve got to go.”
She ended the call and rushed over to the oven. Black smoke was coming out from inside. She turned off the oven, then grabbed a towel and started waving it at the smoke detector trying to get it to stop buzzing. Her cell phone rang and she knew it was Sofia, probably in a panic.
Quickly she answered and put it on speakerphone. “It’s okay. That’s just the smoke alarm going off. You’re never going to believe this. Well yes you will because you know I’m a horrible cook. But when I put the oven on preheat, I forgot to look inside first. I have a pizza box in there from two days ago. God I hope no one calls the fire department. I’d die if the other tenants knew what I did.” Finally the buzzing stopped and she added, “Okay, you have to promise never to tell Dylan or anyone else about this.”