SECOND CHANCES(A Lesbian Story)

Chapter 2

 Mika picked up the phone before getting into bed. She must ask reception to give her an alarm call in the morning. The last thing she wanted was to be late on her first day at her new job, and her alarm clock was among her belongings at the condo unit she was renting. It was stupid of her not to have remembered to bring it to the hotel.

Having to spend her first week in a hotel in the metropolis was the only hitch in the arrangements which had otherwise gone beautifully. The unit she was renting had only one bedroom and the previous occupants were not due to transfer until Friday, so Mika had no option but to stay in a hotel for a week.

Ten minutes later, having turned off the lamp, she got out of bed and was heading for the bathroom. She'd forgotten how to clean her teeth and giggled about it, wondering what her dentist father would have to say about that. It was a definite indication of how preoccupied she was with thoughts of tomorrow.

"Admit it, Mika, you are nervous!" It was a strange thing to be glad about feeling nervous. But it meant she was still alive and is as normal as anyone else. She got back to bed and within minutes, fell asleep.

When the reception rang to wake her up, Mika was already dressed. She took a long look in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door. In black pencil skirt and a crisp white blouse, frilled at the high neckline and at the cuffs, she looked just right. Her hair was swept up into the soft style she usually wore for work and apart from her deep red lip gloss, her make-up was not obvious. It never was... even when she was going out for the evenings--- though she could count on one hand the number of times she gone anywhere special since Kiefer died.

It would happen here, just as it had happened at the Baguio office. She would be asked out. Dates would be offered... and politely refused. She simply wasn't interested. Even if there came into her life a man who could measure up to Kiefer... or come close to measuring up to Kiefer, she still would not be interested. When he died, he had taken her heart with him.

She looked at her face in the mirror. Moistening her lips, she put a smile on her face. Many a time she had been told what a lovely smile she had... what cute teeth she had. And many a time, she had been told that she didn't smile often enough. She decided to change that starting today.

It was only ten minutes past eight, when she walked through the doors of the Head Office of Galang and Galang. She was not due to start until nine. She had been warned by Kim Fajardo that her hours would by no means be fixed, that there would be times when she would have to stay late or start early.

The elevator doors parted on the eighteenth floor and Mika walked to her office, remembering clearly which door it was. She opened her office door to be met by silence. There was no noise coming from the adjoining room. She presumed Kim was not in the office yet.

Ten minutes later she had been through the contents of her desk drawers, flicked the switches on the switchboard to direct all calls to her phone, filled the coffee percolator and was checking that her desk diary tallied with that of her boss. She looked through both diaries to the end of the year, noting that Kim had a holiday booked for the first two weeks of December.

It was so good of Desiree that she left everything as up-to-date and as neat as she could. She had also left with one of the paintings from the wall, a colorful print Mika had admired when waiting to be interviewed. The missing painting had left a mark on the wall. Mika had just the thing to replace it... an original Malang oil painting which had been a wedding present to her and Kiefer.

She was putting her boss' diary back to her desk when she heard a door close in her own office. She jumped, glancing at her watch to see that is was eight-thirty. Was it her boss?