A Baby for the Billionaire

59

KEREM

For heaven's sake, this woman lives in a shoebox. And not exactly Vittorino shoes, but rather those sale shoes that you find in thrift stores where the boxes are already old and ruined, but you realize that it was probably never pretty.

"Okay, welcome to my place," she warns after going through the entrance gates and up the stairs to her front door.

She takes a key from behind a pot and fits it on the doorknob. My eyes widen when I discover the way she opens the door, turning it and allowing both of us to enter.

"It has to be a joke, right?" I ask her as soon as she turns on the light and a tiny space is revealed in front of me, in which there is a small table with two chairs around it, in which I am sure not a single person sits, and a laptop on top. In a corner there is a pile of scattered papers which can only belong to a university person. I approach the papers and take them to review what they are about or if she is supposed to do a university degree.

"If it intrigues you, they're not mine. They are Rhonda's."

"Oh, your friend."

"Yes. If I studied at the university, I would not have a lot of papers on file to take exams. Those are pitiful."

"It's unfortunate that I study things that are from the last century, God. Do they really still teach these things in college?"

"I know, many teachers excuse themselves with "we are laying the foundations"."

"If the bases are obsolete, the greater the distance of knowledge that can be acquired. It is one thing to see issues that have to do with a reality from a year ago and not with how things were done thirty or forty years ago."

"As you can see, I don't believe in university degrees. But I also had no choice but to do without them. I had no opportunity to forge it as something that could mean something in my future."

"Oh. It's true, they open doors. But sometimes, you need to open the doors yourself. Sometimes even kick them down."

"Tell me," she mumbles, pouring water into an electric kettle and pouring two cups. "Well, tea or coffee?"

I look at the coffee pot.

"What kind of coffee do you have?" I ask her.

She assesses me by raising an eyebrow, disapprovingly. I didn't want my comment to sound like a criticism of her coffee maker.

"Tea is fine," I add, before she tosses the cup at the back of my neck. As soon as she takes out a wooden box with some little bags, I get the idea to ask her what types of tea she has, but she only takes one out, places it in a cup, then another and leaves them there.

Then I go up to her and watch.

"Cocoa husk tea?" I ask.

"I don't drink any other kind of tea."

"I admit I wasn't even aware it existed. I am more of a coffee drinker in all its varieties, but I am afraid that I will not be able to rest well if the coffee is strong."

"You already chose tea."

"It was an assumption."

"Let's try the chocolate tea."

She rolls her eyes and a giggle forms on my lips, knowing that she's having fun with all of this too.

"I order you to put the water in the cups, do you at least know how to do that?" she asks me.

"Of course."

"All right. I'm going to remove the blanket and put on a coherent blouse. And to brush my teeth" she brings me up to date and then disappears.