LOVE TO HATE YOU

Real princess clothes...

Coffee on the balcony was very eventful that morning.

"NOOOOO!" JJ said as he paced. "Miss Behave. That bitch."

"Maybe you guys could become friends." Bruce burst out laughing and I quickly followed. "Maybe you could do a duet together," Bruce added in between more laughter.

"It's not funny."

"It's hysterical," I clarified.

"No, this won't do. This won't do at all." JJ said and walked off to his room.

Bruce and I were left alone to imagine the antics that would ensue when Ben's brother came to visit.

"He'll probably pull a Mission Impossible and climb the walls to try get a look inside that apartment," Bruce said.

"I would pay good money to see that."

"So you and Ben huh? Jogging? Pancakes?"

"Just friends," I said firmly.

"Yeah right." Bruce studied my face, probably looking for a sign of something telling. "Why don't you just go out with him?"

I shook my head. "I can't. Not with all the shit in my life. Remember what happened with the last guy."

Bruce looked unconvinced. "You know, some people don't care where you came from. Some of us don't care that you lived in a trailer park and that you're 'trailer trash.' Some of us think that makes you a better person than ninety-nine point nine percent of the people out there in the world who don't know what it's like to struggle to rise above your circumstances."

I hung my head. "I don't know."

"You should give it a go."

"Do you know what all my colleagues think of people like me?" I asked. "Whenever we make a TV or radio ad one of the first things everyone says is, who is the target market? What LSM are they? How much money do they have?"

LSM meant Living Standard Measurement, and, every time the ad was for anything lower than LSM 5, everyone started joking about having to "dumb it down." Little did they know, they had an LSM lower than 5 sitting at the same table as them.

"You of all people should know how judgmental and cruel people can be," I said to Bruce.

He nodded. "Perhaps. But if you don't give it a try, you'll never know."

"Maybe."

"It doesn't even have to be a formal date. Start by knocking on his door. Take some pizza around or something, whatever. Or just pop in to say hi," Bruce said.

"I'll think about it."

Bruce gave me a smile, patted me on the leg and got up. "Time to console JJ."

***

I didn't see Ben the whole day at work. He was out at meetings. I was actually grateful for this because it gave me the whole day to think about what Bruce had said, and I allowed my mind to wonder, to imagine what it would be like to actually go on a date with him.

But not seeing Ben in the office didn't mean he was absent.

"So I think Samantha is going after him." Ness said, sidling up to me conspiratorially.

"Who?"

"Ben. You should have seen her yesterday, practically throwing herself at him. She was basically dry humping his desk"-Ness had a way with words.

Vampira had obviously tuned her hearing for the word "Ben" because she was at the desk in seconds-Had she flown here?

"Slut."