CHAPTER 18: PRELUDE TO A NIGHTMARE

The telephone on Jessica’s desk rang as she walked into her office. Runing towards it, she accidentally tripped and let fly all the files she was carrying. Cursing herself, she hobbled over to the phone and picked it up.

“Hello,” she said to a dead tone on the other side. “Shit,” she swore and hung up. “What’s it take to have a little bit more patience, huh?” she scolded at the phone.

Then she heard a little chuckle behind her. “My, my, are we talking to inanimate objects now?”

Jessica turned to see Flora’s head sticking into her office. Ignoring her, she proceeded to pick up the files that were strewn all over her office floor. Flora went in and joined her friend, helping her with the files. As Jess placed the last file back in place, her mobile, which was sitting on her desk, rang. Flora grabbed it before Jess could. She waved the handset in front of her friend and grinned. “Guess who’s calling?”

‘Louis calling’ flashed on and off the blue LCD screen. Jessica quickly yanked the phone out of Flora’s hand and pressed the green button.

“Hello,” she smiled into the phone.

“Jess? It’s Louis.”

“Yes, what’s up?” Jess asked nonchalantly.

“Well, the three of us are in the mood for some singing tonight and I remembered you mentioning you like to sing too. So we were wondering if you would like to join us,” Louis said.

“Singing? You mean at a karaoke?”

“Yup. Would you like to?”

“Sure, why not?” Jess answered, trying to mask her excitement.

“Great!” Louis exclaimed. “Oh yeah, ask Flora along too, will you?” he added.

Jessica frowned when Louis again mentioned Flora’s name, but quickly regained her composure when she saw Flora grinning knowingly at her.

“Okay, I’ll ask her,” she told him.

“All right then. We’ll meet you girls at Qbar after work and head on from there,” Louis said. “See you later. Bye.”

“Uh huh,” Jess nodded. “Bye.”

She hung up and glared at Flora. “Wipe that silly grin off your face.”

“I see someone’s got a date tonight,” Flora teased.

Jess pulled her a face. “We BOTH have a date tonight.”

Nick and Bowie looked at Louis expectantly as he ended his conversation with Jess.

“She’s going and so’s Flora, I think...” Louis told them.

Nick beamed. Bowie frowned. “What do you mean by, ‘I think’?” he asked.

Louis shrugged. “I only told Jess to let Flora know and to invite her along. I didn’t get a definite answer from her.”

Nick grabbed Louis dramatically. “What about Jess? She did say she would go, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, Jess did say she’ll go,” Louis grinned. He too was happy that Jess was going although he felt a little worried. He couldn’t understand why he had kept thinking about her ever since that night in Qbar. He knew he had to snap out of it though. Nick was his buddy. Jess was out of bounds, he dismally reminded himself.

“So, are you going to join us?” Jessica asked Flora.

Flora shrugged. “Why not? Is Bowie going to be there as well?” she grinned impishly at Jessica.

Jess laughed. “Well...Louis did mention that the three of them were going. I presume Bowie’s one of the three.”

“Hmm...” she added with a chuckle. “Do I detect some interest in Bowie here? How could you, Flora Lau? Karen’s going to be mighty jealous,” she teased.

“Bitch,” Flora pouted. “There’s nothing going on between Karen and me. Nothing. I don’t like women, okay?” she tried to convince Jessica. Unknown to Jess, Flora was trying to convince herself too.

The shrill ring of her mobile phone snapped her out of her reverie. Flora stared at it with dread. Flashing on the screen were the words, ‘Karen Chan calling.’

“Ermm...” she looked at Jessica pleadingly and handed her the phone. “Could you please take it for me? Say I’m unavailable or something.”

Jessica grinned at her friend’s desperate face. “Hello,” she answered.

“Hi, Flora?”

“I’m sorry. Flora just stepped out for a moment. Can I take a message?” Jessica asked as she attempted real hard not to burst out in laughter.

“Oh, I see. It’s all right then. Just let her know Karen called.”

“Karen? Karen Chan? Oh...Flora’s mentioned a lot about you,” Jessica said. Flora gaped at her friend in disbelief.

“Really? Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Jess.”

“Oh Jess. Flora keeps mentioning you too.”

“She does?” Jess said as she sat down, curious to know more, much to Flora’s chagrin, who had been frantically waving at her friend to hang up.

“Hey, Flora and I are going to a karaoke tonight. How would you like to join us?” Jess invited, ignoring Flora’s loud, distracting coughs.

“Tonight? Sure!” Karen exclaimed.

When Jessica finally hung up, Flora screamed at her. “What was that all about?! And why the hell did you ask her to come with us to karaoke?! Damn it! I don’t believe you!”

Jess just grinned at her friend devilishly. “Tonight’s going to be one interesting night, isn’t it?”