Quarter Life Crisis

He next morning, the last thing I wanted to do was get up and get ready for another day of work. Now that the sexual confusion had been cleared up between Vic and me, it made me nervous.
Suddenly, I was worried about impressing him, and making sure he liked me. I spent extra time on my hair, and told myself over and over again not to cross any lines. He obviously didn’t like it when I talked about his parents, so I mentally made a note about that.
It was almost noon, and I was just about ready to leave the apartment when my cell phone started ringing. I pulled it out of my pocket, surprised to see the caller id displayed my mom’s name.
“Uh, hi,” I said when I answered.
“Hello, dear, it’s your mom,” she said when she answered.
“I know … “ I said, unsure if she realized how blatantly obvious the caller id was on my phone.
“Anyway, I wanted to get your current address,” she said, I was about to wonder why when she added, “Silly me, I got in one of these taxis and I realized I didn’t even know your address.”
“Wait, taxi?” I asked, as this sort of horrible dooming feeling twisted in my stomach.
“Yes, I grabbed one from the airport and- Kellin, the nice man is waiting for an address, can you please give it to me?”
“Wait, airport? Mom, where are you?” I asked, frantically.
“I’m coming to pick you up,” she said. “Kellin, don’t be upset, I thought you expected this. You don’t have your own place to live, you don’t have a job, you’re not in school-“
“I have a job,” I corrected.
“And what kind of job?”
“It’s at this sandwich shop-”
“Oh, a sandwich shop,” she said, mockingly. “Kellin, that’s not a real job.”
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” I assured her. “I’m fine, I don’t need to go back.”
“We’ll decide that later when I see you, now please give me your address,” she insisted. I reluctantly rattled off Zoe’s address to her as she relayed it to the cab driver.
“Anyway, mom, I really have to get to work,” I told her. “I’ll see you tonight and I’ll let Zoe know you’re on your way here.”
She muttered something that I couldn’t understand before saying goodbye to me and hanging up the phone.
“Who was that?” Zoe asked, appearing behind me.
“What?”
“You just said you’ll ‘Let Zoe know you’re on your way’.”
“My mother decided to pay me a surprise visit, but I have to go to work,” I explained, quickly, as she moaned.
“Kellin, your mom is crazy. She always tries to set us up and it’s ridiculous,” she sighed.
“I know, I’m sorry, I’ll be home tonight though,” I said, apologizing. She grumbled something about me owing her big time as she trudged back into her room.
I quickly headed out the door and checked my watch only to find out I was running late already. I walked at a brisk pace, fighting the cold wind as I tried to make it there without messing up my hair. It was a lost cause, though, so I told myself that Vic wasn’t the kind of person that would care about hair anyway.
“You’re late,” he announced as I came through the door.
“I know, I’m sorry,” I sighed, pulling off my coat and scarf and gloves and dumping them in the back room. I quickly set my stuff aside and clocked in, then met Vic back in the kitchen along with another guy I had never seen before.
“Nice hair,” Vic snickered, as a little part of me died on the inside.
“It was the wind,” I whined.
“Mhmm, anyway, have you met Jack?” he said, referring to the tall guy standing by the counter on bread duty.
“I haven’t,” I said.
“Well, that’s Jack,” he shrugged. “Jack, this is Kellin, the new guy I told you about.”
“Nice to meet ya, Kellin,” he said, shaking my hand roughly. He smelled strongly of some sort of cologne, and I had to hold my breath so I didn’t gag. Don’t get me wrong- I loved it when guys wore cologne and stuff, but I didn’t like it much when they totally drowned themselves in it.
“Jack’s been on vacation, he’s a loser,” Vic informed me.
“He’s just jealous,” Jack chuckled, ignoring his attempt at intimidation. Vic rolled his eyes.
“So why so late?” Vic asked, leaning on the counter next to where I was standing.
“I got caught up with a phone call,” I explained. “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”
“Mhmm, who were you talking to?” he asked, scooting closer. I studied him a moment, wondering what he was getting at. Something seemed different. I noticed his playful smirk to the glint of something mischievous in his eye. It was a little frightening until slightly more comforting thought came to mind- Was he flirting with me?
“It was my mom,” I finally said, casually trying to flick the hair away from my eyes as if I didn’t notice anything. Who knew, maybe there was nothing to notice anyway.
“How’d that go? You said you haven’t talked to her in a while,” he said, recalling our conversation from the day before.
“Right,” I breathed. “Do you actually care? Because if you don’t, I would rather not talk about it.”
“Aw, Kells, of course I care,” he said, sweetly. I studied him, still terribly confused. If there was one thing I was worse at than flirting, it was being able to tell when someone else was flirting with me.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, instinctively recoiling. Because God forbid I actually flirt with someone the right way for once. He raised an eyebrow as his smirk returned. So I added, “Zoe calls me that.”
“She’s not actually your girlfriend though,” he shrugged.
“Ugh, but still, I live with her. I’ve known her for longer than I’ve known you,” I mumbled, beginning to think that Vic was just messing with me after all. “Whatever, call me whatever the hell you want.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said, smiling for real this time. “So is everything okay with your mom?”
“Yeah, it’s just that she’s decided to surprise me and show up in town,” I said, sighing yet again. I sighed way too much.
“Oh, that’s always great,” he chuckled sarcastically.
“Yeah, she thinks I need to move back to Oregon with her,” I sighed.
“Are you going to?” he asked suddenly. I gave him another curious look as I tried to read his odd reaction. “You know, because you haven’t even been here very long and you know … I, uh, need employees.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
There was another painful moment of silence. Why did I have to be so terrible at this?
“Well, at least she’s coming to see you,” he said, quietly. He lowered his eyes a moment before pulling himself upright again and marching across the room to wash his hands.
I sighed and made the mistake of wandering up towards the counter as the front door swung open. I looked up to greet the customer, and when I did I wanted to just sink into the ground and disappear.
“Hello, dear. You’d think you’d look a little more excited to see your mother,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Notes