Chapter 5

It was pitch black darkness before Alita felt a tap on her shoulder, tap, tap, and tap again. She felt a warm furry building in her stomach. She always hated it when Sarah woke her up like that, and she had told her but Sarah insisted it was the only way she would wake her up and make sure she wouldn’t get back to sleep after answering her name and sitting up on the bed.

Alita had her pills to thank for her sleepy head. It was unfortunate it was how she could sleep sound and she was always far too deep asleep whenever she took them. She always wondered how her alarm always did the trick. She had never actually believed she always went back to sleep after Sarah wakes her up by just calling her name as she has demanded to if her alarm always woke her up.

It felt like she had just closed her eyes and was bout to fall asleep when she felts Sarah’s tiny surprisingly painful hands slap her shoulder. 

“Ugh,” Alita growled sending Sarah a death glare.

“I know you hate me and want me dead at this moment, but,” Sarah chuckled looking heavenward, “You are awake,” she said sashaying her way to the bathroom.

“You are joking right?” Alita bawled squeezing the sheets in her hands, wishing it was Sarah’s neck. “You haven’t even taken your bath yet?” Alita shook her head in disbelief, “You couldn’t wait until you were done? Those few minutes mean something...good rest and beauty sleep...Agh,” She slowly, reluctantly dragged herself off the bed. It was the hardest thing to do, getting off of the bed -waking up fully. 

It wasn’t her fault that she was always too tired; dealing with kids is so much work -all the screaming and moving around, the little devils don’t make it easy for you. At least she doesn’t have to tolerate those little William devils anymore, and if this job works out well, she will be taking care of an infant, which is basically, bath, feed, feed, bathe, feed, quite easy. The pay will be more since it was grumpy face, she thought to her face, her lips curled into half a smile as she thought to herself fiddling her legs around the ground for her flops. 

After a few seconds of blindly, lazily feeling around for her flops, she decided to look down. She should have felt it by now. “Sarah!” She screamed on top of her voice. “You are a witch, I know it now,” She gritted her teeth breathing heavily. “Even my slippers?” 

“What are friends for?” Sarah yelled from the bathroom. “Why did you buy this very soft slipper, bouncy and squishy comfort. I just couldn’t help it.”

“My life...” Alita said between her teeth, sizing up the room. The mess she made the previous day would not tidy up itself. She began picking things and putting them where they should be. She was almost done when Sarah slowly opened the bathroom door, peeping from behind the door to see whether or not Alita had set a trap for her or she was waiting to spray powder on her hair again. Alita easily did that whenever she was mad at her.

“I don’t even have your time today,” Alita rolled her eyes at her. “You know me, you know what I can do.”

Sarah nodded still hiding behind the door. “You know we have to go to the office early right?” She blinked numerously at Alita. “We can’t run late so…”

“Come out so I can go in and get ready,” Alita hissed. “Don't go starting what you can’t finish,” She whispered under her breath, smirking to herself.

“I should come out? I can come out?” Sarah said hesitantly. “You mean it, Alita? Between you and God, I can come out?”

“Hmm mmm,” Alita hummed eyes glued to the clothes she was holding in her hand.

Alita quickly skipped to the bathroom, turned the knob so it was locked, and then waited for Sarah to scream. A few seconds and a Sarah let out a shriek. Alita howled a melody along with Sarah’s screams for help, fisting in the air.

“Please don’t wake me up with slaps again, ever in your life, please, I always wake up with the an to do something evil when you wake me up like that and you are just there for me to do evil to, not that I didn’t think of something worse, but because you might be getting me a job today and I am grateful for your effort at making my life better than the mess it is, I choose to put a pinch of pepper in your face cream.”

“You are the one calling me a witch,” Sarah sniffled feeling around for tissue Alita said was on the shelf. “I hate you so much. You are wicked!” 

“If you had just called my name, we wouldn’t be so emotional right now, would we?” Alita said and then carried on with her bath. 

It was the longest morning in that year for Alita, although closely similar to the morning she had gone to Mrs. Williams for her interview -the suspense and the uncomfortable tingly feeling in her insides, the wrecking nerves, she always wished the day could be over in a minute and the next day would start without having to live through the pressure and tension of interviews. Sometimes they end up asking you questions that are off-topic and unnecessarily unrelated to the job and you always have to answer, else…

The closer they got to the office, the hotter and even more uncomfortable Alita felt, her knees were weaker by the second, but they arrived.

Benson wasn’t there yet, he was the boss so he could arrive at the office at whatever time in the morning he deemed fit, and honestly, Sarah, Alita, and Luke weren’t expecting him to come early like he always does because of the bay.

Everyone in the trio were imagine all sorts of things wrong that he could be doing to the baby, was sent into a frenzy at the thought of millions of ways he could unintentionally kill the baby.

Sarah spoke first after a while of uncomfortable silence and tension in the air as all three of them sat in the reception as they waited for Benson to arrive at the office with the baby in one piece.

“Luke, call him, call Mr. Astor,” She fiddled with her finger. Her leg kept shaking. She was one to let her thoughts go wild.

“Well, you can call him, you are his secretary, you can call him as well as I can, so don’t put this on me,” Luke shrugged, making sure to avoid eye contact with the beautiful lady sitting opposite him.

“You are his assistant, which means you are closer to him which makes you more disposed to survive however the call goes and whatever meaning Mr. Astor makes of it. I am sure he is a man who doesn’t like to be deemed impotent, so mind how you ask him, so he wouldn't feel incapacitated and then blow up on...” Alita paused as she noticed Luke and Sarah were now looking over her. She hated it whenever people don’t give her attention when she was talking. She followed their gaze to find out what was more important than the life of a poor baby that was being manhandled and probably violated at such young age, infancy; her eyes met with shiny expensive-looking shoes and as she lifted her face, her eyes met Benson’s, he was already there when she spewed her first five words.

She turned back and shot Sarah a glare that spelled her disappointment in her so-called best friend who is supposed to have her back by signaling her when Benson arrived so she would stop talking and not lose the job, but now he had heard everything she said, and she remembers little to nothing of what she had said. She only thought about the baby and the hardship she was probably going through.

She turned back to Benson and for a few seconds she savored the sight before her mind regained consciousness and she simpered, then her eyes fell on the baby, that looked fine and not near death like she imagine she would be. Obviously, Benson had done a great job with the baby, or so it seemed.

“I have lost the job haven’t I,” Alita said unaware she was thinking out loud.

“What job?” Benson squinted at Sarah with obvious confusion and then raised his brows at Luke who straight up pointed at Sarah.

Alita, pursed her lips and stood up, wiped her gown, and took two steps sideways so Sarah would come in view.

Benson’s eyes inevitably followed Alita as she moved. He found himself analyzing her curves. He was taken aback by the sight that was unraveled as she stood up and wiped her dress. It was a few seconds but Benson had seen so much in his mind eye.  The dress she put on really enunciated her features. He quickly snapped out of his thoughts which had run pretty far and wide, and glared at Sarah expectantly.

“How does she know about this, given that we have to keep this on a low? Who is she again, and which job is she here for?” Benson controlled his voice so he wouldn't sound as aggravated as he was about the whole scenario he walked into. Something about the word impotent in her sentence just sparked a furry in his loins. He was immediately upset. The word now had a personal meaning and a rather unfortunate relation to him. 

“She is the nanny for the baby,” Sarah nervously stuttered. “So I had to tell her about it and she happens to be…” She intertwined her fingers as she spoke.

“This was supposed to be discrete, very discrete and you went about it without informing me,” Benson turned to Luke. “You knew about this?” He asked and Luke nodded in negation. “Well?”

“I know I said we must keep this on the low and it is, it still is, this will help you help us keep it as low as possible. It might seem or even have been reckless but I assure you it is for the better. Having a nanny that I know is trustworthy will come in handy for controlling the situation until we can make complete sense of it. She would take care of the baby and you can deal with your daily endeavors as normal without risking being seen with a baby on your way to work again so as not to start a media apocalypse that will intrude the current negotiations to a failure, and we can’t have that,” Sarah heaved, her chest rose and fell with heavy breaths. “So… I am sorry for treating this as an emergency and not telling you first but we can’t say this is not the best solution we’ve got on our hands now.”

Benson took another look at Alita, exhaled, and then turned to Luke. “Ask one of the drivers to take her home. I will think about it,” he tightened his jaw shooting Sarah a dry look, “and get back to you,” he completed and headed straight for his office.

Alita kneaded her temple as Luke lead her to the driveway. She and Sarah shared a worried look before following Luke to her ride home.