Lucas 07 – Coffee break

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There was a reception committee waiting for him, Dave was there chatting with Dominique and Lorraine.

“Lucas!!!!” they all said at once, beaming grins on their faces.

“Tell all,” said Lorraine flicking her swath of thick, blonde hair from one side of shoulders to the other. Lucas wasn’t a big fan of Lorraine. Dominique wasn’t so bad but sufffered from being Lorraine’s constant sidekick.

Lucas didn’t bother to reply, instead he gave them a furtive glance and poured himself a big mug of French Vanilla, a drink he had at first found pretty disgusting, and if he was honest, his opinion of it hadn’t improved much over the three years he had worked here. However, he wasn’t touching the decaf. and the supposed 100% Colombian was as weak as dishwater. No milk and no sugar, he just let the black liquid slosh around his mouth as he leaned back against the table top wondering what on earth was going to happen next in his life.

“Lucas!” said Dave. He was almost hopping with excitement. “Come on! That was quite a show yesterday.”

Lucas nodded.

“Well, are you going to tell or,” Lorraine paused, “not?”

Lucas told them there was nothing to tell, he lied and said that he couldn’t remember a thing about what had happened after leaving the office. He said it was just a dream. Well a dream of sorts. Dave told him he was crazy, everyone saw the five of them come and take him away, he wasn’t going to get away with it that easy.

“Listen I wish I could tell you more. I don’t know what happened myself. I don’t know who they were. I don’t know why they came. I don’t know where they took me. And I don’t remember anything up until I woke up this morning alone in my apartment.”

Lorraine and Dominique just gave him a look, the look of I don’t believe you. Dave poured himself a second cup of 100% Colombian, plopped in two sugars, gave it a stir and seemed to be contemplating his next move. He took a couple of sips and everyone let the silence hang there for a disturbingly long time. Lucas turned to leave.

“O.K. Lucas. I see where you are coming from,” said Dave, “You want to keep it to yourself. I understand that. That’s normal.” He raised the palms of his hands in a non confrontational way and then added, “but you have to realise, people are talking. Your private life is big news round these partitions now, people are going to find out one way or another. I’m just saying that’s all.”

Lorraine and Dominique were nodding, and smiling very scary smiles.

With that, Lucas said, “thanks Dave. Thanks all of you. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I remember anything. You will be the first to know, alright?” He left for the relative sanctity of his office space.

He tried to keep his head down all morning, sorting out the deal he had conducted on the phone with the man from Perugia yesterday was going to be enough to keep him busy. Thank God it had all been verbal, as soon as the Italians get back from lunch he was going to call and renegotiate it. As he fiddled and fuddled with his accounts he often heard less than whispering voices rise and fall as they passed his partition.

“Just who were they? How old do you think they were? What kind of ac-tiv-i-ty is he involved in? Will they show again? Frank was hopping mad you know. Is he doing something illegal?”

His face was burning, he was asking himself these questions as well. Just what was he mixed up in, and why the hell did he know as little about it as everyone else?” Clearly, right at the very top of his priority list would be to find these girls again, or at least to find out what happened. Had they really taken him away from this dingy office, had he really been serenaded in their convertible and had they then taken him for a near romantic stroll in the long grass? Had they not stroked and caressed his face? Perhaps, he thought, something did happen yesterday, but not all of it, they took him away, got him drunk, or maybe spiked something he drank, and he had somehow staggered home and dreamt the rest of it? But there was so little he remembered that seemed plausible. It was all to confusing to make head nor tail of.

As the morning wore on, things calmed down a little and he was beginning to feel it was on some level possible that it had been nothing more than a bad or fantastically brilliant dream after all. And as he made his way out to the sandwich bar down the road. He was almost able to believe they had never existed, though he wasn’t sure that was what he really wanted to believe.

He was keeping himself to himself in a mostly subconscious way and not taking notice of anything for fear of catching the eye of anyone, particularly anyone from the office. He turned the corner to where the sandwich bar was located when…

“Looooo-ca!”

He nearly walked straight into the five of them who were lined up and blocking the whole pavement. There they were in the same order, the sky-blue Tyche, the pink Hebe, the golden brown Eleos, the red Kakia and the violet Epione.

He almost passed out there and then.

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