Lila sat at her desk, staring into space and fiddling with her shoulder length, brown hair, not brunette, brown hair. She hated her life and these moments of silence were the highlights of her day. She was pathetic. Lila was stuck in a terrible relationship with an obnoxious man that was constantly throwing movie lines at her, she was stuck in a job that she didn’t quite understand, and she was steadily gaining weight. She tapped her desk as her mind drifted to her regular fantasy. She’s on a beach doing surf lessons and a beautiful, blond surfer walks up and grabs her by the waist and…

“Lillian, darling, you seem to have let your mind wander!” Lila’s boss, Myrna, wandered over to her desk and began rapping on it hard with her knuckles to bring Lila out of her day dream and back to her dull and dismal reality. “Now, let’s talk business.”

Lila got nervous. She had no idea what “business” actually was. She just knew that if she pressed enough buttons on her computer, Myrna would either be pleased with the results or tell her to never press that button again. “All right…what’s up?”

Myrna smiled her sugary sweet smile that made a diabetic go into an instant coma. “Well dear, tonight I need you and Lanny to come to dinner with me. I haven’t seen you both in such a long time, and I miss my-little-smuggle-bumpkins!”

Lila tried her hardest to keep from cringing. Lanny was her boyfriend and Myrna’s only son. “Yes, of course. What time?”

“Meet me at Baraonda at seven. I will see you then, and get back to work. I don’t pay you to sit around and day dream about my son!” Myrna kissed Lila on the cheek and then bounced off.

Lila sat in silence for a while and hated her life just a little bit more. She picked up her phone. She quickly dialed Hinel, her best friend’s, number. The phone dialed twice before Hinel answered the phone quite out of breath.

“Hello?”

“Hinel? Are you all right?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I was just…um…jogging. What’s going on?” Hinel was lying. She was quite possibly the worst liar Lila had ever met, which was why she was a doctor. She didn’t have to lie.

“I need to go to lunch with sane people. I’m going to be spending the rest of my night with Lanny and Myrna and I might kill myself if Myrna talks me into lunch with her or I have to eat it by myself. Please tell me you’re free.” Of course Lila wasn’t serious, but she really wanted to have lunch with Hinel. She always missed being around real human beings, especially after a long week of dinner with Myrna and Lanny.

“Uh…yeah, of course. Tell me where.”

“Great! What do you think about Planet Bombay?”

ooooooooooooooooooo

“I CAN’T TAKE this anymore. I’m going to kill him. Do you think if I have a judge that’s a little like me, I’ll be found guilty?” Lila said as she took a big bite of her eggplant bhajee with lentils.

“Then leave him. It’s not like you’re married with kids.” Hinel shoveled veggies into her mouth and stared at the TV screen playing Bollywood music videos.

“Then I lose my job.”

“You hate your job. It would be Bapa’s blessing, even if you are Christian,” Hinel pushed her raven black hair out of her eyes and finally turned her attention back to Lila. “So why don’t you?”

“There’s also the apartment…I just can’t break up with him. I’m a total chicken. I deserve to be with Lanny. I just, I don’t know, always wished for—“

“You always wished for the blond, muscle bound, beauty at the beach that rips your bikini off the first time he meets you and has with way with you on a surf board as you start to drift out into the ocean,” Hinel finished for her in a very low voice, almost embarrassing herself with her own words.

Lila laughed at her friend. “Well…basically. Silly thought, isn’t it?”

“Very silly. Why don’t you just leave Georgia? Even the parts near the beach don’t have any waves and you’re crazy about surfing. I’m sure you could just dump Lanny, quit your job, and move to Hawaii by tomorrow night.”Hinel laughed as she said this. “Honestly though, Lanny isn’t that bad.”

“You’re right…you’re right. He’s a great guy…and he loves me. I just don’t love him. I fantasize about cheating on him.”

“All women fantasize about other men when they’re in relationships, especially relationships that are going through a rough time.”

“No, I mean cheating on him. I dream about having sex with a guy and Lanny walks in and catches. He bursts into tears and tells me he never wants to see me again, then he runs out of the room and we finish.”

“That’s messed up,” Hinel laughed at her friend.

“I know…maybe I could just run away,” Lila started to stare into the distance. “The last time we had sex he pulled me close to him and said ‘Here’s looking at you, kid.’ You know the line from Casablanca? Well it freaked me out! It sounded like he was some child molester.”

Hinel laughed. “He was just trying to be romantic! Anyways, if you don’t love him, why are you sleeping with him?”

“I don’t know anymore…sometimes he’s not so bad. I forget how annoying he can be and I like him again. Then he opens is mouth and bam he’s turned into the guy I just hate.”

Hinel was quiet for a minute, something that didn’t happen often. Finally, she opened her mouth. “How many shoes do you think you have?”

Lila laughed. Shoes were her passion. Anyone who met her knew that. “I don’t know, I’d say about 40 or 50, why?”

“About how much did you pay for each?”

Lila frowned as she started to understand what her friend was saying. “About 800 a piece.”

Hinel looked at her for a second before she started again. “How did you afford those?”

“Lanny pays rent and bills, so basically all of my salary is just spending money.”

“You’re such a bitch.”

“I know…I hate myself for hating him, but he’s just too damn….”

“Nice! He’s too damn nice to you. You don’t deserve him.”

“I know,” Lila was quite for a moment, deep in thought. When she finally spoke she had a look of adventure in her eyes. “How fast do you think I could sell all of my shoes?”