Chapter 9 The Famous Man
My head was spinning all over as I got ready. I put on a white shirt and black pants. I chucked my nametag and lab coat inside my purse, put on my sneakers, then walked out of the door.
Since I wasted ten out of the thirty minutes in a depressing attempt to sober up, I only had ten other minutes to shower and get dressed. The last ten minutes I spent walking towards the research institution. I combed my hair along the way.
Oh, I forgot breakfast but I managed to stop by a nearby coffee shop and ordered a warm latte. Don’t judge me, but I always prefer coffee with milk. Usually, I would order iced latte but since I was sobering myself up, I ordered the hot latte with one teaspoon of sugar just because.
Then I had only three minutes left to arrive at the institute, which was perfect.
Or not.
Because just as I was about to walk to my destination from the coffee shop, a red Lamborghini parked in front of me. Like literally in front of me. It took two parking slots.
What an asshole.
I clicked my tongue in disapproval and was about to walk away when the owner of the car came out. And I almost shat myself.
I’m kidding.
But my jaw did drop. Because the owner of the car was the man in the brown shirt from my hallucination.
I blinked. Obviously, my eyes should have been wrong, right?
The man looked familiar, somehow, yet I could not wrap my fingers on where I have seen him. He had the same grey eyes and brown hair as in my hallucination. What I did not notice during my psychosis was that his skin was so tanned. He had thick lips and his face was cleanly shaved.
He was wearing a grey shirt and dark green pants. A Rolex watch was on his right wrist and a shade –which I don’t know the brand of but immediately assume as expensive, was tucked in the middle of his shirt.
“Hello, miss!” he greeted.
I had to turn my head around, confirming I was the only one standing there. Still, I pointed to myself and asked him with my gaze, ‘Me? You’re talking to me?’
“Yeah! Who else is the beautiful girl in front of me?” His voice reminded me of a teenage boy.
I looked at him, asking with my gaze if he was mental. But he kept on smiling at me.
“Uhm… Do I know you?” I stepped back a bit, unsure of his intention.
Unexpectedly, his eyes widened at my question. “Y– you… don’t recognize me?” He asked as if everyone in the world should have known him at first glance.
Um yeah, I know you from my hallucination, but it’s not like I’m going to say that out loud!
“No…” I said. “Should I? Listen, whoever you are, I’m in a hurry. I think you got the wrong girl here. So, Adios!” I started to bolt away from him. Looking at my non-Rolex watch, I only had two minutes left before the thirty-minutes time frame I told Marc.
I always hated being late. Even if it was the time I put for myself.
Unfortunately, the man seemed to not care about my being hurry. He grabbed my arm and turned me around.
“Whoa whoa. Where are you going? I’m talking to you.” He pouted. I swore, he pouted his lips.
What a self-centered baby.
“Excuse me? I have work to do.” I shrugged off his hold from my arm. As I wanted to walk again, he circled me and blocked my way.
“Yes, I notice you’re in a hurry,” he said. “But it’s me!”
“It’s you?” I gave him my unbothered gaze.
“Yeah, it’s me, Renald Davis!”
“Renald who?”
Suddenly a girl who just came out of the coffee shop pointed at the man –Renald, and screamed, “OMG OMG! That’s Renald Davis!” And in a blink of an eye, more girls got out of the coffee shop carrying their phones.
Renald waved at them and gave them a huge smile. God, his teeth were so white, it was blinding!
He greeted the girls –and middle-aged women which returned the greeting with high-pitched shrieks. With my mind still hungover from previous drinking and hallucination, the girls’ screams and shrills made me so dizzy. They pushed me from all sides, trying to get to Renald.
It took all of my concentration to keep the coffee in my hand to not spill. I needed all of the brown liquid inside to keep me awake that day. No way I would let some teenage girls and even middle-aged women ruin my morning.
I thanked Beelzebub for letting me have my coffee intact as I got out from that crazy circle of women. Renald seemed unfazed by dozens of women flocking to him, asking for his autographs and for selfies together. He looked like he genuinely enjoyed the attention.
So, that’s why he was shocked when I did not know him, I thought. Well, sorry Boy, I did not have enough time to be watching TV or news or… wherever you’re famous in.
As his attention was on his fans, I tried to walk around the crowd. I looked at my watch again and had to sigh because I knew I would be late.
But as I was walking, someone grabbed me by the arm again. I turned to see Renald clinging to me. “Hey, where are you going, Miss?” The attention of all women was on me then. They gasped and murmured asking if I was his lover.
I tried to shrug off his hold but his grip only tightened. “Let go¬–“
“Miss, you seem to be anxious to get to your work.”
“I am. So let go!” I tried to shrug him off again with more force. But he was still too strong for me.
“So I will be straight to the point.”
I looked at him dead in the eye. “Okay. What is it do you want?”
“Be my girlfriend.”
The women gasped at his words. Some girls even cried. One almost fainted.
In another circumstance, I would have gone to the almost fainting girl and would try to make sure she was okay. Or if she needed emergency CPR, Heimlich Maneuver, or other maneuvers I could think of. But that time I could only blink.
“What the fuck?”
I searched for the hint of joking from his eyes. Then my eyes traveled around the scene, from the women who had their phone cameras on, to the coffee shop and to his car. “Are you pranking me?” I did not even bother to hide my annoyance. I was late, a sick kid needed me for a procedure, I was still hungover, and this brat was pranking me. I was about to flip.
“Be my girlfriend,” he said again with a serious tone. More phone cameras were recording us.
I was about to say, ‘Do you want me to test your neuropsychiatric function?’ Because there is a condition called erotomania, where the patient believes that everyone is in love with him. Or perhaps, he has a narcissistic personality disorder. Or, it might be that he has hit himself in the head and the lesion created delusions for him.
But before I could do that, he just had to say these two lines.
“I can give you a lot of money,” he said, “The car I was driving, it’s yours if you are my girlfriend. I’ll spoil you good, Miss!” And he dared to smile sweetly to me while saying those words.
I lost it.
The next thing I knew was my hand throwing my cup of coffee on his face. The dark brown liquid smeared his gelled hair, smooth face, and drenched his shirt. I did hope that the coffee would stain his expensive shade and ruined his Rolex watch too.
When he was still in shock of my action, I managed to shrug his hold and I started bolting like crazy from the scene. I knew the other women were filming so I tried to cover my face with my purse. Though of course, they already got my face on film.
Luckily, they did not chase me and instead crowded Renald again. They consoled him. Can you believe that? They consoled the jerk for trying to buy me and being rejected! Some of them even offered themselves as his girlfriend.
“I’ll be your girlfriend,” said a dark-haired chick with fake boobs and too much make up.
I was so angry that I pumped my feet to move faster without looking back at Renald.
I knocked on the researcher’s lounge at 9.37, seven minutes late than I planned to be. I used one minute to control my breathing as soon as I got to the hospital. As I pulled my lab coat and wore it, I greeted Marc.
“Hey, Marc.”
Marc let out a relieved exhale as he saw me. “Thank god you’re here!” He embraced me and kissed me on the cheek. I did the same.
Guess he’s really happy to see me… Does that mean Mateo has been troubling him?
“Mateo is in room 313 in the children section. Can you visit him and talk to him?”
“Sure. But what’s the problem. Is he having second thoughts with the procedure?”
Marc shrugged his shoulders. “I think he’s just scared. So go talk to him first.’
“Alright.”
Trying to forget my encounter with the jerk, I stepped confidently to the children’s section and directed myself to Room 313.
My only hope was that the jerk was not more famous than I thought he was. Maybe just some random Instagram model or local celebrity.
But of course. When life gives you lemons, it always gives me shit.
He was more famous than the whole Kardashian family combined. And I was royally fucked starting from that day.
