Alice could hear that familiar clock ticking again and it was getting louder.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
Every hour, every minute, every second, she could hear it. When she was in the shower, when she was biking to work, when she was trying to eat the dinner she made (meaning heating up some crappy microwave dinner) and it was especially loud when she was staring at the ceiling in her bed, trying to sleep. She didn't know there were spots, one hundred sixty-eight of them, that were of the medium size variety.
It was the beating not of the hideous heart, hidden beneath the floorboards that betrayed her crimes, but of the clock nestled deep inside her body, that hideous biological clock that betrayed her womanly instincts and needs.
Apparently, her body and mind had had a meeting without her one night and together, they had diabolically (if not mutinously) deemed that it was time to start procreating, leaving her with an aching inexplicable need to have a baby. Of course, at the fresh dewy age of twenty-nine and having no husband with that traditional white picket fence in the background waiting back home, or even a wedding ring from a non-existent boyfriend in sight, the chances of her having said baby were close to nil.
Who was she kidding?
She didn't even stand the slight chance.
She sighed and dragged a hand through her blonde hair, glaring with blurry eyes at her computer monitor, as if that was that was the reason she didn't have any pictures posted up around her workspace or in her wallet, ready and waiting to be bragged with. But then again, it just might be why.
For the past five years, she had been steadily climbing up the cooperate ladder at the insurance agency she worked at, ignoring the ticking of her biological clock in favor of the clicking against a keyboard and the musical beeps of the copy machine. To her back then, that had been music to her ears, knowing that work was getting done and she was just one tinier step closer to reaching the top, gaining more control of the business and in the end, securing her future.
Of course, she hadn't counted on her biological clock finding the volume and cranking it up. What had caused this sudden urge?
"Alice?"
She jerked up and nearly fell from her chair out of shock, straightening after a small gasp and looked up at her friend Heather.
"O-Oh, hey! What's up?" she laughed apprehensively, seeking to dispel her previous and unpleasant thoughts.
Heather tilted her head to the side with a curious look, her curly red hair falling in a cascade as she crossed her arms over her chest with a slow knowing look.
"Are you okay? I e-mailed you three times now and you haven't replied to one. I really need that report on the Sullivan case, or I'm stuck here."
"Oh yeah, I'm sorry. I haven't had any time to check," she moved her chair away from the cubicle opening and slammed her palms against the keyboard out of habit before typing away for several moments and pausing. With a sudden victorious smile, she hit "print" and slid her chair with a push of her heels and hands to the printer and handed it to Heather.
She took the pages limply, staring at Alice with a peculiar look for several minutes.
"Are you okay?" she repeated, this time sounding more worried than perturbed.
Alice frowned. "Yes. Why?"
Heather sighed and sat the edge of one of the attached desks in the cubicle, crossing her legs over each other to match her arms, the habit of vanity too hard to erase in the presence of a friend as her gray silk skirt hiked up a couple inches on her nylon-encased thighs.
Alice had met Heather on her second day of work in a similar situation. Unable to keep up yet with the speed of the workplace, mostly because she had been busy fixing the god-awful grammar she had found in a report by some dumbass, a busty redhead had burst in like a bull in a Chinashop and had demanded hotly that she quit wasting her time and hand over the report already. Alice had cooly replied that whoever had written it needed to go back to third grade spelling and she would get the report when she got it and not before.
They became instant friends.
However odd their pairing, their friendship extended outside the workplace into the, lately rare, nightlife. Heather, with all her fiery passion and looks, had scored a husband three years ago however after dating him for four years and had since then, been trying to set up her single friend. Most of her attempts went abysmally, but she was trying, which in her book, was all that mattered.
"You only hold up the line on reports when you're either tired, frustrated or you have something on your mind. Since we haven't had a girl's night out in ages," she cast her an accusing glare for a moment. "It can't be sleep and you have your own little friend in the nightstand to take care of the second. So what's wrong?"
Alice smiled helplessly. How she envied her sometimes besides her bluntness. Three years of wedded bliss and she was still in love and glowing almost every morning. And as if that didn't put salt into the proverbial wound, then her fabulous good looks, excellent fashion sense or gorgeous husband would.
Take your pick.
So, perhaps the reason she had been skipping out lately on those nightly outings in favor of pajamas, a tub of Ben and Jerry's and a sappy love comedy, was because she truthfully felt insignificant standing next to Heather.
Her own coloring was, in a word, drab.
Pale blonde hair as opposed to golden, gray eyes to blue, pale skin when tan was better - yep.
She honestly felt like a ghost sometimes in this Technicolor society.
The only thing even close to acceptable was her lean form that she was secretly most proud of, even if her bust size was a little less than she might want. Such was the price of working out every day though.
She looked up at Heather and heaved a sigh.
"I want a baby," she blurted out.
There was a pregnant pause in the air until she tilted her head to the side, regarding her with a quizzical, even a "well, duh" look.
"Seriously now? Does this have anything to do with your youngest brother having those twins?" she nodded her head to the few pictures at her work space, including a recent picture of a redheaded man and a sweaty, but content brunette holding a bundle of joy in each arm. The twins, Sarah and Rachel, would make kids #3 and #4 and yet, her younger brother Adam and his wife Georgia agreed they wanted at least two more kids. Talk about a disregard for world overpopulation.
Alice smiled at the picture, remembering her last visit to the house when she brought the customary pan of lasagna to relive them of some household duties, like making dinner that night. The house had been full of kids running around, toys skewed and abandoned in pursuit of a new game and the carpets obviously had seen better days, like before apple juice, grape juice, crayons, Play Doh, markers and the kids themselves were brought in.
Why did she get that aching need then whenever she visited her other siblings' houses, with similar disarray?
"It has been pretty obvious lately," Heather brought her back to earth. "Why else do you think I've been setting you up with men huh? Shits and giggles?"
Alice rolled her eyes and moved in her chair to return to her computer, since this wasn't going anywhere seriously.
"Aw, wait, wait. I got it. Fine," Heather chuckled and settled herself down more comfortably before checking her watch. "So your biological clock is ticking too, huh? Feel like someone turned it up to eleven volume yet?"
"For the past six months, yeah," Alice groaned, burying her hands into her hair again as she shrank her head down to the desktop. She gave a dramatic head bang three times before regarding Heather with a frown. It was hard to do with the side of her head on the table, but she managed.
"Wait - you're older than me. Why aren't you complaining?"
"Simple. I froze those little suckers a year after I got married. But anyway - how you're acting is perfectly normal. The big three-oh approaching and you're getting anxious. The expiration date on those room temperature eggs are running out and you're looking for a studly sperm donor that will heat you up and give you that healthy baby that could win contests in cuteness while you plan for his or her college tuition, right?" She cast her a sly grin.
Alice nodded, frankly astonished. Was she that transparent?
She laughed at her look. "How many siblings?"
"Three. All younger."
"There you go! That actually does explain a lot - you had to play the mom and now you want to play it again, only this time, with your own little spawn. Plus, you're afraid you're going to turn into the weird spinster aunt everyone is creeped by who has a million cats," she grinned. "Tick tock, tick tock."
"Har har." Alice grumbled moodily, crouching over her keyboards.
