Year of the Chick by Romi Moondi Read Free Book Online

to the hospital now, clinging to life from complications of being over-protective.
    I drove straight home only to discover that he’d taken my mother grocery shopping.
    Just like that, huh? I could be dead for all he knows!
    Over the next five days, I received one e-mail a day on the benefits of Total Thunder. They weren’t even written by Steve, just a bunch of mass e-mails from “Total Thunder Inc.”
    On the sixth day I marked the e-mail as “junk,” which was the perfect assessment for my very first attempt at dating in the year of the chick...

Chapter Five

    Will I meet a special guy by Valentine’s Day?
    The view outside my window was a haze of white.
    Just your typical Canadian blizzard. Maybe my man was somewhere out there, in his car late for work and annoyed by the weather.
    With a storm this bad, I sure as hell wouldn’t be meeting him today. Nor would I be headed to the gym.
    So what was the back-up plan? Gooey apple pie in my fuzzy pajamas?
    As I tried to decide if a quarter of a pie would be enough to fill my needs, an e-mail landed in my inbox.
    It was from Jayla, a friend from my previous job.

    ----------------------------------
    Hey Everyone!

    Sorry about the mass e-mail, but I wanted to announce it at once:

    -ADRIAN AND I GOT ENGAGED!!!

    The wedding’s right here in Sydney on November 22nd, but we’re coming back for a visit in September. That’s when we’ll be having our “Toronto Engagement Party” so you better show up!

    By the way, thanks for all your love and support throughout the re-location, I miss you guys!
    And also: AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ENGAGED!

    Love,

    Jayla
    xx
    ----------------------------------

    Before I had a chance to absorb all the exclamation marks, my phone started ringing. I glanced at the call display and it all made sense.
    So Laura’s read the e-mail too.
    “Good morning darling,” I said. “Is this an urgent matter? I’m quite busy here.”
    “Shut up,” said Laura. “I know you read it too.”
    I’d met Laura along with Jayla at my first corporate job. Laura was my “best friend stand-in,” as my childhood one was finishing with med school in Boston. Laura didn’t mind the term, and I played the same role for her, with her own best friend a two-hour drive away.
    “I just read it now.” I minimized the e-mail off my screen, not because I was scared to read personal e-mails at work, but because I could feel it mocking me. “Are you happy for her?” I asked. “Or are you ready to puke from all the jealousy?”
    “Come on, you know I love Jayla. But also…” She let out a heavy sigh. “I guess I’m twenty-percent jealous. I just can’t believe that she randomly met him on vacation!”
    “THAT’S what you can’t believe? I can’t believe she stole my dream of marrying for love without your Indian parents killing you. Like he’s an Aussie white dude! I also can’t believe she scored an office transfer to Sydney. How come one person gets all the luck?”
    “Yeah, too bad you work at a Canadian company. There’s no office transfer for you which means NO MORE foreigner boyfriends with expiring visas!” She laughed.
    I did not.
    “Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I didn’t quit,” I said. “Maybe they would’ve shipped me off to…Paris. You can’t not fall in love while you’re in Paris.” I sighed and started pulling balls of lint off my brown wool sweater, wondering all the time if decisions had any meaning at all. Am I really meant to be here? In this job? In this chair?   With not even a glimpse of a boyfriend?
    “Hey, are you listening?” Laura had apparently been talking all this while.
    I stopped with the lint balls and tried to focus in. “Sorry, someone was at my desk,” I lied.
    “No worries! I was just saying you should be glad we left that corporate pit. I mean yeah, Jayla stayed and got the chance to move to Sydney, but remember how we had to wear suits every day? Ugh!”
    I rolled my eyes at