Single white female

20

ALLIE slept deeply until the next morning. The clock radio blared and yanked her awake at eight o'clock. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones blasting about spending just another night with somebody. Somehow the volume of the radio had been turned up. The Stones might as well have been wailing and gyrating right alongside the bed, Mick jackknifed at the waist to lean insolently over Allie and scream in her ear.

Allie suddenly remembered one of the few responses to the resumes she'd sent out. She had an appointment for a job interview this morning. Not a very promising appointment, but nonetheless a straw to grasp.

She scooted over, reached out, and slapped the plastic button on the side of the clock radio. In the buzzing silence that followed, she lay motionless and let herself gradually wake up.

Her mind reached complete wakefulness before her body. Did she really want to get dressed and be interviewed for a job she most likely wouldn't get? Of course she did, she tried to convince herself. After all, wasn't that the reason she'd sent out resumes? Her legs were ignoring this internal debate; they felt too heavy and comfortable to move. The rectangle of sunlight lying over them seemed to have the warmth and solidity of a lead-lined blanket. Another fifteen minutes of rest won't matter, urged a deep, persistent part of her brain. Her mind drifted, went blank.

An explosion of sound caused her body to levitate off the mattress.

But almost immediately her pounding heartbeat slowed. She'd pressed the snooze button by mistake and the Stones were back in the bedroom. That got her up in a hurry and she switched off the clock radio. She was a Stones fan, but she wanted no truck with them at eight