Free Girlfriends (Patrick Sanchez) by Patrick Sanchez

stayed up into the wee hours of the morning watching a tape of The Sound of Music her grandmother gave her for Christmas years ago. Now it was Monday morning, and she couldn’t get the song “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” out of her head.
    The day was getting off to a lousy start. Gina was down on her hands and knees in a skirt and heels trying to woo Gomez out from under the bed. She had forgotten to close the bedroom door before she took him out for his morning walk—big mistake. As soon as they got back inside, and she let him off the leash, he shot across the living room, into the bedroom, and under the bed. Once he was under the bed, he knew he was safe.
    Gomez had a slight issue with doing his business on the floor when Gina wasn’t home, so she had to keep him confined to the kitchen while she was at work. Gomez hated being restricted to the kitchen, and he knew hiding under the bed was his best bet for avoiding it.
    “Gomez . . . here, boy. Look, I have your leash. Let’s go for a walk,” Gina called to the dog, waving his leash underneath the bed. He just looked at her like, Yeah, right. I’m really going to fall for that. Every time she’d try to reach him from one side, he’d run to the other. Gina would then hurry around to the other side just in time for Gomez to scurry back to the first side.
    “Gomez, please!” Gina yelled, and grabbed the footboard of the bed. She pulled the entire bed a few feet away from the wall, exposing the little dog. He looked up at her and immediately scampered back underneath the bed to start the whole ritual again. Gina looked at her watch. She had to meet Dennis before work to get her hair done. Now that it was summer, Dennis spent most of his weekends at the beach in Rehoboth, Delaware. He didn’t have any openings before he left for the weekend, but since they were friends, he agreed to meet Gina at seven A.M. to give her a quick touchup before the salon opened.
    “Oh, forget it,” she sighed while grabbing her purse and heading for the door.
    Once Gina was gone and Gomez heard the front door shut behind her, he poked his head out from under the bed—ah, victory.
     
     
    Gina pulled into the bank parking lot about nine-fifteen. She was one of those lucky people who actually drove against traffic to get to work from her apartment in the District to her job in the neighboring suburb of Arlington, Virginia. One would think with this advantage she would usually be on time for work. She waited a minute or two before turning the ignition off and going into the bank. She wanted to catch the last bit of the story they were discussing on the radio. She was listening to some morning radio show, and the deejays were laughing it up. Some woman in nothing but bikini bottoms was washing the windshields of cars stuck in rush-hour traffic. They said the topless woman was causing traffic tie-ups from K Street to Constitution Avenue, and the cops had just arrested her. Gina laughed a little to herself. Some people will do anything for a buck, she thought as she cut off the engine, stepped out of the car, and headed toward the bank.
    “Morning, Gina. You set such a great example for your staff, being so punctual and all,” Linda said, noting Gina’s tardiness with a friendly hint of sarcasm in her voice.
    “Do you ever feel like you should have just stayed in bed?” Gina asked.
    “Of course. Is today one of those days for you?” Linda responded before adding, “What happened to your hair?”
    “Is there any coffee?” Gina asked, ignoring both of Linda’s questions.
    “No, I’ve only been here a few minutes myself.”
    “Why is Kelly working the drive-thru window?”
    “Bob is late again, so I told her to go ahead and run the window until he gets here.”
    Gina sighed and went into the back to start the coffeemaker. She needed her morning cup of caffeine, especially since it was a Monday. Every Monday, Liz, the branch manager, didn’t come in until noon, so Gina was in