in her seat, crossing her legs again before flipping her gorgeous red hair over her shoulder and smiling a full, jaw-dropping smile.
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
12
~ Malcolm ~
“Good morning, Dr. Colson,” my secretary, Keisha, greets me as I push through the doors of our office in downtown Dover.
Keisha has her hair straightened today, and it runs down to her shoulders just before stopping at her lower back. Keisha’s makeup is flawless as usual, with lipstick that’s a light, subtle red so it doesn't contrast with her beautiful dark brown skin, and her eye shadow is black to match her dress. Keisha is the essence of a strong Black woman.
“Good morning, Keisha,” I reply, walking past her like I usually do. When I touch the door to my office, Keisha speaks again.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how are things going with Dr. Monroe? I remember you told me you were about to start seeing her.”
I take my hand off the handle to my office. “It’s going great, actually. Yeah, Dr. Monroe really knows her stuff. It’s funny because we both do the same thing, but she seems to have worked out some plan to implement for me. Something I couldn't think of myself.”
“Well, of course you couldn't think of it,” Keisha says behind a giggle. “It’s different when you're the patient. People naturally have blindspots, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. She and I discussed that,” I admit, but I make sure not divulge too much about my therapy. “She is really good at getting me to think from different angles. I’m excited to keep it going with her. We’ll see it how it goes.”
“Cool, well good luck,” Keisha says.
“Thanks.”
I place my hand back on the door handle and push it open, but before I can step over the threshold, I hear Keisha let out an annoyed sigh. When I turn around, I find my secretary staring at her computer with a disgusted look on her face. Her brow is furrowed and she's biting her lip, deep in thought about whatever is on her screen.
“You good?” I ask.
Keisha looks up at me with confusion still plastered on her face. “I don't know. My computer is acting up again this morning.”
“Again?” I ask, stepping back into the waiting area.
“Yeah, it started doing this glitchy shit yesterday,” Keisha explains as I walk around her desk and stand behind her, staring at the frozen computer screen. I can see Keisha was trying to open up our schedule for the day on the Shared Drive, but it’s frozen and the screen has faded white and stopped responding.
“Looks bogged down,” I try to explain, although I’m not the guy you want fixing computers. My list of fixes dries up after restarting it doesn't work.
“I’ve had computers get bogged down before and say it’s not responding at the top of the screen, but this is different. Yesterday, it stayed bogged down like this for an hour. I couldn't do anything. Luckily it was right after lunch and we didn't have a patient until the late afternoon, but if it’s going to keep doing this, it’s going to be a problem.”
“Did you open up any suspicious emails or anything like that?” I ask.
“Nah, I’m not that dumb, Dr. Colson,” Keisha quips. “I didn't do anything outside the norm. I left for lunch about five minutes after you did, and when I got back, my computer wasn't working right from the moment I logged back in.”
“Hmm, that’s weird. Did you lock up when you left for lunch?”
“No, because I was just planning on grabbing my food and coming right back. It took me less than ten minutes to go pickup Arby’s and come back to eat.”
Keisha presses a key on the keyboard, and as soon as she does, the screen goes completely black. The CPU is still on, as indicated by the loud hum of the fan, but the screen is dead.
“Oh shit,” I exclaim. “Well, it looks like it may have just shit the bed.”
“Fuck. This is bad. I need this computer, obviously. What am I supposed to do now?”
“Don't worry about it,” I tell Keisha. “We’ll go get you another one as soon as we have a break in patients. For now, just write down everything you can so you can transcribe into the new computer once we get it. Everything important is on the Shared Drive anyway. It’s all good, we’ll get you hooked up with a brand new one as soon as we