Coated love

It’s been a beautiful Monday morning, after waking up from a deep sleep, due to the stress Harmony had during the weekend, she had enjoyed her peaceful sleep. She looked out through her window to see that the day had brightened already as at 6:00am. She hurriedly did her morning routines, and prepared herself to go to the supermarket, where she works as a sales girl. The supermarket is easily accessible from where she lives, and she is supposed to reach there before 8:30 in order to get changed into her work uniform and be prepared to be opened at 9:00am for the public. It’s located at the busy area of the neighbourhood at the center of the city. In fact, it’s somewhat referred to as the center of attraction, because of its elegant building, its design, the things they sell and their quality of service. She mostly walks to her place of work, which is forty-five minutes more or less, depending on her speed. She also uses it as an opportunity to do some morning exercises while heading to work. Sometimes she takes a taxi if she is running late. It was such a busy day that she nearly forgot her break time and she was so hungry that she couldn't wait to get herself something to eat. She did her best as possible to see that each customer was well attended to. She went to the restaurant nearby and had pasta with beef for lunch, one of her favourite meal, with a bottle of soft drink. When she was through with eating, she felt relieved. She summoned the waiter and paid the bills before going back to the supermarket. When it was close to evening time, by then there wasn’t much people coming in, her colleague Celia walked up to her at the counter and said with a little smile filled with guilt: “Harmony, I am so sorry I didn’t ask of your weekend, I was quite busy with arranging the home appliances in their shelves and also directing the customers to the aisle at which their desired item is located. I didn't see you at lunch time when I planned to ask you out so that we could chat on our way to get ourselves something for lunch, but I later went out with Pamela to buy some snacks."  Harmony felt sorry for not calling her at break time, but they do go out together by chance which made her gain her confidence back immediately. Celia loves to be accompanied to almost wherever she goes, unlike Harmony, being accompanied or not doesn't seem to matter, and besides she doesn't get along well with Pamela. She doesn't know why, but she is so arrogant and uses the slightest opportunity to piss her off.  "Well, I had to go to the restaurant to eat something, I was starving." Was Harmony's reply.  "It's alright. I went out with Julia, my cousin," Celia continued "on Saturday afternoon to visit her brother, Sam, who just returned from his business trip on Thursday evening. It was quite fun to be at his place. He welcomed us with chilled drinks, snacks and gifts he got for us. We all chatted about a lot of stories and the turn of events that had occurred in our families and other topics of interest till the evening hours when he suggested that we all go out for a ride around the town in his car and later we went to the cinema located at one of the famous areas of the city to watch a movie, the movie was quite interesting. He took us back home once we were through watching the movie. That's all." She said.  "So, how was your weekend, I hope it was nice?” She asked. Harmony looked up at her and responded: ”Well, my weekend was fine. Since you have told me about your weekend, I have a feeling that it's fine already. And you shouldn't feel sorry for not asking me earlier, we were all quite busy with one task or the other.”  With a grin she responded: “Yeah, It was fine, you are right. It's just that it wasn’t how I planned it to be.” Celia is just Harmany's colleague at the supermarket and a very good friend to her. They get along well with each other and she feels more comfortable to ask Celia questions when necessary. The first day she started working in this supermarket Celia was the one who put her through on the dos and don’ts of the supermarket. She’s very nice to her, though they shared a little information about themselves to each other, besides, their work gives them little or no time to make conversations. And Harmony is not bothered if she asks of her well-being or not. There was silence between them for some seconds before Celia broke it by asking:  “So, tell me about your weekend. How did you spend it and with whom?”  Harmony thought of it and decided to just tell her what happened. “Well, I met with a man on Saturday evening when I was going home. He offered to give me a ride, but I refused his offer. He pleaded afterwards, which I gave in to his pleas. Throughout the ride we introduced ourselves. I told him to drop me at a location which is quite close to my destination. On leaving his car he requested that we established contact, at which we did by exchanging our phone numbers. He called me on Sunday morning to ask me out on a date, which I refused intently.”  Celia frowned and asked: “How could you refuse such a date, you don’t know his intentions, or do you have someone you are engaged to already?!” She yelled the last part.  “I hardly trust men.” Harmony replied her.  “How would you know whom to trust by this attitude of yours?” She retorted. Harmony felt a bit guilty and decided that there was no need for being remorseful for something as irrelevant as going on a date with a stranger, whom she couldn't identify properly when she would see him again at daytime, due to the dark evening, but the street lights helped her to identify his face a bit. Harmony has had previous unpleasant experiences with men and also her mother’s story concerning her own experiences towards men and what she went through towards her father, she had decided to be more cautious towards them.  “Well, I need to be ready before getting myself into another relationship. I’m really scared of being heartbroken again.” Harmony explained, but Celia responded quite immediately:  “You never can tell who will make you happier in the future. All you need is to try and see if it’s what suits you best or not, then you will know the next step to take. You won’t know the stuff he’s made of until you make a research about him.”  Harmony could see that Celia had a point. “It’s alright, I’m going to give it a try. Thanks a lot for the advice.” Harmony replied.  Celia nodded in confirmation and patted her back, before returning back to her post.  ‘Maybe, when next he calls, I will accept a date with him if he requests.’ Harmony thought to herself.  When it’s 8:30pm, the workers started getting ready to go home. Once it’s 9:00pm Harmony was ready to go home and she went up to Celia who was also getting herself ready to leave. Pamela had left already, she lives in an entirely different direction, so there was no need for her to wait for Celia. They both left together and chatted along the road about their day. When they got to the junction that seperates their direction they hugged each other and parted ways. Harmony got home being so tired, she took her shower, put on her pyjamas, went straight to the kitchen to have her dinner prepared. After eating she retired herself to bed, in which sleep immediately took over her. The next day, she woke up to her alarm clock ringing. She reached out to it and put it off. She hastily got out of bed to get herself ready to go to work. On her way to work, Harmony started remembering what Celia had told her the previous day about making research instead of irrelevant conclusions about the man she met last weekend. He hasn’t called her again since that Sunday morning. She felt uncomfortable and eager to meet him all of a sudden.  ‘Why do I have to feel this way? I’m not sure if I am going to recognise his face so well if we meet again.’ She thought.  When she got to the supermarket, she started working as usual, trying her best to ignore her feelings and concentrate on her work.  ‘After all it’s just a ride that he gave me, which anyone can do for me. Besides that, I might meet someone else in the future, hopefully I would meet the right man for me and I would as well make the right decision.’ She thought to calm herself down. It was quite a busy week that it seemed like time flew quickly. On Friday evening, Celia walked up to Harmony at her post and proposed that they go out together on Sunday with her cousin, Julia, who lives with her in the same apartment, to the movies and have some fun, which she agreed to her suggestion, because it's been a long time she had gone to the movies. On Sunday afternoon, Harmony got herself ready for the outing, she decided to put on a yellow T-shirt with black jeans trousers and black flat shoes. Her phone started ringing, she looked at the caller ID, it was Celia. She received the call at the first ring, Celia informed her that they were ready and were on their way to her apartment to pick her up. They arrived at 2:00pm. Harmony had already prepared some chips, which she served with ketchup and soft drinks. They ate together and chatted about a lot of topics before they left her apartment around 3:30pm, they took a taxi and Celia told the driver the name of their destination. On arriving at the plaza where the cinema is located, Harmony looked in awe at the building and admired the surroundings, she has never been to this place before and it's so amazing. It has a big parking space and there are some shopping malls in the building and lots of outdoor fun activities going on. They entered into the cinema and took their seats, Celia sat between Harmony and Julia. It was a tragicomedy movie, which they enjoyed, but the people sitting next to Julia couldn't allow them to concentrate on the full details of the movie, by going out for one reason or the other and coming back to their seats and so on that they nearly screamed at them. When they came out of the cinema they went into one of the malls in the building to do a little shopping. It was getting dark by the time they were through. They took a taxi which dropped Harmony first at her place. She insisted on paying the bills on their return, since Celia paid for their trip to the movies. They said their farewells as she alighted from the taxi. As soon as the taxi took off, she entered her apartment and arranged what she bought in their respective places of keeping, before going to her bedroom. She took her pyjamas and went to the bathroom to take a shower and change. She came out of the bathroom and went straight to the kitchen to eat the remaining rice and sauce she prepared in the morning. When she was through with eating and doing the dishes she decided to go through one of her magazines which helps her sometimes to sleep on time, especially when she has a very busy day. Her reading was interrupted by her phone's ringing tone, she looked at the caller ID to see that it's an unknown number.  'Who could be calling me by this hour of the night with an unknown number.' She thought and was hesitant to pick the call, but later decided to pick it anyway.