He’s Really Just—
I swiveled around in my chair behind the cash desk and faced Craig.
“This all begs the question though; what do I do about Neil? I mean, honestly he’s like the best guy I’ve ever met and I can’t stop thinking about him. And he keeps sending me all those messages on Facebook. It has to mean something, right? Craig, what would you do. If I was Jessica, or if Jessica was me…or…whatever.”
“Ly, I dunno…” He stretched and looked up at the ceiling. I knew what this meant. It was his thinking/I actually don’t know/You are beyond help type reaction. “Well, it seems like he’s into you. That’s all I really think.” He looked back at me, and judging from my reaction, decided that wasn’t a good enough answer and continued to speak. “I guess just keep talking to him and see what happens.”
“Ugh, but I’ve already been doing that forever…”
Just then Norah walked down the small set of stairs into the main store area. Craig immediately stood up, while I slowly pulled my body out of the chair and onto my feet.
“Good morning twins, now…where did that list go?” Her voice drained out as she looked through all her papers on her massive stack. I always told Norah I was jealous of her muscles, but now I understand what she meant by “3 kids plus a stack of other things” literally meant.
“Oh, here it is.” She squinted through her glasses and stared intently at the sheet. “Okay, so Tegan and Amanda are also here today, so I figured I’d give them the main floor today and you two can go out back and receive/store some of the new items we just got. Some of that meat is going to go bad if we don’t get it to a fridge in time. Lyra, smile for once!”
I realized I must have been looking frazzled again at the thought of having to receive all the red meat at the back of the store all day. I hated handling the meat, but today I would take that over customer service. Let the younger kids do it for a change.
“We’re on it, boss” I said. Craig laughed. Norah rolled her eyes: “Whatever, guys.” and walked back upstairs.
Norah hated it when we called her boss because she wasn’t really the boss, but we insisted on calling her that because she does 3/4 of the work, as compared to the actual boss, Mike, who literally does nothing. “This place isn’t called ‘Mike’s Meat Market’ for no reason” she would keep on saying every time we called her boss. But we all knew it was true.
The employees at Mike’s consisted of Mike, the ‘president’ or as we like to call him, the laziest son of a bitch on the planet who would sell his own mother just to make an extra penny. He wasn’t a mean guy, but just lazy. He was hardly ever at the actual store, and did not have a creative bone in his body. We were supposed to be a deli AND Dutch gift shop, except he has been terribly lacking in updated gift shop merchandise, so basically we stick with the deli part.
Then there is Norah, who is a 40-something year old woman, who happens to be a renowned massage therapist, a mother to three teenage children, a caretaker to her mother who has dementia, while also taking on almost full responsibility of a small business. I always ask her why she doesn’t just quit and do massage therapy full time but she insists that she likes the busyness if the business world and would go insane with just massage all day. I love Norah because she comes across as super down to earth, patient, and just zen, while once you get to know her, she is secretly insane and hyper!
There’s also Tegan and John, the highschool kids who work after school and weekend. They aren’t bad kids; Tegan is a hipster who keeps on getting in trouble for showing off her tattoos in the workplace, as well as being known for her piercings and 80’s hair styles, while John is more quiet and takes his job more seriously. I don’t know much about him except for that his dad is some kind of asshole who started making his kid work at age 11 already just so he could learn “how to become a man”.
Then there is Barbara, a thirty-something year old lesbian who lives with a lot of cats. She usually takes care of the customer relations like answering the phone and stuff, but she always ditches that and hangs out and talks to whoever is working and wastes their time. She is obsessed with stupid stuff no one cares about, like strange diseases cats can get, or why someone got kicked off a reality show. Sometimes I wonder why she even has a job.
Last but not least there’s Jan. He is probably the hardest worker out of every body, maybe even Norah. He’s pretty old, and has apparently been around even before this place was owned by Mike. He slices meat like a butcher, and speaks fluent Dutch. All the traditional customers love him, and so do we. He always gives us candy and lets leave early or go on coffee runs.
As Craig and I walked out back to the storage area, we ran into Tegan, who had just arrived to work and was hanging up her coat.
“Did Norah tell you guys to receive today?” She said while snapping her gum loudly.
“Yeah, so you are with John upfront”
“Is Barb here?”
“Um…no she’s off today”
“Thank God. Ugh, I hate working with her. She’s so fucking annoying.” She blew a bubble. “Oh god, and Norah…what the fuck is with her? Why does she even work here? We all know Mike must be fucking her.”
“I seriously doubt that, Teag” said Craig in his voice of reason and authority “I honestly think she just likes to work here.”
Tegan backed down a little, and checked her phone as if realizing for the first time it was time for work. “Yeah, whatever. I actually don’t even care. Anyways, I got to go up there now. See you guys later!”
Tegan thought Craig was boring and no fun to work with. She always told me she’d rather work with me most of all because I was fun. I always preferred to work with my brother.
The Phone Call
“Actually, my roomate’s gay.”
“Oh nice!—”
I could tell that he was about to say something, but then cut himself off with another thought:
“Wait, is it a guy or girl?”
I laughed. “A guy…why?”
“No reason, I was just wondering.”
“It’s actually my best friend Jordan. We’ve been friends since we met in our second year at private school. Whenever you finally come over you can actually meet him!”
“Wait..” this time he laughed. “So all this time you were talking about your roomate Jordan, you actually meant a gay guy?”
“Yes Ian. Now, does it really matter? Anyways, moving on…” We had talked briefly about homosexuality in one of our earlier conversations, and he seemed okay with it. Why would he be alarmed about it now? Or maybe he wasn’t alarmed and I was just looking into it too much. Maybe he was just surprised that Jordan was a guy: it is a boys and girls name after all…
“Lyra? You still there?” I could hear Ian’s breath on the other side of the phone.
“Yeah, of course..sorry”
“It’s okay. What were you going to say?”
“Oh…I don’t remember…something about how you should come to our house sometime soon. Like…tomorrow evening for dinner?”
“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. About how I should visit you soon, I mean…not so much thinking the same day, but Tuesday’s great. Yes, works for me. What time?”
“Umm…let’s say 7?”
“Yeah, sounds great. Does that mean Jordan will be there?”
“Yep!”
“Okay, then I will see you tomorrow. Goodnight, love”
“Night Ian”
Butterflies
I’m staring out through what we call The Wide Window at the front of our house across the street. The lady with the beautiful standard poodle walked out of her house, but she wasn’t walking her dog this time. She quickly shut the door behind her and scrambled into a red car which was parked there already waiting for her. I wonder where she was going at 2:30 in the afternoon.
It’d cloudy out, and I’m listening to Linkin Park. I have a slight urge to go pee, but I’m too content here to get up. It smells faintly like cooking oil, which is leaking through the walls from the neighbour’s, who are broiling a steak. Random, since it is only 2:30pm.
I am of course, thinking about my life at a time like this. No one is home, the house is quiet, and it actually gives me time to breathe. My phone vibrates before I can even begin to form a thought. It’s Neil again. He has been texting me a lot lately, which is strange since we never really talked since I awkwardly asked him out and he graciously shut me down. However, he was just small talking with me. Probably because he is a good guy and it probably didn’t sit comfortably with him to just go all cold turkey on me…like two other guys have done to me in the past year. *Ahem Ethan and Travis*
The text was in two parts, which always excites me. He was mostly asking me about school and what my plans for the future was and so on. I made sure in my response to include something about God’s call for our lives, because he is reeeally big into that kind of talk. I also agree, but he is the kind of guy who people like to label as a “good guy Greg” except that he is “good guy Christian greg”, in the sense that everything is really all about God and he isn’t ashamed to talk about that. Neil is also too good for me, so really I don’t even care what he thinks about me anymore. He no longer gives me butterflies. I have learned not to trust butterflies anymore because it can lead to places where I have been taught even “angels fear to tread”
Say My Name
“Umm, excuse me, what the actual fuck do you think you’re doing?” A tall black girl with legs the size of my entire body walked over to me and stared downwards.
“Uhh..I..” I started but then quickly looked around me for back up. No one was there. “I wasn’t sure what position you guys wanted me to play, so I just decided to go with what I normally play…which is flanker.” I looked up at her, trying to look sad and innocent so hopefully she wouldn’t stomp on me.
“I don’t fucking care. You should have figured this out a long time ago. Anyone new has to report to the coach, and plus…we have way too many girls trying out for flanker. We don’t need anymore.”
“Okay, okay…fine.” I put my hands up and walked out of the scrum. I honestly don’t have the time of day for this shit right now. I could have argued against her, but I could sense she was a top dog here and I didn’t want to start anything before I actually made the team. If I make the team…the coach hadn’t even showed up yet and we were supposed to start 10 minutes ago.
Over on the sidelines, I located my gym bag and grabbed my cellphone. Zero new messages. I was going through my usual routine of browsing through my message history when I felt a body sit down next to me on the bench. I glanced up at her. It was another girl trying out for the team, but she wasn’t even changed and her hair was still down. She had brown skin and beautiful, dark wavy hair that went down to about her waist. She looked part Lebanese.
“Is..is this the women’s rugby team tryouts?” She was out of breath, and was also trying to tie her hair up in a ponytail at the same time. “I didn’t realize we hadn’t started yet…I thought I was going to be late!”
“Yeah, this is it alright.” After I said that I realized how lame and pessimistic that must have sounded. I looked back down at my phone.
She giggled. “I’m Alison”
After a few moment’s pause, I realized that she had extended her hand out towards me. I hesitantly shook her hand. “I’m Lyra, nice to meet you.”
“Lyra…hmm…” She put her hands on her hips. “I’ve never heard of anyone named Lyra besides the girl from The Golden Compass movies! It’s such a beautiful name, it matches your face!” She smiled and started walking over to the field. “Lyra, are you coming?”
“Oh; yeah, one sec!” I threw my phone back in my bag and followed Alison onto the field. “Apparently we’re supposed to report to the coach and let her know what positions we want to play and stuff.” I told her.
“Oh, yeah I think I already did that….I’m supposed to be flyhalf, but whatever works. As long as I get to play a back is all I care about.” Alison said with a smile. A cute, crooked smile.
I noticed that every time Alison spoke to me, she looked me in the eyes and spoke to my soul. It’s so weird when we meet people who actually see us for who we are and don’t care what anybody thinks. I could tell (and was hoping) that we could become good friends. I needed to make some good friends in this new school.
Innocence
I rested my head on my hands and looked around the room. For once I was all alone. All I could hear was the hum of the furnace as it struggled to heat our house on this cold, winter’s night. Violet and Grace were in their rooms talking to their significant others, meaning either parents or boyfriends. Sarah-Lynn was in class, and Cassie, like it’s been for the past 2 weeks, has been nowhere to be found.
My body was still in pain from rugby the night before, not in the mood to have to go out again after a long day today. I know that once I step in to the compressed air zone and feel the turf under my cleats I will be happy and excited to be playing again. But right now I want to sleep.
There is a blanket thrown over the sofa, three cups of tea on the coffee table; one half full still. The curtains are pulled over the Wide Window, protecting our privacy from the outside world. However, there is a crack in the middle from which I can see the glow of passing car lights. There is an old guitar from guitar hero lying halfway behind the TV in the corner of the room, as well as a leaning tower of DVD’s/video games in front of it. I sighed, and continued to read my history of modern psychology textbook. Behaviorism is pretty damn exciting.
I thought of the things I had already accomplished this year. I, Lyra Lestranger, one who was always told could never go to university and could never do too well in school, got on the Dean’s List last semester. I smiled to myself when I thought of the inspirational piece of paper hanging on my bedroom wall. School was never the top thing on my list, and I honestly am still not too sure how I got on that list. However, I somehow did, so if that doesn’t prove I can succeed in school I dunno what will.
I thought about the people in my life. I thought about how I finally got the courage to tell my therapist about the fuckedupedness which was my love life last year. She apologized in advance for her initial reaction to my confession, then continued to explained how it sounded like a case of child sexual abuse. First there is shock, then the child learns to think that the inappropriate touching is normal, then they become dependent on it, yearn for it, and so on. It can easily set the tone for the child’s future relationships.
Never had I thought of myself playing the part of a naive child who lost her innocence.
Don’t Forget Me
“Mommy, who is this lady?”
“She’s your aunt.”
“And why are we visiting her all the way in Nepal?”
“Because she is mommy’s friend from a long time ago, and we want you all to meet each other.”
My beautiful 4 year old daughter, Willow, looked up at me with her deep blue eyes, her father’s eyes, and gave me a big, toothy grin. “Will she give teach me how to do my hair like hers?”
Willow was referring to the way Cassie had her hair tied up and braided on the side in the photograph.
“Maybe if you ask nicely.” I teased my daughter.
“Mom! You can ask her for me!”
“Alright, I will ask her for you. But only if you can’t ask her yourself. You try once first. I know you can talk.”
Just then I heard the front door creak open. Nathan must be home. Luna barked her happy bark, so I knew it must be true.
“Lyra?” I heard Luke put his keys down on the counter. “Willow, Luke?”
“In here, daddy!” Willow piped up and ran out the door. My younger son, Lukas, was sleeping on the couch; bored of looking through photos. I glanced at him, and noticed his eyes began to flutter and he slowly opened them.
“Daddy?!” He said, then noticing Willow was missing, he instantly got up and followed her out of the living room.
Two minutes later Nathan walked into the room, scooping up Lukas into his arms and kissing him on the cheek. “What are you guys up to in here?” He asked. “And where’s Sherri?”
“I sent her home, I had a client cancel last minute so I came home early.” I brushed my hair out of my cheek an stood up to kiss my husband.
“Yeah, so mommy said we could look at pictures of Aunt Cassie and Uncle Philip. I wanna go to Nepal and visit! The houses there look funny and there’s lots of cows!”
“Hey, Willow, you know there’s lots of cows in our backyard too” Nathan teased her.
“But these cows are big and have horns!” She ran towards the photo pile and picked out an old photo of a Nepalese cow that I took about 10 years ago when I visited.
“Wow, now that is a cow.” Nathan said as put Luke down on the floor and grabbed the photo from Willow and examined it closely, turning it upside down in his hand. “Have I seen these pictures before?”
“Yeah, probably. You know me though. I’m not really that sentimental. They’re all on the computer anyways.” I replied.
“That is true…” He looked up from the photo and stared at me intently. “Are you sure you should have told the kids about Nepal? I didn’t know this was a for sure thing yet…I mean, are we ready to visit them?”
I glanced over at the kids, who were now playing with some plastic dinosaur toys by putting them all over poor Luna’s back. Noticing they were distracted, I replied to Nathan in a softer whisper:
“Nathan, come on. I told you this already like a hundred times…I haven’t seen her in over 10 years. Everything’s fine. You know that.” I put my hand on his face and gazed into his eyes. “Plus, Cass wants to see the kids. She’s never met them, and she just loves kids. You know they have been trying for years.” Which I secretly thought was kind of ironic, since Cassie was always the one raving about how many children she would have, and I about how many children I did not want to raise.
“Yeah, I know.” Nathan said quietly as he got up off the floor. “Yeah, I guess it would be a good idea for all of us then. We all need to meet each other.”
My eyes followed his face upwards. He looked sad and defeated, though I hardly knew why it was an issue. Something that happened 10 years ago did not need to be an issue any longer, did it?
I always thought my life had turned out so ironic. Nathan, the extroverted flamboyant, ADHD husband who just adored children, and me; who was introverted, quiet, plain, and just adored nature and the simple life. Yet we all lived together under one roof, the five of us; if you include Luna, which of course I always will.
So Jealous
I watched you tumble over onto the floor, grabbing onto Violet and laughing hysterically. I can’t help but to think that this is the way it should be for them both; both happy with nothing to worry about. Without me to worry about.
Then I think, poor Violet. She has no idea. Poor Benjamin, he has no idea. Poor everyone, they have no idea. Then I think, poor me, I very much had an idea, and now I have to suffer.
But then I go to sleep at night, and I dream about you. I see your sparkling eyes, your soft lips, your bright smile that stretches across your face…You don’t even recognize me in my own dream. I have to urge you to look at me the way I want you to. I have to physically grab your face and turn it towards me, and it makes me feel pathetic. You are giggling in my dream, like you don’t understand what is really happening, why I am not giggling too. Yet you never get angry, you just keep on giggling and looking happy.
I remember the first time I saw you, and I wanted to be your best friend. Better than all the rest. You told me you had thought the same. I was secretly happy when you told me this, even though outwardly I said something like “Well, I like all my friends the same, and that’s the way it should be.” I think I was embarrassed. I went home and told my friends that I met someone who I just knew was going to be my best friend for a long time. She smiled and asked me how I knew that.
I remember the first time you held my hand. I almost hit the ceiling; it took me by such surprise. Yet when you touched me, I suddenly felt like I was worth something. I was never going to be rejected ever again because you wanted me, and I wanted to kiss you ever since—
I felt someone’s presence behind me. It was Neil.
“Ready for the meeting, Lyra? We’re meeting in 312 in like….5 minutes.” He smiled at me, waiting for a reply.
“Oh, umm…yeah. I will be there. Just give me one second to pack up my stuff.”
“Alright, see you in there!” And with that, he basically skipped away. Always happy, Neil was. That was the reason I decided to stop crushing on him. Unrealistic optimism is one of my turn offs.
