Chapter 2 - unedited and unfinished

2
When I awoke the next morning Jasper was gone, taking with him a box of my cigarettes. I walked into the bathroom to wash my face, and saw a smear of black across my cheek. Startled, I looked around for the cause of such a mark, wondering if I had left a pen open in my bed or mascara somehow attacked me in the night, until I looked down at my arm, where Kyle’s quote and number were simply a smear down my forearm. I had been sleeping on it, and the ink had transferred to my face. I cursed myself, profusely, for not having written down the number before it was lost. I did remember the quote though, a line from a Jack London poem.
I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark be burned out in a brilliant flame than be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Still cursing I washed the ink off my face and arm, thinking all the while about the quote. Obviously Kyle was an interesting guy, quoting Jack London while giving out his phone number. And why that specific quote? Is he trying to tell me that he lives life to the fullest? Or am I making him seem too profound? I laughed at myself and my girly thoughts, and proceeded to get ready for work.
I opened at eight, and it was already seven fifteen. I skipped the shower; instead I straightened my already-straight hair, styled it into my funky layered look, and painted on six pounds of eyeshadow. By the time my eyes were popping and I pulled on my black slacks and button-up shirt, I had five minutes to get to work. Luckily it wasn’t that far from my house, so I jumped onto a bus and called to let them know I was possibly going to be late.
“Dayne, it’s cool. Sharon isn’t even here yet,” says Tom, my co-worker. Sharon was the head-honcho that destroyed the souls of lesser employees, and Barnes and Noble had quite the turnout rate. Tom was a new hire, and thus feared her for his life. I, however, had survived the initial six-month trial period, and Sharon was no longer a concern to me. She simply left me alone to get on with my job, and had promoted me to assistant manager after a year. But Tom…
“Tom, just write it down somewhere, just in case she finds out you didn’t give her a message. She’ll flip out on you, you know that.”
“I have pen in hand,” he replies, and I think maybe there is hope for him yet.
“Why are you already there?” I asked, marvelling at the fact that he should be so early to work.
“Sharon called me to cover for a while. I guess she wanted to make sure it was ME who woke up extra early on my day off.”
“Day off?”
“Vince called in sick, and I’m the other guy with keys.”
“Well, feel honoured that she allowed you to have keys at such an early date,” I chided.
“Yes ma’am,” he laughed, and hung up.
I arrive three minutes late, and barrel into the store like a bull. I have about a hundred things to do, and I can’t personally delegate a single thing without talking to Sharon, so off I go like a race horse out of the gate. I fly into the employee room, stuff my bag into a locker and clip on my nametag. Underneath my name there is another pin, a small chalkboard with “recommends” written above it. The idea is to write in the name of a book you like, so that people don’t have to ask you that question. People do anyway, so in the space I have simply written ‘chewing gum.’ You have no idea how many people come ask questions with bad breath.
As I run out of the room, stamping my time-card on the way, I run square into Tom with a book-laiden cart. Tom, who apparently recommends ‘Surfing for Dummies’ to our customers, put his hands up like a convict.
“Take it easy, Dayne. What’s the rush?”
“Do you see these books?” I say, indicating the sixty or so books in the cart. “I have to label them all and alphabetize them properly before the store opens in…”I look at my watch, “seventeen minutes. Then I have to vacuum, unlock all the doors, make sure the windows are clean, the cash is in the registers, the bathrooms are clean, the café is properly stocked-“
“Dayne!” Tom shouts, and I realize he had been saying my name for a while now.
“What?”
“You’re crazy. It’s Thursday, remember, so the maintenance guys came last night and we don’t have to vacuum or wash the windows.” Tom smiled proudly, like a kid that finally learned how to use the toilet. I’m a big kid now, I hummed, insanely, to myself. “Plus, I already checked the café, and Renee is working today, so everything is already set up. Josh is supposed to be here, but he called in sick too, so Valerie came and is cleaning the bathrooms right now.”
I stood, mouth agape. “So, all I have to do…”
“Is the cash registers, because I can handle the books. I just got finished dealing with the Josh/Valerie situation, so I’ve got nothing to do before the store opens.” He laughed. “Honestly, you think you run this place all by yourself?”
I could have kissed him as I shoved the book cart into his very-capable-seeming hands. He had been here three months, so Sharon was still on his case, but I was rooting for him to last. He was a keeper. I ran upstairs, keys in hand, and opened the drawer with the cash boxes. I had just finished the last one, signing it off to a cheeky new red-head cashier named Libba, when Tom tapped me and told me it was time to unlock the doors.
“Thanks Tom. Oh, and tell Renee I’m glad she’s here today.”
“Okay, Boss.”
I laughed at that.
The day went by smoothly after that, despite Sharon walking in at ten to shake Tom up a bit, not to mention harass half the new cashiers and call Josh personally to make sure he was sick.
“He’s fired!” Sharon shouted from the office, and we all winced. Josh had been here two months, and had made very few mistakes.
“Fired?” I asked casually, focusing her anger on me instead of Tom, who happened to be geographically closer at that moment. Bad news.
Sharon looked at me with eyes bulging, then drew in a deep breath. “Yes, Dayne, fired. He wasn’t sick at all, I could hear a party going on in the background, and that’s all I needed to hear.”
I eyed Tom, a friend of Josh, and he shook his head, telling me there was no way Josh was having a party.
“Sharon?” I guardedly began.
“Yes?”
“Did he sound sick?”
Sharon glared at me, “He didn’t speak much after I heard that racket!”
“Well,” I interrupted, “It is Thursday.”
“AND?” Sharon asked loudly, then got her anger under control. “I’m sorry Dayne, I’m irritated, but not at you. What are you trying to say?”
Tom looked at me as if I had worked some voodoo magic to get her to calm down, which made me suppress a laugh under a cough.
“You alright?” Sharon asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Listen, Sharon, I think Josh is actually sick. I mean, no student would have the energy to have a party at ten in the morning on a Thursday. He was probably just watching a movie with some party scene or something.” I shrugged. “It probably sounded suspicious, but really, Josh is a good guy. And I think there’s something going around lately.”
“Hmm,” Sharon pondered aloud. “You know, Vince did call in sick as well.”
I coughed again; Vince was probably calling in sick from some mountain in Tahoe. Vince liked to snowboard, and figured work was secondary to that. But Vince was also Sharon’s age, and good looking. I glanced at Tom, who was now turned away from me, shoulders shaking in laughter.
“He did,” I added.
“Maybe you’re right. I’ll call Josh again and tell him I haven’t had my morning coffee yet today. He’ll understand.”
And with that I became Tom’s personal God.
“As long as I can count on you for that kind of miracle-working, I’ll be your slave,” he said after Sharon had departed to the office to re-hire Josh.
“Slave, eh? How can I possible abuse my power…?”
Tom just laughed.
“Back to work, pest.” I joked.
“Yes, my voodoo queen” he said, and bowed.
I blushed and abruptly turned away. I’m no one’s queen…
Sharon left for lunch at noon, and didn’t come back. Her sister, who had been pregnant for eight months and two weeks, had gone into labour, which meant all we were going to hear about for the next three weeks was the brand new baby girl Delilah. Awesome.
At three o’clock I punched out my timecard, unhooked my nametag, and pulled my bag from my locker. Sighing a heavy sigh of relief and fatigue, I stepped into the bathroom and gave myself a good look in the mirror. My eyeshadow had caked, my hair was frizzing, and I needed some of my recommended chewing gum. Plus, my tattoo from two nights ago still burned at my hip. I was trying to think of a profound way to finish a sentence beginning with ‘Fuck Me’ while I fixed my appearance, but could only come up with “Fuck Me Again,” or “Fuck Me Once, Shame On You…” and neither would make me feel better about my tattoo. Scolding myself again for my own idiocy, I walked out into the dreary overcast day.
I surveyed the nearby street for a sign of Jeffery’s car, but it was nowhere to be seen, so I pulled my coat collar up and lit a cigarette from my bag. I took a long drag and filled my lungs with the ashy fog so desired.
A car horn honked, and I looked up to see Jeffery pulling up in his bright orange Volvo. I stubbed out my cigarette, half-spent, and slid in through the obnoxiously fruit-coloured door.
“Hello, sunshine!” Jeffery welcomed gaily (meaning both homosexually, and joyously). “You’re looking mysterious and pensive this afternoon.”
I looked Jeffery up and down, seeing his glasses, blue-plaid shirt, and boyish charm. I couldn’t help but smile from his contagious happiness. “Thank you Jeffery. You’re looking as optimistic as your vehicle today.”
Jeffery laughed wholly, and again I noted the genuine crinkle around his eyes and his wide open mouth. “Oh, you are a catch!”
I smiled, pulling the seatbelt over my shoulder. Jeffery made my days bright, like his car. I looked around, noting the lemon-yellow seat covers, the air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror, the orange interior. And the giant, lime-green teddy bear chilling on top of the dash. “How citrus-y” I said of the lemon, lime, and orange theme of the Volvo.
“Yes, it’s because I’m a fruit,” said Jeffery, laughing heartily. “I named her Veronica after my mother, but someone called her Skittles once, and it stuck. So Skittles it is.”
“You named your car Skittles?” I asked.
“Hey, it wasn’t me, it just stuck, okay?”
“Alrighty then,” I said. “Skittles is fine. It suits.”
“That it does.”
Suddenly, my phone started ringing. I have got to change that ringtone!
“Ugh, guess who slept at my house last night?” I asked into the phone.
“Who?” Raelyn asked with uncommon interest.
“Jasper.”
“No!”
“Yes. He took a pack of my cigarettes too.”
“Jasper’s hot,” Raelyn had to add.
“I guess, in an ‘I will steal you blind’ kind of way. So what are you up to?”
“Just getting out of Jed’s. Man, I can’t hardly walk.”
“Well, take the nearest bus route to your house then, and don’t get assaulted, ‘cause you’ll never run away fast enough,” I joked.
“As if,” she said, and hung up.
Jeffery gave me a funny look. “Who was that?” he asked.
“Raelyn. You should meet her sometime.”
Jeffery scowled like he had smelled something rotten, and turned back to his driving.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Nothing,” Was the only reply I got.
Moments later we were pulling up to the college, next to the art building. “Gretchen should be coming out any moment, which means your mystery man should be coming out too.” Jeffery grinned. “We should wait for them out of the car, so he can bump into you again.”
I shifted slightly in my seat, making the seat cover stretch. I wanted to say hello to Marc again, but how would I do this? I’m no good at letting people into my little world (Jeffery, the exception to every rule). “What if he’s not there today?” I asked stupidly.