Chapter Two

Later that night, after the last of the stylists had left for the day, the silence of the salon surrounded me, tucking its gummy arms around the hollow of my ribcage and squeezing tightly. I swept the remaining stray hairs off the floor, listening to the simple ‘whoosh, whoosh’ of the broom bristles tickle the base of my chair. The stillness of the night, with its disdainful bluster of melancholy, whacked me sorely in the face. I squared my shoulders against the lonesome hush and clenched my teeth together. I continued cleaning, mentally asserting myself with a list of chores. My pale arms stretched high to wipe down the salon mirrors, spraying Windex over the scattered dots of caked hair wax and residue from renegade shots of hairspray. I watched my reflection distort, my lifeless green eyes blinking back at me through long tears of bright blue cleaning solution.

 

The words ‘I wasn’t always like this’ began to echo through my head like a tiny sphere entering a pinball machine, bouncing back and forth against the walls of my far too cluttered brain. Lately, all my pinball of denial has managed to do is wildly plummet through the silver controls of my brain, flowing out of my mouth in the form of the same weak excuse defending my recent uncharacteristic behavior.  I currently wear the title as the lowest score holder in Lucy Eleanor Gilbert’s Great Pinball Adventure, earning me a pitiful single red ticket and many knowing looks from my closest friends who have said their gracious goodbyes to the girl I used to be.

 

Maybe it’s time I do the same.

 

I stop to look at myself in the mirror, taking in the olive colored sweater hanging shapelessly from my thin frame.  I bring my hands to my cheeks and rub them furiously in an attempt to add color to my pale skin. I sigh and step back with a realization; as of today I am now the girl who buys a one way ticket to London, consequently abandoning her business, her family, her friends, and every fruitlessly planned detail of her former life. I am the girl who wakes up every morning in her empty house filled with hollow corners and empty walls from taken furniture, taken art and taken hope (all Gavin’s doing of course). I am the girl who doesn’t have the heart to fill the emptiness because she’s still hoping he’ll come back. I wake up in what used to be our king size bed, staring my crooked tooth pug in the face with the words ‘This is my life? Really? Where was I when that happened?’ reverberating through my head. With an exasperated sigh, I rest my chin on top of my broom handle and close my eyes.  I thought I had my adult life mapped out and planned. I practically popped out of the womb with a detailed diagram of my life ambitions in my tiny newborn hands. If I had access to an Office Max in my zygote state, I would have ticked off each ambitious life milestone with matching pink push pins.

 

After a long seventeen years spent eagerly awaiting my promising future, I graduated from high school ready to use my cleverly concise life map as a guide to achieve my aspirations.  I sailed through destination one, graduating from Elizabeth Grady Beauty Academy while building a loyal and diverse clientele at a local salon. I arrived at destination two with ease as I graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management. Four years of my life were spent furiously studying and styling hair in preparation for destination three, opening up a small salon in East Greenwich with my best friend, fellow hair dresser and business partner, Nina Robinson. Destination four was marked with the eventual purchase of my dream home, something I planned to procure with my college sweetheart and subsequent love of my life, Identity TBD.  And of course, there was destination five; get married, have healthy beautiful children, and continue on this perfectly planned path to overall life bliss. I blame this overtly obsessive nature to plan every last detail of my life for what happened en route to destination four and five. Out stepped Gavin Connery and Rose Martin on to the intricate train tracks of my life and within five years time, they effortlessly derailed them.  

 

My neurosis to follow my stringent life plan was solely at fault for the blind disregard I had towards the signs warning me about a future with Gavin. I knew he was wrong from the first moment I saw him; he practically lodged in my throat like a poorly chewed piece of day old bread. Yet I foolishly fell for him because he fit so ideally into the niche I had planned to fill with my college sweetheart. I met Gavin my first week of class, sitting in the third row of an oversized lecture hall. Looking back, I can’t help but marvel at life’s irony as I remember him sitting down next to me on our first day of Business Ethics 101.  Clearly, he must have slept through the “lying and cheating” portions of the curriculum.  But of course, poor innocent twenty year old Lucy Eleanor Gilbert was unaware that in the Ethical Workings of Gavin Connery, cheating was listed in the gray area between right and wrong.

 

I silently fell for the mystery surrounding him, all along ignoring the fact that he fit squarely into every musician cliché that I hate. His lazily styled hair was dyed jet black with a slight cast of dark blue that only showed itself in certain lights. A trait I find nauseatingly sexy even now. He carried around a black guitar case and constantly played with a dark green guitar pick, twirling it back and forth in his long thin fingers. He used to pop it in his mouth whenever he took an exam, his perfect white teeth gnawing away at the tip. I spent much of my class time that semester entranced by that stupid green pick.

 

Gavin didn’t speak for the entirety of the semester. He took the same seat next to me every day, throwing his books down and slumping lazily in his chair. His clear blue eyes searched the sea of students, glazed with boredom as if everyone else’s very existence irked him. He never acknowledged me with as much as a glance, giving me much opportunity to pore over his inscrutable behavior. Every day I watched him arrive, look completely disinterested, mesmerize me with his guitar pick, and leave in a whirl wind of delicious smelling cologne. So it wasn’t a surprise that I was rendered speechless on the last day of class when he turned his acidic blue eyes on me and asked if I had any plans after class. I’m assuming that I nodded in some display of non-verbal communication resembling a “yes” and he turned back in his seat without a word.

 

When the professor dismissed class, Gavin didn’t look at me. He stood up, strapped his guitar case on his back, and walked out. I hesitantly followed him, half questioning my sanity as I began to think that I hallucinated our earlier exchange. We walked midway through the quad as minutes of excruciating silence passed. I felt anger begin to boil inside me. Who did he think I was? A pathetic girl willing to follow a disinterested guy half way across campus in the freezing cold just to make a sad attempt at a lackluster connection?  I was certainly not someone who jumped at any chance to ward off the cold loneliness of another night spent by herself in her dorm.  I was reaching out to pull on his annoyingly perfect gray pea coat and tell him just that when he turned around and looked at me. 

 

“So you’re Lucy?” He pulled a cigarette out of his back pocket as he spoke. My nose scrunched up in distaste.

“Yes, I’m Lucy. Can I help you with something?” I tried to communicate my irritation as I crossed my arms, looking him directly in the eye.  He stood there silently, smoking on his cigarette. I raised my eyebrows in pure annoyance. “Does this usually work with girls?” I dared. I wasn’t normally this bold with men (certainly not men this attractive), but I happened to be a perfect mixture of cold, hungry and tired. I was also filled with a semester’s worth of irritation as I silently cursed myself for letting this pretentious a*****e take up my brain space. Needless to say that given the circumstances, I was unusually brazen. I consider this to be the second mistake I made with Gavin Connery (my first evidently being that I followed him outside in the first place). I later learned that he loved bold women and this was the first moment he “thought I was worth giving a s**t about.” His words, not mine.

 

He threw his cigarette in the snow, his black soled shoes crunching the gravel as he casually stepped on the butt. “I’m Gavin. And yes, I do think this works on girls. Why else would you have followed me out here?” He said and gave a half smile, sticking his hand out to shake mine.

 

I don’t know what it was about that moment. I have this theory that the moon was pulling relentlessly on the tides that evening, sweeping my common sense up into its frothy waves, leaving me completely unequipped to deal with someone like Gavin. I should have rolled my eyes and walked away, maybe taken the green pick out of his boney hands, dropping it to the sidewalk below and forcefully stomping my Ugg boot squarely on top of it. I could just imagine the green plastic scattered in pieces over the walkway, glistening like sea glass amongst snow piles. Slapping him across his sharply defined jaw line and calling campus security would have been better than what I did next.  

 

Standing there in the snow that cold December night �" I fell for every word that came from Gavin Connery’s mouth.  We talked outside for an hour in spite of the weather. Conversation spewed out of both of us so naturally that I naively forgot about his earlier arrogance. I shivered as we were exchanging phone numbers, part from the cold, but mostly from excitement. His blue eyes squinted, studying me as he took off his coat and tucked it around my shoulders. He rubbed my arms gently before he let go.

“Take this for your walk to your dorm.” He stated simply as he shoved his cell phone back in his pocket. 

“Oh no, I’ll be fine. Really I �"“ 

“I insist. I kept you out here in the cold. Besides, I have another in my car. Keep it warm for me until I see you again.” And with that, he smiled, picked up his guitar case and walked away. I took a deep breath and put my arms through the sleeves of his coat. His spicy scent overtook me as I buried my nose and chin in the collar. I walked home with it on and later that night when I changed into my pajamas, I laid his coat next to my pillow and fell asleep dreaming of the next time I’d see Gavin Connery.

 

Poor girl, I never stood a chance.

 

Reviews

[Meat of Dog]

I really liked the opening paragraph of this chapter a lot. It's a simple concept for someone to feel insecure when alone in a quiet/ empty building, but you made it action very vivid and descriptive with some very nice similes. By this point I'm really starting to get a suspenseful desire to know who Gavin really is (as a person). He is described as being less than decent and conventional from her POV but I become interested in knowing his side of the story. Ever her recollection of him was very captivating despite, as far as creating an image in my head. You've also done a good job developing Lucy; her planning and perfectionism is so stable, and yet you can tell she's just as lost and confused as anyone else. I’m excited to see what happens when she makes it London.

other suggstions:
-"this may be is who I am now" this was a little unclear to me.

[Steve]

I like this. I like Gavin and his confidence. I like Lucy and her assertiveness. I like that somehow these characters are starting to connect although there is no real reason for them to. Its intriquing.