Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

 

Later that night, after the last of the stylists had left for the day; the silence of the salon surrounded me and settled itself into the hollow of my ribcage. I swept some stray hairs off the floor as the quiet began its nightly routine of unleashing all my secret insecurities into the air with invisible power, swirling around me like a cool blast of winter wind. All the thoughts that seemed to be muffled during the day by the chaos of outside noise, immediately brought to the surface and whacking me square in the face.

 

I can tell you that ‘I wasn’t always like this’ but unfortunately that phrase has become less and less convincing each time it leaves my mouth - which let’s face it, has been increasingly often lately.  I do realize that at some point I’m going to have to accept that this may be is who I am now. Denial of my current situation is certainly not changing my day to day life nor is it stopping the knowing looks I receive 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.

 

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 am the girl who wakes up in what used to be “our” king size bed, staring her crooked tooth pug in the face with the words ‘This is my life? Really? Where was I when that happened?’ reverberating through her head. With an exasperated sigh, I rested my chin on top of the broom handle and closed my eyes.

 

 I thought I had my adult life mapped out and planned. Hell, I practically popped out of the womb with a detailed diagram of my life ambitions in my tiny newborn hands, ticked off with pink push pins to mark each ambitious life milestone that I was determined to accomplish. After I graduated from high school, I had drawn out a clear and concise map of my life. It read much like this:

 

Destination 1: Graduate from Beauty School and work on building a loyal and diverse clientele at a local salon.

Destination 2: Enroll into the local University full time and graduate with a Master’s Degree in Business Management while styling hair in all the wee hours in between.      

Destination 3:  Open up small salon in this quaint little town with her best friend, fellow hair dresser and business partner, Nina Robinson.

Destination 4: Buy dream house with college sweetheart and subsequent love of my life, Name TBD.

Destination 5: Get married, have healthy beautiful children, and continue on this perfectly planned path to personal, professional and overall life bliss.

 

I can blame my 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.  What else besides my neurotic need to follow along my stringent life plan could have caused me to ignore the glaringly obvious signs that warned 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 stupidly 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 at the local University. 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 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 first few weeks. He took the same seat next to me every day, throwing his books down and sitting lazily in his chair as if everyone else’s very existence bored him. He never once acknowledged me so every day I watched him arrive, look completely uninterested, mesmerize me with his guitar pick and then leave like he came �" 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 human communication that resembled a “yes” and he turned back in his seat without a word.

 

When the professor dismissed class, Gavin didn’t look at me. He just 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 had hallucinated our earlier exchange. We walked midway through the quad and as the minutes of excruciating silence passed, I felt anger boil inside me. Who did this guy 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 not one of those girls 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 peacoat 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. I hated smokers. 

“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 over letting this pretentious a*****e take up my brain space. Needless to say, I was unusually brazen. I consider this to be the second mistake I made with Gavin Connery (obviously my first being that I followed him outside in the first place). I later learned that he loves bold women and this is 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 and tossed it over my shoulder into the snow as I walked away. Truthfully, slapping him 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 out there for an hour in spite of the weather. Conversation spewed out of the both of us so naturally that I stupidly forgot about his pompous attitude. I shivered as we were exchanging phone numbers, part from the cold and part from excitement. His blue eyes squinted, studying me as he took off his dark gray pea 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.