A Good Day
by Jacob Friedman
It was a Friday afternoon, school had just let out, and Natalie was waiting for her friends at the usual meeting spot, Starbuck’s. They were going to a Maroon 5 concert that evening, so she had skipped 5th and 6th period to go home, shower, change, put on make-up, and make a sign with photographs of the band members and hearts and declarations of her love for each of them, especially the lead singer. It was love in its purest form, and she knew that for a fact. They were so hot- she would make the perfect wife for any of them- so she added a marriage proposal, too- to any of them. She put on extra make-up and wore extra-revealing clothes to try to create an image that would attract the band’s attention, just like they did to her. On her way to Starbuck’s she succeeded in attracting the attention of four construction workers, one businessman, two homeless men, and one homeless woman. The day before she had dyed her hair the same color as the singer’s, to ensure their spiritual connection, and her scalp was itching like crazy. The night before she had even started an internet rumor that the concert was cancelled, to make less girls go so she’d have a better chance of meeting the band.
Natalie’s friends were all supposed to meet there at 3:30, get high off coffee and Doubleshots, and catch a 4:00 BART. She had already had a double shot and was halfway through her coffee at 3:35, when she started wondering where her friends were. She checked her cell phone every fifteen seconds because she kept forgetting what time it was. She was almost positive 3:30 was the meeting time, and she was already getting antsy from all the caffeine. She sat at a table with a sweatshirt covering her legs, because her miniskirt was too small to do an adequate job. She kept looking down to make sure only the top half of her boobs and part of her bra were showing. Natalie didn’t want all the people staring at her to think she was a slut.
She stopped playing snake on her phone so she could call her friends and see where they were. She stared up at the ceiling while the phone rang, so it was clear she wasn’t talking to the people around her. She got an answering machine, which was actually just a loud, static filled song, and rolled her eyes four times while waiting for the beep.
“Oh my god, Jessie, I’m totally like at Starbuck’s waiting for you. Where are you guys? There’s all these weirdos hitting on me and I’m feeling kinda gross. Hurry up and get here so we can leave. Bye.” She tried another number but her phone lost service and she lost her temper. She walked out the door, phone in front of her frowning face. She resembled the Statue Of Liberty while trying to get service, and realized her phone was out of batteries. Luckily she saw a boy from one of her classes.
“Hi, ok, like, I know I don’t really know you or whatever or like you don’t know me but you’re in my 3rd period Spanish and I’m like totally screwed right now ‘cause like I’m supposed to be meeting my friends here like 10 minutes ago or something ‘cause we’re going to the M5 concert tonight but they’re not here and my cell phone like just ran out of batteries so I’m totally helpless here and I was wondering if I could like use your phone for just like one minute just to see where they are ‘cause I’m getting really stressed.”
The boy stood motionless and wide-eyed, almost scared, and just looked at her. She gawked at him expectantly with her hands ready to receive and her mouth carelessly hanging open. “Well, can I use your phone or what?” She asked, now irritated. After waiting for two long seconds she rolled her eyes, said something about her god, and walked away.
She heard a voice from beside her. A filthy, longhaired, bearded man was standing in a garbage can picking out trash and putting it on his head. “Hey baby,” he said with bulging eyes, “You could use my phone and my toilet and my bed and my slippers, all at the same time! What a deal!” He looked up at the sky. “Is it raining or do the birds have somewhere to go yesterday?”
Nervous and stressed, hair itching like crazy, she thought she’d run into her friends walking back towards school. Where were all the normal people when she needed them? The boy from her class looked familiar from somewhere else, and she remembered she had once seen his personal website. He looked like a normal kid, but actually he was a total weirdo- he listened to bands like Slayer and said he was Satanic. A typical confused freshman- doesn’t know who he is yet. She walked down the street and prepared to walk past a group of ghetto kids from school wearing white T-shirts and baggy jeans. Looking down at the ground, she heard one of them say “Aye girl, wassup? You wanna come smoke wit us? You don’t need no grapes?”
She looked up with a nervous smile and said “No, thanks.”
“Ah, you a square-ass bitch. You don’t smoke no purp?” Her face was turning red so she just kept walking. “Dumbass ho!” She heard them yell. She could hear them still making fun of her as she neared a group of ghetto girls she didn’t recognize.
One of them approached her, hands on her hips with a tilted head. “Ay white girl, I know you wasn’t just talking to my man up there,” she questioned with raised eyebrows and snarled, shiny lips.
“No I wasn’t,” Natalie tried to say nonchalantly.
“Don’t gimme no attitude ‘cause I will take off on yo’ miniskirt make-up poster-carryin’ ass ya bitch.”
“Sorry,” she said nervously, embarrassed at her own cowardliness, and she walked passed the group with her head down. She felt herself starting to cry as she crossed the street to school. Overwhelmed with indescribably painful emotions and complete lack of reason, Natalie sat down on a ledge and started sobbing. It was 3:50, there was no way she’d make it to the concert, her scalp may as well have been infested with flesh-eating bugs, her make-up was probably now so smeared that she looked like a clown, her phone was out of batteries so she couldn’t call home, and certainly couldn’t try asking anyone to use theirs again, looking the way she did, she was now cold and alone stuck holding a large poster that would go to waste, and she just realized she sat down on somebody’s loogie.
She stopped crying and started thinking- why was she doing all this anyways? It’s just a concert- some animals making sounds with instruments. She’d paid for a ticket but she had plenty of money, it didn’t matter, and she decided she didn’t really value money or material objects anyway. If she really wanted to she could go without her friends, maybe she’d meet them there. It’d be a good idea to put on some pants so she wouldn’t freeze to death that night, and she could throw away the useless poster because she knew even if it did attract any attention, she wouldn’t want to actually have anything to do with the band, after all they were 20 years older than her.
Just kidding, she didn’t start thinking, she just kept on crying for about half an hour, when finally her friend Jessie showed up. “Oh my god, Nat, what happened to you?”
“You bitch! Do you have any idea what I’ve just been through??!! Why the fuck didn’t you meet me at Starbuck’s?! Jesus Christ!!” Natalie yelled.
“It’s not my fault! That fat security guy took me to detention for trying to text message you during class while we were in the computer lab ‘cause I went on the internet and saw on MySpace that the concert was cancelled, so it doesn’t matter anyways.”