La Vie En Rose

Chapter 07

The next morning, I woke up surprisingly early. It was around half nine when I fully opened my eyes. I guess my body was still on New York time. I felt exhausted but no matter how hard I tried to go back to sleep, it was useless. Instead of wasting my time lying in bed, I sat up, stretched and walked over to the window. I noticed it was darker than usual outside so I pushed the lace curtain to the side to get a look at the weather. It was pouring rain. Absolute cats and dogs were falling from the gloomy clouds above. For most people, days like this were miserable but for me, I found it to be quite relaxing. The occasional rainstorm was something I liked to enjoy every once in a while. The song ‘Sunday Morning’ by Maroon 5 came to mind. I picked up a fresh white towel from the closet and walked over the bathroom while humming the tune.

An hour later, I was hopping down the stairs in a pair of white skinny jeans and a Tiffany blue colored raglan. I walked past the living room, throwing a quick ‘Good morning’ greeting at Cole, who was watching Spongebob, and headed straight for the kitchen.
Tim was sitting at the small round table, wearing his reading glasses and glancing through the newspaper while enjoying a hot cup of coffee. He was wearing a dark green polo shirt that was tucked into his khaki pants. My mother was sitting across from him, flicking through pages of a cook book. When she heard me come in, she looked up and smiled.

“Morning, hun!” She smiled at me, “How was the concert last night?”

“Fun!” I exclaimed, a sudden rush of happiness coming to me. Thinking about the conversation I had with John in the car last night made me feel giddy, “Their band is really good! We all went to Taco Bell afterwards too. A successful night, I’d say.”

I grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and poured cereal and milk. I joined both my mom and Tim at the table, and went into detail about last night.

“I’m proud of you, G.” My mother smiled, “Making new friends and you’ve only been here for a couple of days!”

The conversation was quickly diverted toward my curiosity of her going through cook books. There was a pile of them next to her. She explained to me, with complete frustration I noticed, that she was looking for new recipes since Thanksgiving was the Thursday coming up. I decided to help her, hoping this would give us some mother-daughter bonding that we’ve been missing out on for a couple of months.

I spent the next couple of hours, going through the recipes with her and writing down the ones that looked delicious or new. It was a great bonding experience. We were catching up on a lot of things while we leafed through each book. After going through all the books we owned, we made a grocery list and made a trip to the grocery store.

My Sunday ended up being quite uneventful but relaxing. I spent some time with Cole, helping him color in his coloring books while Lola concentrated on her homework, well tried to anyways. John’s prediction ending up being accurate about Ross asking her out on a date while they were in the gas station last night. She kept walking into Coles bedroom, where we were coloring, and kept saying things along the lines of, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I can’t even with life right now” or “This Tuesday, oh my God, what do I even wear for our date. I’m doomed. Doomed, I tell you!”. As a sister who loved her very dearly, I was becoming quite concerned for her well-being. Later in the evening, however, I did help her go through her closet to find something nice to wear. There was a perk to having a sister as a fashion designer after all, according to her.

When Monday morning rolled around, I woke up to a completely empty house. Lola and Cole were back at school, Tim was at work and my mother was out ‘running errands’ according to her post it note I found on the fridge.

After I had my breakfast, I began to feel very lonely so to lift up my spirits, I decided to get dressed and go to the park. I ran up the stairs, changed into my black skinny jeans, a light blue collared shirt with a pale, coffee-colored crew neck sweater over it and my brown moccasins. I grabbed my good old sketch book and pencils and shoved them into my messenger bag and within minutes, I was out the door.

I made a diversion to Starbucks and picked up an Italian roast coffee before heading over to Chestnut Park and finding an empty table by the fountain. Today was beautiful. The rainstorms from yesterday had finally moved on, and it was once again sunny and windy. I wouldn’t expect anything less from Arizona.

I tied my long, brunette hair into a messy ponytail before getting to work on some new clothes designs. The way my brain worked was pretty strange, in my opinion. I went through a series of steps. First, I would come up with chicken scratchings, sketching up some ideas and writing notes next to them. Then, I would draw them all over again, adding and taking away parts of the garments I was working on. The next step involves bringing the sketches to life by grabbing some practice material and sewing up a primary piece and then finally, I would make the piece, the real deal. It was a lengthy process but in the end, I was always satisfied with my creations. I always had to give my self an extra couple of months than most designers would give themselves when designing for a season, because I didn’t like to rush myself. I needed to give my inspiration time, stress-free.

I started drawing up messy sketches of shirts and shorts combos that were stuck in my head for a couple of weeks now. I bit my lip as I concentrated on every curve of I drew, adding arrows and little notes.

I wasn’t sure how long I was sitting there, drawing up everything that was swirling around in my imagination but once my hand started cramping, I put my pencil down and stretched my arms above my head. I tilted my head towards the sun and closed my eyes, taking in the rays of sunlight. I sighed happily as I leaned my head against the edge of the chair I was sitting in. The ambience of the water vigilantly pouring into the pool beneath it and the divergent talk of all the people around me was so beyond soothing, I was convinced that I would fall asleep at any moment.

“Hey stranger!” I heard a deep, friendly voice call a little too close for comfort. I opened one eye and recognized John, standing in front of me with a wide smile, “Fancy seeing you here.”

I sat up and smiled back at him. He was wearing his usual black, skinny jeans in addition to a white v-neck, a black American Apparel hoodie and Ray ban sunglasses. As I observed, I realized he was holding onto a leash. At the end of the leash was a sizable, black labrador, who was sniffing my leg with curiosity. So this was the infamous dog that I heard so much about from Lola?

“I was beginning to feeling lonely in my empty house” I explained, “and since Lola took the car to school, I was stranded so I ended up here.”

He sat down in the seat opposite of me, patting his dog on the stomach as the dog, itself, took a seat by John’s feet.

“Ah, working on some of your famous, spectacular fashion designs?” He asked, nodding to my sketchbook.

I rolled my eyes and smiled, “I guess you could say that.” I looked at the black Labrador and then added, “Taking your dog for a walk?”

“Yep.” He answered, bending over and patting his dog on the top of it’s head, “Taking good old Sally girl out for a stroll. She’s a good girl.”

I chuckled lightly as ‘Sally’ wagged her tail excitedly when John spoke to her. I don’t know what it was about watching a grown man showing appreciation for his pet, but I felt the sudden urge to just throw myself across the table and right onto John and ripping his clothes off.

Of course I didn’t though. Sadly.

“So, Loner, I take it you don’t have any plans then?” He smirked, looking back at me.

I acted offended by the nickname he gave me before responding, “I do too have plans!”

“Oh yeah? What are you doing?”

“Well...” I shifted in my seat, racking through my brain to come up with something. Lie. Lie about something. Anything. Just don’t look like a loser. Make shit up, Gigi!, “I have to mow the lawn?”

“Yeah right.” John laughed, “You’re not very good at lying, you know.”

Before I could retort, he went on, “How about I be your hero for a day and take you out on an adventure?”

“An adventure?” I questioned, “What kind of adventure?”

John stood up, which made Sally jump up instantly and backed away from the table, “You’ll see.”

“What? No!” I exclaimed, “You can’t just say ‘You’ll see’. You have to tell me!”

“The only way you’ll find out is by coming with me.” He stated, “You’re choice.”

And with that, he started to slowly walk away with Sally in tow. I immediately weighed the options. I knew if I didn’t go after him right this second, I would be giving up on a perfect opportunity to get to know him better. Besides, I was looking for some company anyways....

“Hey, wait up!” I called after him as I quickly stuffed my notebook and pencils in my bag before running after him to catch up.

“I knew you’d cave.” He laughed, nudging me with his elbow.

“Just so you know, I hate surprises.” I replied, crossing my arms in defeat.

I hate when guys were mysterious. It was such a pain in the ass but a turn on at the same time.
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I'm popping these chapters out like babies! LOL, I was working on this one until 3am last night. The next chapter won't be too long now! I'm almost finished with it actually. x