Glitch

“People are just people, but friends, yeah, they're just people too, but, a different kind of people. Best friends especially. They're the ones you run to with a funny joke, a problem you need to get off your chest, tears you can't hold back anymore. They know your life story even better than you do, they know what makes you laugh, and what makes you cry, and you know the same about them. Best friends are what not only keep you from falling apart, but build you up so you don't break so easily next time. They live through your disappointments, and you live through there's, and I wouldn't have it any other way.” Willow Sophia Marie Chancey, age 15.

I could feel Will's grip on my hand growing painfully tighter as we waited for Mr. Cove's verdict. I looked up and saw her entire body was as stiff as a board, and her jaw was so clenched I thought her little teeth might shatter from the pressure. (After all, Will had the tiniest teeth I'd ever seen.)

“It's gunna be okay Will, relax now, won't cha? He'll love it, he'll love us, I swear.” I whispered, after pulling my sister down to my level.

She shook her head. “I can't Margie, I've tried... Could he just tell us already?”

Mickie stood on the other side of Will, probably holding her other hand. “Patience Willow, patience. We'll know the answer soon enough, and you'll growl yourself for being so worried.”

“If you say so.” Will replied, still not letting go of my hand.

Another five minutes had passed before Ethan had turned away from our parents to speak to us. One look at the shaking Will made him nudge Kimi, who was standing next to him, and ask if she'd be okay.

Kimi shrugged, and asked Will herself, “Willow? You aren't going to pass out, right?”

Willow shook her head and started hyperventilating. “Probably not. Should... Should be okay.” She admitted, but I don't think anyone else in that room believed her. I definitely didn't.“Well,” Ethan said, fixing his goofy looking tie, “I did have a chance to hear that demo on the way here--”

“What did you think?” Angie blurted, looking like she'd go insane at any minute, and chances are, she probably would.

“It's good, and I'm not just saying that because your parents are standing behind me. I'm still not sure that you girls are ready to start recording and all that jazz yet, but you definitely ready to be considered by the team I work with. They'd love to have you.”

Again, squealing. Why did we squeal so much as teenagers? Now that I look back on it, it's insanely annoying.

But anyway, I'm sure the people out in the front diner were confused. Very confused, hey, I'd be too. At least the squealing was quite clearly happy squealing and not “help-I'm-about-to-be-murdered” squealing.

“Girls! Girls!” Ma shouted, waving her hands over her head, “Keep it at a dull roar, won't you? We've got paying customers out there who probably don't appreciate screaming while they are trying to eat!”

“Sorry Mrs. Chancey.” The girls, minus me and Will, mumbled, trying to hold in the overwhelming happiness.

Ma smiled at them, and then turned to me and Will with her “boss face” on. “And you two are late for your shift, I need you out on he floor pronto. The cops change shifts at 7, and they'll crowd the place any minute.”

We both nodded, and raced out to find out uniforms in the staff room. The bright orange dresses hung on a hook near the back exit, and the aprons were folded below on a short table.

I hadn't even finished tying my messy mop of red hair into a ponytail when Will skated past her in her full uniform, light brown high tied back neatly, and a pad of paper clasped in her hand. I swear, the girl should have tried out for Canada's Got Talent as a quick change artist.

As for me, on the other hand, could probably win an award for being the slowest changer in the world. According to Will, it was almost ten minutes before I met her out on the floor again, stumbling in my roller skates, which were starting to get a little too small for me.

Since it was mid-June at the time, the sun was still fairly high in the sky, and only a few of the main lights had been turned on. There were over a dozen tables and booths filled, half of those by families going out for a Friday night dinner, the other half cops who'd just gotten off the day shift.

I noticed the Mitsubishi family at Elena's favourite booth near the counter. Once again, they were fighting, probably over something stupid that Dean, Kimi's 19 year old brother, did. Ninety percent of the fights the Mitsubishi family had were over Dean.

Being the nosy person I was, I skated over to their table with a notepad in my hand and a pen tucked behind my ear. I took my time skating over once I was within ear's distance, trying to to interrupt the conversation too soon.

“John, we don't have the space, is there no other hotel?”

“Elena, there's two huge concerts going on in Westmen and the central district, every hotel within a hundred kilometers of either area is packed. Besides, it's not like they are a big family. Four people aren't going to completely overwhelm our apartment, we have the penthouse for crying out loud.”

“Yes, but we only have two guest rooms, and Ethan's staying in one.”

“The kids can share.” John suggested, but this hadn't gotten the best response.

Kimi and Dean, who probably weren't listening completely to the conversation, both jumped in and complained.

“I'm not sharing a room for a week! I can't have some lil' cousin hanging around when I'm trying to study for uni!” Dean whined, crossing his arms.

Kimi rolled her and and hit his head with the back of her hand, knocking his flippy blonde hair in front of his face. “Oh shut up, you never cared about university before. Besides, courses don't start for another three months. I have the problem here! I don't mind staying with Tamako, I really don't, but I do not want Kei within a million feet from me!”

“What's wrong with Kei?” Elena asked.

I knew it was going to get ugly, right then and there. Kimi HATED her cousin Kei. I was never really sure why, but she did. That's where I cut in with the typical “Can I take your order?”

They all jumped a little at my question, but quickly nodded and began listing.

“Large fry and a strawberry milkshake please.” Kimi said with a smile, though, it wasn't really necessary. I knew Kimi's order off the top of my head, and I also knew she'd ask me to “Save the biggest piece of cherry cheesecake for me too, eh?”

“Of course, don't I always?” I said sweetly in my waitress voice.

“Quad burger, extra bacon, hold the stupid stuff.” Dean said, giving me his signature wink, as if he seriously expected me to fall for it and give him the extra bacon he asked for. No dice. Don't get me wrong, Dean is a total hottie if your into that kind of offbeat rebellious geek ordeal, (but I'd never tell Kimi that) but I'd grown immune to his charms years and years.

"Right, so grease, fat, a hint of beef, and bacon, hold the veggies," I then turned to his parents, who both ordered the typical rich parent meal; a side salad, with the smallest chunk of meat you could possibly order, and diet Pepsi, because really, everyone over forty in my home town of South Moren drank diet Pepsi. It was like an unwritten rule.

I smiled innocently and turned on my wheels towards the kitchen window, where we placed orders on a silver ring shaped thing with tiny little clips dangling from it to hold the orders. Half way there, Will grabbed my by the arm with her boney hand and pulled me behind the counter, out of the view of customers, and my parents of course, and out of the range of nosy eavesdroppers... Like myself, except not in this case since... Never mind.

"What were they fighting about this time? Did Dean get in trouble again?" she asked, probably hoping it wasn't something Kimi did, because anything that went wrong with Kimi would affect the entire band.

"Nope. John's brother or sister or something and their kids coming to visit. Kei and Tamako, they came to visit a few years ago?"

Will nodded. "Kei's your age, Tamako's mine, right?"

"That'd be them."

A confused look twisted Will's forehead. "What's wrong with that? They're nice."

I shook my head. "She's nice. Kimi absolutely hates him!"

"Why?"

"It's Kimi, it's best not to ask." I explained.

She seemed to understand. Then again, Will seems to understand a lot of things.

I watched as she peered out around the corner to take a quick glimpse at the bickering family.

"Is it strange that I have a good feeling about this?" She asked as she turned back to me. "I mean, I'm usually right about my good feelings, so it must be true, right?"

Though I hate to admit it, most of Will's "good feelings" were right. Like the time she had a good feeling about my English exam, even though I had thought I'd failed. Miserably. Turns out, I scored third highest in my class. Another example would be the concert that had only taken place 7 hours before, during the last few hours of school. I myself had thought we'd blow them away, and we did, we always do, but I had never expected to be approached by a rep from Rising Sun. Heck, how could I have expected that? Not even Will, with her almost psychic powers, could have known.

"Maybe." was all I said.

Our shift ended at 10:30, just as it always did on Friday nights. Just like every other Friday night shift I'd worked in the five years before, it was, to put it lightly, uneventful. Actually, it was almost to the point of being boring and routine. Like first, I'd serve the Mitsubishi's first, with the same order as always, and then, I'd talk with Will for a minute, until Mr. Johnson, my English teacher, came in, wearing his new tie, since he never wore the same time ever again. I'd make a comment about his tie, bring him his coffee and be the best waitress ever, in hopes that he'd bump my mark up from a B- to an A-.

After Mr. Johnson let, a big group of crazy, possibly drunk, teenagers would come in. The girls were half dressed, and the boys were, well, being boys, making comments at me and Will the entire time they were there. Let's just say, they never had their way with me, as my ma would say. I had high standards, for a teenager anyway.

Usually, around 10, the families were piling out, and people either heading out for the night shift at work or singles came in. It was probably one of the more lively parts of the nights, where Will and I would often be sent to have drinks served to people who someone else thought was hot. It was hilariously awkward when, like a boyfriend or something walked in when we said “This is from the gentleman by the window,” and then point him out.

I suppose I shouldn't have found it so funny, it was someone's love life we were dealing with after all, and I'd hate it if someone found mine so funny. I guess I just didn't clue in, because at that age, neither me or Will had any form of a “love life.”

Anyway, I don't really remember anything interesting happening the rest of that night, and I'm only assuming that that meant nothing interesting had happened. I mean, you remember interesting stuff, right?

Anything that wasn't boring didn't happen until the next morning, at band practice. We met at Kimi's house, since she was a soundproof recording studio in her house. We aren't really sure why she has a studio in her penthouse, since it's probably been there since the apartment complex was built decades before, long before Kimi's parents had met, much less decided to buy an entire apartment building and become the landlords. Anyway, the sound board was gone, and even if it was still there, it would probably be so out of date we'd need a record player to record anything.

I doubt Kimi's parents liked having us over all the time for practice. I know mine would hate it. We ate too much, and sometimes, curse words slipped out. We were loud, and made a mess of Kimi's room, though we usually tried to help her clean it up. Usually though, we were gone before we'd even clued in how messy we actually were.

Still Elena and John never said anything, so I guess they must have been... Somewhat fine with it.

WE had spents about five hours locked in the room by ourselves, goofing off in between breaks of practicing, instead of the other way around, like usual practices. Then again, I guess that wasn't a usual practice.

Probably around 2:30, we heard an all too famillar voice over the intercom.

“Kimberly?”

Kimi jumped off her beanbag chair and pushed the income button. “What now?

“Is that any way to speak to your mother?” Elena snapped on the other end.

Kimi fake gagged and rolled her eyes. “Sorry Mom. What is it?”

“Kei and Tamako are here, why don't you girls come say hi?”

“Can you just send Kei home?”

“Kimberly!”

“Fine! We're on our way, just let us wrap on one more song?”

“Five minutes and I want you all down here or I'm shutting off the power in the room!”

“Fine!” Kimi yelled, though I noticed she hadn't hit the intercom button when she screamed. “Fine, we'll try to be quick.” she repeated, if only to please her mother and shut her up.

“”Okay guys, Clockwork one more time and then we'll go.” She said, picking up the sheet music she'd dropped earlier.

“Well, isn't today going to be interesting?” Angie asked in “drama's gonna go down” voice.

I didn't say anything back, just turned to Will and said “You're good feeling had better be right.

And was it ever.