Life for Rent

When I was little, I didn’t know what I wanted. I knew I wanted a family, a house, maybe a car and a weekend home supported by a fantastic career. They told me to stick to my education and hold tight to that idealistic American dream.
“Do well in school and only great things will come” they used to say, “Don’t let anything come between you and your goal” they reaffirmed. But goals and opportunities don’t run in the same circles in life as I later found out.

However opportunities when missed become dreams once had and life becomes an on-going fight to work towards the end. As time passes by those wonderful silver lined dreams that were doodled on your school desk seem flamboyantly silly and childlike. What ever happened to that upbeat enthusiasm where you believed you could take over the world? It was gone and you was lost in the cycle of humanity whereby you live, dream and die.

I could have gone away, toured the world and worked with my best friends every day. I could have lived through their glory and enjoyed my youth but alas, exams and assignments seemed more important and afterall ‘my time was to come’.

Whilst I was doing all night stints at College, finishing my five thousand words on ‘Causes of World War 1’, they were doing all night stints partying, drinking and being ‘normal’ twenty one year olds. As months passed by I watched my best friends rise to stardom and conversations seemed infrequent. A casual five minutes before a show or a drunken night call and I was lucky enough to have spoken to them at all.

“Well this is ironic but congratulations none the less” Billie said to me the day of my graduation and I looked at my best friend with a sense of guilt. He had managed to conquer the world and I had managed to conquer college but either way, he seemed to have stayed true to himself. We had both aged since those days back in high school and I thought back to the last time both of us seemed like ‘us’. But what use is it, when you’re life had seemed to have passed you by, what is the point in reminiscing when you can’t get it back. Non of it, you can’t re-learn to be a risk taker or learn to live for the moment…..you can’t learn to believe that somebody other than your parents, love you for beinig ‘average, uneducated you’.

Seven years on since we parted ways at high school, my regular rendezvous with my favourite twenty five year old was due this evening. I had felt myself become worked up in a combination of nervous and excitement with amongst all, these regrets and life pessimism that only become apparent this time of year.

It was the only day in my life that nervous would get the better of me and even as I stood, relentlessly pleading with the vending machine to take my dollar, I realised my day at work would be filled with more blunders.

“All I want is E-8” I muttered to myself as another unresponsive buzz of the venders left me frustrated at an empty tray. In another attempt I punched in the numbers again, this time opting for a bag of chips. Beep. Nothing. I groaned once again as a queue began to form behind me. In a last ditch attempt of grabbing something before a coup was formed and I was overthrown, I entered a random combination resulting in a bag of shortbread biscuits which I hated. I hate shortbread biscuits.

“Staff call, can a member of management please contact the help desk” a drawled out accent over the tannoy belted.

I would say I had rolled my eyes, but stereotypical as it may sound, I rolled my eyes twice and picked up my walkie talkie

‘Fiona speaking, receiving the call for the help desk’ I reluctantly spoke down the large black phone like device that I carried around 9 till 6, five days a week.
‘Fiona, a customer wants to speak to you’ a girl, who sounded no older than eighteen twittered back down the phone with panic underlying tones. ‘could you come quick?’ it sounded more like a desperate attempt to seek final refuge before the supposedly angry customer finished off the young girl.
‘coming’ I spoke, setting back out of the canteen that I had just arrived in and watched as the group of managers who hadn’t respond to the call, giggle quietly at me as I clutched on to my shortbread biscuits. I would eventually find someone who would buy these awful things in return for at least a cup of coffee.

The stairs up to the help desk spiralled on for a good minute and whilst I staggered my tired feet up those I began to contemplate what I would wear for the evening. If I was to stay true to myself and to my lazy nature, a t-shirt and jeans would surface but like the coming of Christmas, meeting up with my best friends was a once in a year opportunity and I had to pull out all the stops. But could I be bothered? Would they notice if I turned up in my black all in one dress, probably not. Yet turning up wearing nothing but a symbol of my failure rather than something that could make me look like my decision to deviate to life that I did was a success.

I had finally reached the help desk where a girl with short brown bobbed hair, stood terrified at the large plump lady who tapped her acrylic painted nails sharply on the white desk top. If metaphors would serve me right, then she was a symbol of a puffing bull as its sharp eyes glared brightly waiting for the drop of the metal cage that confined them in.

‘Are you the manager?’ she boomed loudly in her strong, eloquent, Boston accent.

‘ I am, what seems to be the problem?’ I asked, knowing that the same old spiel said seven times before was about to be regurgitated out of this ladies, pursed lips…

‘I am terribly outraged…’ she began, stubbing her finger down in anger and I could feel my mind wonder to a comfortable other level, away from angry ladies, shortbread biscuits and my ever nearing reunion.

I was late, how predictable was that and as I approached rush hour traffic, the ability to see down Broadway was non exsisted. The small little light on the clocks face of Tully’s taunted the fact that I was late and the fact that my small little car couldn’t do much about it.

Tully’s in Oakland was sentimental for two reasons, the first being, it was where Sweet Children announced to me their departure from Oakland and their offer to take me with them. Secondly, it was where, after a night of underage drinking, my best friend had taken me, to sober me up and happened to be on the receiving end of my confessions that ‘I loved him’…we both agreed it was the alcohol and I admitted that it wasn’t something that I had meant but nonetheless it’s where the fractions in our friendship appeared. It was the same year that, in over nine years, he had forgotten my birthday.

‘come on’ I sounded my horn as the clock on the dashboard flickered to 6pm and the evening news blared through the small speakers. I watched behind squinted eyes the slowing moving traffic as it disappeared into the sunset and beyond. What if I continued on, into that sunset and I began a new life, returning to my roots and starting off on the correct foot. But reliance and the need to continue the cycle of the triple shift in my micro point of view.

Finally the traffic had moved to the point whereby I could manoeuvre my car into the nearby parking lot where I could quickly hurry into the restaurant where Billie would be waiting, impatiently as always. I hadn’t decided to wear anything too impressive and I had decided to default back to my navy straight cut dress with its vintage white belt that I had borrowed from my mom a good seven years ago. But no matter what I wore, high fashion or Wall-mart, I felt like a sack, filled up to the brim with nerves and agitation, as if I was one of his fans at a meet and greet. Questions and queries all designed to the letter were fading quickly and fast, as my shoes crunched on the gravel as I approached closer to the same old rustic doors.

With a sigh of uncertainty I pushed the door open into the coffee stained air and to the smell of burnt toast. It was if I had stepped back in time, ever signature statement that the place unintentionally had created, such as the dusty old literature books that had never been read but had been mused upon by many of customers. The aging of the curtains that framed the large bay windows that faced out onto the busy traffic streets, had begun to age by the cigarette smoke that clung to the white linen. The old oak serving counter still stood dominant to the forefront of the store and still retained the untreated, old coffee stained worktop with it’s matching table and chairs that outlined the perimeter.

The coffee shop had in recent years, been threatened into clouser due to it’s ‘old unpopular style’ but anybody who lived in Oakland knew, that if it were too close, then the town would lose an icon of it’s former ‘booming’ glory.
The staff, worn and hagged from the bustle of the commuters stopping to pick up something for the wife and kids, all looked like time had frozen them in place. Their uniform, yellow in colour, were covered in coffee and grease splashes and was accessorised by a white frilly pinny, the time of apron accustomed to 50’s era.

Nothing however could bring a smile to my face than the crooked smile on a friendly face. His eyes, narrowed by the low sun still gleamed a dashing green as I walked closer to ‘our’ table, but his smile never differed and still gleamed merrily as he looked me up and down. His hair, although had been several variations of colour in recent years, return conservatively back to brown and had still retained his guitar pick that had been fused to a necklace many years ago. It made me laugh how much time had passed and yet as much bitching and moaning one could handle, right then I didn’t have a world rocker in front of me but just plain old, lovable and childish Billie Joe.

‘You’ve grown a beard’ I smiled as he stood up to give me a bone squishing hug. It was true, he had grown a form of a beard and as he hugged me, the small bristles scaped across my face.

‘It’s just face-fluff Fi, I’ve didn’t shave this morning’ his whispered before placing an unnecessarily sloppy kiss on my left cheek. His aftershave clung to the air around me as he pulled away and I smiled once again, overjoyed by the brief moment of feeling human, away from the duties and harrows that faced my independence.

He had, so kindly resorted to purchasing our normal order of, a cup of coffee and a triple cheese pizza, due to the fact I had been a little over twenty minutes late. But lateness or not, our conversation took of from where it had ended, reminiscing about pre-college and pre-Green Day. It was a tactic on both our parts to refrain from talking about how well one of us has done and how much the other had not.

‘Fiona, I have something serious to ask you’ Billie said, moments after playfully arguing about who should stuff the last bit of the pizza down into their bloated stomachs. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his blue shirt and proceeded to finish off his fourth cup of coffee. ‘I had completely forgotten to say’ he continued casually, making my ability to keep my mind rational a little bit uneasy. ‘Do you remember Mikes’ girlfriend, Louisa?’ He asked, mimicking the curliness of Louisa’s long blond locks with his finger and gesturing her height by lifting his right hand up in the air.

“yes, I do” I answered carefully, unsure where this conversation would take us. He nodded his head in this response and began to dig deep into his black trouser pockes and sighed, as he pulled out a crushed piece of cream paper. Meanwhile the tired, forty something waitress had been to refill our cups once again, removing the large white plate and looking at my concerned face as Billie began to unfold the cream paper.

“well they are getting married in three weeks time, in a ceremony in New York” he tossed the paper towards me and I could feel myself ease a little bit as I looked at the invite in front of me that read:

Billie Joe Armstrong
You are cordional invited to the nuptials of
Mr Michael Ryan Pritchard
And
Miss Louisa Douglas
On the: 15th July
At: The New York Government licenced register office

I couldn’t believe that Mike was getting married, sure he was always the more mature out of the boys but I had always had set in stone, Mike as a free unmarried spirit. But, boy was I wrong…
‘That’s surprising’, I declared matter of factly and handed back the invite to Billie, who rubbed his tired looking eyes. ‘Well hopefully I’ll see Mike beforehand to pass on my best wishes’ I hoped as I wondered whether or not I would be seeing Mike at all, as normally he would also come to grace the tables of this little bistro.

‘I ask Fiona…’ Billie grabbed my hand that lingered on the table, unsure whether or not my body could handle another dose of caffeine, “I know you have work commitments and I know its in such short notice but please come, if not for me but for Mike. You mean just as much to him as you do to me and I’m one hundred per cent sure he would want you there” Billie smiled uneasily as my head was pressured by thoughts of time of work and of course the ability to obtain that.

‘I don’t…I won’t be able to get time of work…it’s our busiest period…’ I spoke allowed and the optimism that flew through Billie had now completely gone, a sense of de ja vu. I could feel my eyes burn from the perceived complicated nature of this request.

I could leave my job, head east with my best friends and find fortune in rekindling with them and with the opportunities that could arise but yet, what if it didn’t, I had to many responsibilities at work and I couldn’t throw away so many years of work…could I?

‘Look Fi, please make the right decision, I know it’s difficult but if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, what you do right now, is no life, not even for somebody who doesn’t deserve one, I’ll give you till tomorrow evening to think about it’ He spoke quietly as the debate battled around in my head and preceded to stand up, kissing me on the head, ‘but I need to go because it winds me up to see you waste your life away” and with that he walked away, leaving me facing a dilemma.