Gina

He looked around the city bus and flashed his bus pass at the driver before going down the aisle of seats, looking for an empty seat that wasn’t next to a crazy asshole. He may have lived a sheltered life, but Billie Joe had some pretty weird experiences using public transport.

Left without an option, he plonked himself down next to a dirt-covered man sporting cracked glasses and a flowing beard. “Fucking mud hippy,” Billie muttered under his breath.

“What was that?” the man turned to the young musician, speaking in a chirpy and overly cheerful voice. “Well hello! How are you, my friend? Peace is in the air,” the hippy-man took a deep breath. “I can smell it.” Billie couldn’t smell the peace. All he could smell was the weird man next to him, who happened to smell like a landfill. “Can you feel the smooth vibrations of nature making love to our little city?” the man continued on, not realizing that Billie Joe was doing his level best to ignore his nonsense.

“Listen, I have a lot of things on my mind, so could you just…oh, I don’t know, be quiet for a few minutes?” Billie asked as calmly as he could manage. He hated hippies. All of them.

“Sure, man,” the hippy, snapping his fingers, “Silence is golden.” For a full minute and fifty three seconds, Billie Joe reveled in city sounds and the lull of other people’s conversations. He fished around in his drawstring bag for the little packet of popcorn he bought from the general store earlier that morning.

Then, the bus stopped and people clamored in. The hippy man chose this moment to break his silence and began to tell Billie about a poem about ‘all the people in the world’ that his mother once wrote for him. Billie Joe groaned painfully as a woman in high heels stepped on his toe as she walked to the seat behind him.

The hippy remained oblivious and decided to recite the poem. It was horrible.

“There are people
I see them standing on the steeple
They see me
I am free.
I look at them
I look at a flower stem…”

Billie Joe mentally blocked out the god-awful words and spared a glance for the woman who stepped on his foot. A man wearing a suit, who’d been sitting behind Billie, had given up his seat for the woman. As he allowed himself to look at her, he realized he would have done the same thing.

She was gorgeous; jet-black hair cascaded down her shoulders and a barely-there, blood red smile graced her lips as though she was hiding something. It was a Mona Lisa smile. Billie himself smiled, still facing the woman. She noticed and smirked at him and nodded towards the hippy.

The hippy was still reciting his poem

“So all of the people
Line up on the steeple
Like to come and go
I like to row
Boats are nice
When they’re not made out of ice.
I like rice.” He finished at last. Billie Joe found that he was blushing. Embarrassed that he was blushing, he blushed even deeper. He blushed deeper still when the woman giggled. The bus stopped again and the man in the suit and a little girl sitting next to the mystery woman both got off and went on with their lives.

The hippy continued rambling and Billie Joe could tolerate it no longer. Before he could stop himself, he moved next to the dark haired woman.

“Hi,” he greeted her, opening his popcorn bag. “What’s your name?”

She stared at him uncertainly while he chewed with his mouth wide open, not caring to hide his relief at not having to sit with the hippy. “You can call me Gee,” she said carefully. She had a pleasant voice. It wasn’t too high. It wasn’t low. It was…nice.

“Gee? That’s…unusual.”

“Yeah, it’s my nickname,” she dared to widen her smile the tiniest bit. “It’s short for Ger—Gina.”

“Gina,” Billie Joe considered the name for a moment. “That’s a good name. Are you Italian?”

Gina laughed. It wasn’t the small giggle she’d let out before. It was an unrestrained, amused laugh. It suited her. “The name and the black hair give me away, don’t they?” Before Billie could think of an answer, the bus stopped again. This time, only one more person climbed aboard.

He was some swanky, vain-looking character, who made no motion to sit in one of the many empty seats. Instead, he came straight to where Gina and Billie Joe were sitting.

“Hey Gina,” he said in what Billie assumed he assumed was a sexy voice. It really wasn’t. “Why don’t you come on over and sit down here?” He patted his lap. “There’s plenty of room.” Gina made a disgusted noise and ignored him. He persisted and rested his hand on Gina’s shoulder.

“Pete,” she hissed, “Get your filthy hand away from my body. Now.”

“You know you like it there.” It was clear that Pete had no intention of moving his hand away from Gina and was in fact inching it slowly towards her breasts. She slapped it away and jammed one of her high heels into his left foot.

Seconds after Pete yelped in pain, the bus halted abruptly. The remaining passengers, including Billie, looked up at the driver curiously.

The driver looked back at where Billie Joe, Pete and Gina were sitting and spoke with annoyance in his voice. “Pete, you get off my bus. I don’t care if you have a right to be on here. Find yourself a different route. I won’t have you come on every day harassing Gina. Go on. Get out.”

With his tail between his legs, Pete was left on the sidewalk. Gina’s tense disposition melted away, leaving silence between her and Billie Joe.

“He really does hit on me every day, you know,” she offered. Billie looked at her quizzically. “He keeps asking me to blow off school and hang out with him. I’d rather smoke a turd,” she said bitterly.

Billie laughed. He liked Gina; she was funny. “You go to a university?” he asked.

“Yeah. Art school. Drawing was probably my favorite subject in high school. I designed this shirt, too.” She tugged on the sleeve of her black silk shirt. “What do you do?”

“Me?” Billie munched another few kernels before answering. “I dropped out of high school. I’m a musician. I’m the guitarist in my band.” Gina nodded curiously. “Want some popcorn?”

“Oh, no thanks. I can’t,” Gina decline politely.

“Sure you can. I know it’s store bought, but it’s still pretty good,” he insisted.

“I really don’t want to.” Her expression grew worried.

“Come on, try it. You’ll like it; trust me.”

“Do you know how many carbs are in popcorn? I really need to watch my weight,” she said, obviously lying. Billie’s eyes riveted to her stomach. No extra pounds there.

“You’re just making up excuses. Just try some.” Billie Joe tried to put some popcorn in her hands, but she jumped up and let it fall.

“Popcorn is evil incarnate, you fucker!” Gina screamed in a surprisingly deep voice, her eyes wide and wild. Everyone turned to her and her pale skin tinged with pink. She sat back down, still blushing. “S—sorry about that,” she stammered. Her voice resumed its pleasant, feminine quality. “I just…I don’t like popcorn.”

“I figured,” Billie Joe chuckled. The bus stopped in front of a brick building. “Well, this is where I get off.” Briefly, he and Gina shook hands before parting ways.

As he stepped on to the sidewalk and made his way down the block, Billie Joe knew he’d be seeing Gina again, one day. He spared a moment to wonder where and when before the show his band would be playing that night took over his thoughts.

Behind the venue, Waldenbooks displayed a new arrival in the window. It was called Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance.