I scope the people in the extraordinarily long line in front of me. Arab guys in a charger. 20-something and his wife in the Explorer in front of me. They're high on life and bounce around making the suv wag its butt in my face. Behind me a skinny blonde with a medium face wearing scrubs in a silver 90's-esque sports car. The car says, don't hate, I'm a single mom still holding on to my pre-kid coolness. She prolly just came from work. Getting food before she picks up the kid from her mom's house. She flicks some hair out of her face and taps a manicured nail against the side of her car. Maybe she still lives with her mom.
I get to the window, pay the teen white girl with chipped hot pink nail polish. I get to the food window, make sure my Aventura is playing low enough but not too low. I make eyes at the latino mixing my latte. He's probably the same height as me, bordering on the genetically defective. But his skin is just the right shade of warm, and his smile is shy. I know he speaks English. He always works late like this. Honduras, maybe? No, probably just Mexico. At the last minute he laughs at something behind him and puts my drink on the ledge. The tall latina girl with big dangly earrings picks it up and I scowl as she pulls a straw and hands it to me out the window.
When I park on the other side of the barrier of shrubbery and open my laptop, I turn off the reggaeton and listen to La Fouine rap about things I don't understand in French.
Part of me thinks I like it this way, always peering in to what I could be doing otherwise. But the thing is, I've probably already done most of what they're doing and I didn't feel any more connected to other people. I could go out and have drinks like the Arabs were doing. I could have played around in the car like a little kid with a guy I liked. But I still feel so... outside.
I've always been a weird kid, okay. But I kinda thought some day I could let go and allow my quirks to flourish under the stewardship of what Anne of Green Gables would have called a kindred spirit. I think I've been hiding myself in actions that I think would appear more natural than the ones I actually want to make. So I'm dropping it.
If I want to sneak around for no reason, I can sneak around.
If I want to tell you the truth instead of what you want to hear, I should.
If I don't want to settle for anything less than what I know I deserve, I shouldn't have to.
And if I really want to go to New York and see what happens, I can.
Oh Jason Derulo, don't put on your shades to cover up your eyes. You're headed to the club, hun. Its dark outside. And you might wreck your pretty car.
I ride solo back to the house with my half drunk latte and a hand cramp.
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