May 21st - "Words in Reverse"

There’s a common theme across the days of early summer - boredom. Once Lucille graduated from college, she literally had nothing to do outside of the odd job application. She would wake up at noon, wear the same shirt for days at a time, and immerse herself in various anime. During the winter, she had been in an old-school 90s action kind of mood; now that spring was springing, she wanted nothing more than to see those digital cherry blossoms fall across her screen. She watched countless numbers of high school freshmen take their first steps into a brand new world, eating their bento and joining off-the-wall clubs.

Regina came by to hang sometimes, while Lucille also made the five-minute drive to her house as well. But both of them still lived with their parents, and there’s just something about hanging out as twenty-two-year-olds while your parents are watching television downstairs that sort of kills the mood. Their parents were respectful and kind, but they were there, and that was enough to drive Lucille and Regina out of the house.

But where to after that? Jackie had her place, but driving to and from the city every night would be an ordeal. That just left hanging around East Eden, but everybody they knew there (and they didn’t have a whole lot of friends) also lived with their parents. In high school they drank in parking lots (well, sipped while watching Jackie do it), made the long walk under a summer sunset to the downtown sub shop, kicked rocks on the train tracks by the outskirts of town. But drinking somewhere where you're not supposed to more or less lost its appeal immediately after turning twenty-one, the pandemic killed the sub shop, and the train tracks…

Well, the train tracks were there. But by the time Lucille and Regina pulled up to it, the May rains had set in. Traditionally, everybody talked about May showers, but during the past decade the weather patterns had shifted slightly. East Eden got snow in October and then had seventy degree days in November. Lucille could’ve sworn they fixed that hole in the ozone layer.

The pair could’ve gone out to eat or get drinks, but they did last night, and the sixty thousand in college loans burned a pretty big hole in Lucille’s wallet. Rock bottom would’ve been to just park outside of Lucille’s house and sit in the car for a few hours, but they weren’t that desperate. Instead, they spent that Friday night in early summer sitting inside a McDonalds. Anybody who sits inside a McDonalds has nowhere else to go.

The burgers went down fast for Lucille. Regina was still nibbling on a fry, and then pointed at Lucille with it. “So anyway, I was driving down the highway but I almost clipped a guy while switching lanes. I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I took the next exit and ended up at a little strip mall. I went to a bookstore, and who did I meet there? None other than John Madden. I go, ‘John, you’re a big football guy, you ever have problems with a drive?’ And he looks at me with that serene smile of his and goes, ‘Regina, when you drive as much as I do, you’re bound to have some unpleasant ones once in a while.’”

“...uh-huh. So John Madden spoke to you in a dream?”

“May he rest in peace.”

The two women drank to that. Lucille was already making that particular plastic cup noise when your straw sucks up nothing but air and emptiness. She looked at the drink in dismay and pulled out her phone. She flipped through posts by her peers in high school and college; everybody seemed like they were out doing something tonight. Some were on vacations, others were at bars, some were singing and dancing while others chanted at baseball games. In comparison, Lucille was spending her Friday night with Regina and the Hamburglar.

“You ever feel lonely?” Lucille blurted out as she rubbed her temples.

Regina shrugged as she unwrapped another burger. “Eh.”

With a frown, Lucille watched rain cascade down the dark window next to her. “Then do you ever feel like you’re missing out? That you’re just an outsider?” She folded her hands together. “I feel like something grand and tangible is passing us by right now. I want to grab onto it, because everybody’s grabbing onto it, and then ride that wave and be part of that scene, but instead, I’m just stuck eating the new chicken sandwich they got here.”

“Ah, but it’s a good sandwich, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s pretty crispy…but I just feel out of place sometimes. Like take my last date, for example…”

A little over a year ago. By then, omicron (and wasn't it always omnicron?) had passed, and people across America seemed to collectively decide they just didn’t care about it anymore. Restaurants opened up, masks went away, parties resumed, and everybody threw their hands up and decided that the past couple of years now existed in some sort of nebulous zone that was best forgotten. But for Lucille, that meant getting asked on her first date of her collegiate career.

He was a fellow student in one of her writing courses, dazzling her with a nice smile and neat clothes. Sometimes, that’s all it took. Lucille wished her heart could’ve gone doki-doki at the sight of him, but love doesn’t always work like that. It wasn’t even love - it was just getting to know somebody, who seemed pretty nice, a little bit better and seeing where it went from there.

He took her to a gentrified restaurant. Lucille had to wear a neat skirt and order things listed on the menu in Italian. At the last second, she remembered her mother’s advice to put the cloth napkin on her lap. She talked about how Marvel movies were simply losing their charm; he talked about rising Turkish inflation. The portion sizes were small, but the Italians knew what they were doing in terms of cooking.

“So, do you want to be a professional writer?” her date asked in a gentle voice.

A vigorous nod answered him. “That’d be the dream. I want to live in a nice little shack by a nice little pond and just write all day long. I’d write about everything. That’s how the greats do it. Ray Bradbury can set a scene like no other. Yukio Mishima is so good, too, minus the whole fascism thing…ahahaha…”

She gave an awkward laugh that turned into a genuine cough. He patiently waited for her to continue and gave her an encouraging smile as she spoke. “And Annie Dillard is my own personal hero. If I could even write just a fraction as well as she does…sometimes, she’s just saying shit, but the majority of the time she creates such a wonderful, vivid feeling in me…”

Lucille was about to daydream, so she decided to pass the mic back to her date. “Do you want to be a writer?”

“I’m actually a poli-sci major. Writing essays is a huge deal, so I’m taking the class we have together to shore up my skills. I want to work in government. I helped out with a mayor’s campaign in 2020, and I’m actually helping out with the governor’s re-election campaign this year.”

“That’s awesome, good for you.” She gave him a teasing smile. “If you’re campaigning, maybe I’ll actually vote this year.”

He suddenly frowned. The air seemed to go stale. “You…you don’t vote?”

Lucille chuckled and shrugged. “I’m registered, but I guess I never got around to doing it.”

“Not even in 2020?” he questioned. “We faced the most important election in our lifetimes. Our freedoms were at stake. And you didn’t vote?”

“Ah, well, you know…election days are Thursdays, right? I was probably busy with class that day-”

“Election days are Tuesdays.”

Lucille decided to cover up the awkward moment of silence by making a big show of dabbing her mouth with her napkin. “Well, I mean…this state always goes blue, doesn’t it? Not saying I disagree with that, but my vote doesn’t really matter, does it?”

There wasn’t a second date. In the present, in that McDonalds, Lucille felt a pitiful pang in her heart. Regina gazed at her face for a moment, then got up to order a round of McFlurry’s for the table. Unfortunately, the ice cream machine was broken, so she just sat back down empty-handed. “Life is sour, huh? But I know what you mean about feeling out of place. There was that party we went to last year…”

Jackie brought Regina and Lucille to a house party in the city last September. Everybody returning to school was more than enough justification to celebrate (not that college students really needed one). Dozens of people packed the third floor of a brick building a few blocks down from the college; the only reason they didn’t get noise complaints was because the first and second floors were partying just as hard. At a house party, as long as you have a drink in your hand, everybody’s your friend. Regina gripped that plastic solo cup with little enthusiasm; parties weren’t really her scene, but Jackie was knee-deep in a pong game while Lucille wore a lamp shade around her head, meaning she ended up hanging out with one of Jackie’s roommates, a woman with black hair named Jill.

If the host was the king of the house party, then his deputy would be the person controlling the aux. Mumble rap dominated most of the night, but when the guy on aux went out for a beer run, control fell to Jill. “Sing along if you know this one,” she told Regina, then switched the genre entirely.

There was a few casual plucks of a guitar string in the air, and then-

“All the leaves are brown,” Jill sang. “And the sky is gray…”

Regina did know this one, but singing wasn’t her scene either. A few nearby revelers swung by and joined in on the singing.

 “I’ve been for a walk…on a winter’s day…” 

All the while, Regina remained mute, just nodding along.

“Aw, c’mon, sing!” Jill held her phone up to Regina’s face to mimic a microphone.

“Not really my thing.”

“Sing, sing!” the crowd chanted.

Regina just shook her head. “Not a singer. And besides, I don’t like The Mamas and the Papas. There was some freaky incest shit going on with the Papa. Look it up.”

Jill slowly withdrew her phone.

Twenty minutes later, Regina stood by herself on the edge of the building’s balcony, resting her arms on the railing. In the distance, near the bright lights of the city’s skyscrapers, a plane ascended into the sky to somewhere else - anywhere but here.

The metal balcony squeaked as Lucille did the robot over to Regina. She dropped her hands upon seeing Regina’s face. “You alright?”

Regina just sighed. “I’m tired of Earth. These people. I’m tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives.”

In the present, in that McDonalds, both Lucille and Regina sighed in unison.

“No kidding,” Lucille said. “We’re a couple of misfits, we’re a couple of misfits. What’s the matter with misfits-”

She paused, letting Regina conclude the lyric. Unfortunately, Lucille was alone in her esoteric knowledge of Christmas specials, so her friend didn’t answer. Lucille just went back to sipping from her empty cup. Regina ran a hand along the window, trailing the falling rain, only to realize there was a distinct lack of it. “Hey, the rain’s stopped. Wanna blow this popsicle stand?”

Lucille needed no encouragement. She and Regina departed the bright lights and blinding white interior of the modern McDonalds for the dark summer night. Puddles covered the ground, soon illuminated by the headlights of Regina’s car. Of course, leaving the McDonalds didn’t mean they had a destination in mind. The train tracks would be soaked and muddy, so they were still out of the picture. Regina opted to instead just drive around East Eden, but something like that, which had been so fun in high school, also lost its luster by now.

“Want to just stop at that school?” Lucille asked. She pointed through the windshield at one of East Eden’s elementary schools, the small parking lot illuminated by a row of white lights. With nothing better to do, Regina pulled inside and, considering they were utterly alone, had no issues finding a spot. When Lucille stepped out of the passenger seat, she immediately stepped in a puddle; she eyed the ripples running through the reflection of her dismayed expression.

Sitting on a car hood beats sitting inside the car, at least. The two women did just that. Lucille looked up at the stars, but clouds covered the sky. A neighborhood surrounded the school; Lucille could hear the familiar sounds of a high school party coming from one of them. They were close enough to hear the individual shouts of girls and chants from the guys, all of them blending together, forming one happy scene. Perhaps they would remember that night for the rest of their lives, build off the social lessons learned there during college, and reminisce about it years upon years later. Remember the time you passed out on the stairs? Remember the time we made out in the closet? Remember the time that college grad felt utterly alone and bored on the hood of that car because of high schoolers?

They wouldn’t remember that last one. They probably would never have any knowledge of Lucille’s existence. Amazing how two ships could pass in the night like that, so close to each other, without ever knowing they were both there.

A new sound suddenly joined in - that of flashing sirens. A cop car pulled onto the street. Lucille felt bad for those high schoolers, but instead, the car pulled into the parking lot. Its bright lights made Lucille squint in confusion.

The lightshow turned off and a woman wearing the proud blues of the East Eden PD stepped out. “We received a noise complaint,” she explained. “Hanging out on school property after dark is prohibited.”

“Sorry,” Lucille mumbled. She didn’t even know that was something she couldn’t do. More importantly - her face was bright red and her heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest. She did the thing that came most natural to her - selling someone else out. To be fair, the cop could definitely hear the party from here.

“I think, uh, if you’re looking for a noise complaint, it’s probably over there.”

The cop glanced in the direction of the brightly-lit house with audible party noises. “Let them have their fun,” she said with a nostalgic smile. “Now, let me run your licenses.”

With great reluctance, Lucille handed over her ID. Regina did the same, simply looking bored of the whole thing.

It was a quick affair. The cop only returned to her car for a few moments before returning their licenses back to them. She looked around the parking lot, confusion obvious on her face. “You’re spending a Friday night in a school parking lot…no alcohol?”

The women shook their heads.

“No boys?”

The women shook their heads.

“...no parties?”

The women shook their heads.

The cop looked off to the side for a moment and scratched her temple. “Wow…well, you guys aren’t in trouble, but you gotta go.”

The cop took off in her car, heading away from the party, disappearing down suburban streets. Lucille and Regina slipped back inside their own car and headed off back towards Lucille’s house. Regina kept the radio off, and there’s nothing more dismaying than a silent car ride home after a lonely Friday night, after - for lack of a better phrase - being utterly alpha’d like that.

When the crimson glow of a red light washed over the car at an intersection, Regina glanced at Lucille. “We’re a couple of misfits,” she sang stoically. “We’re a couple of misfits. What’s the matter with misfits, that’s where we fit in.”

Lucille immediately looked up at her. Regina turned her attention back to the road and the red lights mixing in with orange street lamps on the puddles dotting the asphalt. “I’ll be honest, Lucille. I think for us, we’re not really misfits. ‘Cuz there’s nothing for us to fit into in the first place. Everybody’s living their own lives. The only thing that matters is if you fit in with yourself. And sure, maybe that means some unpleasant moments, because everybody’s swimming upstream and you just want to stop and admire the view. But when you drive as much as I do, you’re bound to have some unpleasant ones. You know what I mean?”

The light turned green. Regina drove on, the car moving slowly along.

Lucille placed her hands behind her head, leaned back in her seat, and gazed towards the sky. There was just enough space in the clouds for a few stars to shine through.

“Yeah…I know what you mean.”