Bad Day

Entry for the One Path to Many Contest, Warning: Language

about 1,940 words

Later I would reflect that it hadn’t been so bad after all, but on Monday, July 1, 2004 I was pretty sure I was having the worst day of my life. I woke to the sound of my dog whimpering at the foot of my bed.

“Ok Knight, I’m up,” I told him, glancing at the bedside clock. My mind tried to wrap around the digital numbers, 9:48. Suddenly my stomach lurched. “Oh shit!” I struggled with the covers. The more I struggled the more tangled I became. Wiggling and kicking I tumbled over the side of the bed. I tried whimpering a bit myself, but no one seemed to care. I was supposed to be at the gas station at eight. Since I wasn’t there, was it even open? I wondered what one was supposed to do when this sort of thing happened. Should I call? Was there anyone there to call? With considerably more kicking and wiggling I finally broke loose from the blankets and took a flying leap toward the bathroom. That wasn’t my usual mode of travel, but the dog had been in the way. His coat had seemed especially blue today, blue, not grey, blue speckled in fact. Knight had seemed blue speckled.

I threw the medicine cabinet open and grabbed at thin air. My toothpaste, where had it gone? I looked down at the grey marble sink. My toothbrush was in the little plastic cup I kept near the soap, but there was no toothpaste. Wait a minute. My brain slowly began to make an impossible connection. Peering out of the bathroom door I concluded that Knight looked awful decorated in toothpaste.

“Bad dog,” I walked over and pried his jaw open, extracting what was left of the toothpaste tube, “Very, very, very bad chew!” I couldn’t tell if he understood. He wagged his tail and blinked his gorgeous blue eyes at me. “Christ.” I returned to the bathroom, tossed the tube in the trash and turned on the shower. Pulling back the shower curtain I stared at the lipstick scrawled message printed on the bright white wall tile.

“Hey Mark, listen, we all hope that someday you’ll grow to be a decent person.” Knight came in the room and put a paw on the tub. His fur was touching my leg. I shook my head. Stray water droplets sprayed over the edge of the tub.

“Jesus Knight, what the fuck?” He whined at me. “Alright already, I’ll take you for a walk.” Knight danced around me a bit, then shook himself. Toothpaste sprayed everywhere. I took one last look at the lipstick. The shade seemed familiar. I got into the shower, “after my shower.”

I didn’t bother with the lipstick. I had a feeling it wouldn’t come off with just soap anyhow. After my shower I threw on an old comfortable pair of jeans and a T-shirt, put Knight on a leash and grabbed my cell phone on the way out the door. Knight had to be walked, and as I was only getting later by the moment I figured I'd better give calling in a try. I dialed the gas station. Mr. Kramer, the district manager, answered the phone.

“Hi, it’s Mark, I’m sorry I overslept. I can be in around…” he cut me off.

“Don’t bother,” he didn’t sound very happy.

“Look, I’m really sorry about this morning, my alarm clock didn’t even go off and…”

“The job is obviously too much for you Mark. We don’t need you anymore.” I stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk, my heart pounding in my ears.

“What? Wait, you can’t do that to me. I live on my own. I need that job.” That was what I said. Inside I was thinking, it's not like I'm chronically late, what's your problem?

“Tough luck Mark, guess you should have set that alarm clock.” That was totally unfair.

“I did set,” he’d hung up, “the alarm.” I was explaining myself to thin air. “I did.” I looked down at Knight. He was using the chance to sniff a maple tree. “You saw me set the alarm clock, didn’t you Knight.” I couldn’t believe my eyes were actually burning. I was not crying, especially not where someone might see me. I gave Knight’s leash a tug and started walking again. “Want to help me get a new job? How ‘bout it boy?”

The nice thing about dogs is that they never disagree if you say something in the right tone, and they never leave messages in your shower using lipstick.

“Let me see, Rhonda? No, she wears brown. Maybe it was Kim, no, pink,” I rattled off girls I’d dated lately softly as I took Knight for an extra long walk. There was really no reason to worry anymore. “Hmmm, could it have been Caroline?”

“No, she doesn’t wear lipstick at all,” a familiar voice said from beside me. I jumped and ran into Knight who yelped a protest.

“Laura!” My eyes went immediately to her lips. Her lipstick was an orangey pink color. The lipstick in the tub had been a bright red. She seemed to understand what I was thinking.

“It wasn’t me, but I know who it was. She’s been bragging about it all day. She also turned off your alarm clock.”

“Then whoever she was, she lost me my job,” I growled. Laura frowned at me.

“Really? You’ve had perfect attendance there though, haven’t you?” I nodded.

“That evidently doesn’t matter.” I wasn’t very happy with Mr. Kramer either. “It’s not fair, but neither is life. So, who was it?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you, all things considered.” I looked at her. Laura was the nicest girl I’d ever dated. She was the kind of girl who really cared about people. In the end that had been what split us up. I hadn’t been able to handle the way everyone in the world seemed to be just as important to her as I was. I shrugged at her.

“I’m not all that worried about whether you tell me or not. If she’s really been telling everyone, I’ll find out eventually anyhow.” I was playing it cool, hoping she’d feel more comfortable telling me.

“I suppose you’re right. Actually, it was Jessica.” I stared at her.

“Jessica?” Jessica had been my last serious girlfriend. I’d dated her for six months before she’d disappeared. No one had known where she’d gone. It had been two months since I’d seen her. “It was Jessica?” I wasn’t over her. “Jessica is back?” Laura smiled at me.

“Are you happy?” That was one of many emotions I was feeling, some of which I didn’t want to admit to. I was happy, uncertain, scared, angry, annoyed, upset, excited and all of those little emotions in between that were hard to put a name to.

“You aren’t joking around. She’s really back,” Laura nodded. “Where Laura, where is she? I need to talk to her.”

“She’s at Bob’s, eating breakfast. Do you want me to take Knight home?” I handed her Knights leash glad I’d decided to stay friends with her. It had been painful for a while, going from lovers to friends.

“You know where the spare key is.” Laura smiled at me.

“Yep, by the way, you really need to give him a bath.” I rolled my eyes at her.

“Why, he smells so minty fresh.” I jogged off in the direction of Bob’s place hoping Jessica would still be there. She and I had some heavy talking to do.

Bob’s Diner set on the corner of Main and Willow and was a great place to have breakfast, lunch or dinner. By the time I arrived they were gearing up for lunch. It was pretty empty, and three of the servers were gathered around a booth smiling and giggling and talking away. Sitting in the booth was the most beautiful lady I’d seen in months. She had long limbs and thick black hair that fell past her waist in gentle waves. Her fingers were long, thin and elegant, painted a bright red which matched perfectly with her lips.

“Jessica,” I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud until everyone turned to look at me, everyone but Jessica that is. Then they looked away hurriedly. The servers around Jessica’s table beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen. I walked over.

“Are you ignoring me?” I asked watching her long, dark eyelashes.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Her voice was neutral.

“Why should you? You’re the one who disappeared on me.” Now she looked at me. Her eyes are the hardest thing about her to explain. No one would believe those deep purple eyes without seeing them. There’s no use trying to tell me they’re blue either. Those eyes are as purple as purple can get. She looks like a creature from some fairy tale with those eyes.

“It isn’t like you’ve suffered in my absence,” That was a totally unreasonable statement. She had no way of knowing how I’d felt while she was gone.

“Where do you get off saying that? I’ve been miserable without you. I can’t stop thinking about you. You’ve been on my mind constantly since you left.”

“Even while you were fucking half the town?” She asked me this in a tone soft enough that I knew no one had heard it but me. It always sounded wrong to me when Jessica swore. She was too much of a lady to talk like that.

“I had sex with a few people, so what? Jessica, you left, without a word. I didn’t know how to handle it. What did you expect out of me?” She got up, opening her purse and pulling out a twenty. She dropped it on the table and walked toward the door. I followed behind her, not caring what I looked like. I’d missed her so much. It had been so lonely at first. I still had no idea why she’d left me like that. Where did she get off anyhow, telling me she hoped I grew up to be a decent person? Was she a decent person, running away when we were at our closest. She walked for nearly twenty minutes, to the elementary school playground that was a block from my apartment.

“Jessica, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fill the place you’d taken in my life. What happened with those others, didn’t mean anything.” It hadn’t made me feel any better either.

“I’m pregnant.” She was sitting on the metal bar between two teeter totters. I knelt down in the dirt in front of her, put my hand over hers and looked into her fairy tale eyes.

“Pregnant?” She nodded. Now that I really looked at her I could see that she wasn’t flat as a board anymore. She actually had a bit of a stomach. It didn’t seem like enough to have a baby in it though. “From when, is it ours?” A tear gathered in her right eye and fell, another gathered in the corner of her left eye.

“It’s ours. I left when I found out.” I caught the second tear with a finger and whipped it away.

“Why? Why did you leave? Jessica, I love you. You know I love you.” I tried to see things from her point of view but I just couldn’t. It seemed so crazy for her to have left me.

“I didn’t think you were ready to have a kid.”

“Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself?” She shook her head. She was back, my Jessica, she was really back.

“Knight’s missed you.”

“Really?” I nodded.

“Why don’t you come home and see.” I stood and reached my hand out to her. She took it and I helped her up. The two of us walked down the sidewalk from the park as we had many times before. It’s funny how the worst day in the world can turn into the best. Looking back on that day I can honestly say that I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. It turned out to be perfect, just the way it was.