For the hundredth time, she checked the time and knew she was getting late again for her pedicure appointment. Now, they will make her wait in the lounge and ask her a zillion times if she wants to have coffee and give her a dozen bimbo magazines to pass off time before the next LazyBoy gets empty. After all the busy weekdays, Saturday was the only day she could run errands, pay bills, get pampered a bit and stock up groceries for the coming week. She had to start work by Sunday afternoon in order to be up-to-date by Monday morning. This time that she is wasting in the traffic is too precious for her.
Just when she was cursing the traffic in the city, her luck for getting stuck in it on a weekday and wondering if she can get away with going late by screaming at the receptionist in the salon, it started moving a bit. She lifted her feet from the clutch, and smiled at having had her backup plan ready, just in case she had to spend hours at the salon doing nothing. She had her copy of The Color Purple, which she could not find time to read at home. At times like this she thought what her friends who criticize her habit of having a backup plan would say for a situation like this. Would they still say she is not enjoying her life? She should ask them. Writing this on her mental post-it note, she saw to her left to see if the black Honda city is inching towards her car. That’s when she saw it – The Archies cards showroom.
She knows what Archies or Hallmark stand for. Sappy, mushy messages written on expensive merchandise ready to be bought by naive teenage girls, who think its their birthright to spend their Dad’s money on useless stuff like this. These are the people who watch those sappy K-Jo movies and get a wrong idea about life. Silly girls, she thought.
And she could not help but smiling. Not at the silly girls, but herself. For being so judgemental about them, when she herself was one of them till sometime back.
She was her town’s Archies’ favorite customer. She would have one copy of each of Archies’ awesome cards. 25 Reasons why I love you, Titanic cards with Jack & Rose promising each other eternal love, Why you are the best friend ever?, World’s best boss – she had all these in her collection. She was going to use them on a need basis.
Yes, she had thought that life is like a movie – you get into a great college, you fall in love with your best friend and since love is synonymous with marriage, you would also marry him, you and your friends land a great job in the city of your dreams the minute you finish college, you have an awesome boss who adores you, you are in touch with all your college friends even after you finish college You basically smile throughout the movie like you are posing for the Close-Up ad, and are living life likes its a lavish Yash Raj movie.
Oh yes…she had thought all of these. All those dreams had to end like that. There is just no other possibility, right? She had been a good person all her life and so good things will happen to her no matter what.
And then, life happened.
Ooooh yes.. it did. It happened big-time. And she wasn’t prepared for it. Totally.
[Continued in Part 2]
