Fade In
Fade In
Copyright © 2014 M. Mabie
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of the material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is coincidental and not indented by the author.
LICENSE NOTICE. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book man not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
DISCLAIMER. This is a work of adult fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The author does not endorse or condone any behavior enclosed within. The subject matter is not appropriate for minors. Please note this novel contains profanity and explicit sexual situations.
Cover Design Copyright © 2014 by Arijana Karcic, Cover It! Designs
Book formatting by Stacey Blake, Self Publishing Editing Services and Formatting
Editing by Mickey Reed, Mickey Reed Editing
For everyone throughout my life who told me I should be a writer and for the girl inside me who always thought it, too.
“Well, he's coming home. And that's all that matters. I have class tomorrow, but only until two, so I'll just see you there,” I say as I half-look where I'm going and half-look backwards to wave at Charlotte. “See you later.”
Then I'm flat on my ass on my way to the door of the waiting room. The cute girl who was here and left about fifteen minutes ago is back. Ass stinging a little from the fall, I sit on the hardwood floor where I landed and just watch as she's waving around like a maniac.
“Did you forget something?” I ask, but I can't stop watching her frantically look around. It's a rhetorical question.
“My bag. I think it's… Yep, there it is.” And she snatches the gray bag by the body and swings the loopy part over her head.
“Wow. How far did you have to run back here for that? You must have been halfway downtown.” I'm still in her wake and totally distracted by her.
She's looking through the orphaned sack is as if someone may have stole something out of it while it was tucked up against the stair in the patient sitting room. Then she abruptly stops like she's confirmed that everything she owns is still intact and accounted for inside that suitcase-sized bag she's lugging around.
“No. I was just waiting on a cab. I have to be at an interview in, like, twenty minutes and I didn't want to be all sweaty.” She laughs at the thought of it, probably because she said it out loud. Following which, the real-life cartoon girl standing above me changes her voice into a deep, faux baritone. “Uh, yeah.” She scratches her chest like she must think guys do. “I'm here for the inner-view. Har-har.” Then she laughs a little again—at herself—while pretending to fan her underarms for dramatic effect.
Just as suddenly, she's switching back to her normal speaking voice that is years younger than even her pretty face. She whispers almost to herself, looking at the ceiling. “Why am I still talking to you? I have to go. Get up. I have to get another cab.” She acts like her knocking me down is the somehow
her
biggest inconvenience.
It must have interrupted her act.
After she grabs one of my hands and almost yanks my arm clean off, she rushes past me, not saying another word. Before she gets all the way past me, I realize that, on the other side of her dress where her purse thing is holstered, it is bunched up on the side and back and her ass is showing from behind.
I reach out and miss her. She's fast.
She's out the door and weaving through the foot traffic on the sidewalk towards the street before I can make it to her to help.
Her underwear is funny. They say “The Days of the Week” across her butt. Not any one in particular. No. Not that kind. That's the funny part. These just say “The Days of the Week.” I'm staring at her ass the whole time that I'm chasing after her to tell her that they're on display.
I'm dodging pedestrians the same as she, wading through them to get to the road.
I know I'm supposed to be saying something before she goes any farther, communicating that she should stop, but now she's wagging her arms and the one-woman show still has me watching this bazaar creature in what must be her only and natural state—frenzied.
Her cute little blue dress is wrapped up and around her purse like a wind-whipped flag on a pole.
First, I sort of feel bad for her. Lots of bystanders have no doubt seen her ass cheek and her preference for comedic undergarments. Then, I think that she just might deserve it, like the Universe gets as big of a trip as I do from watching her spectacle. The Universe knows she can handle it. It's almost too awesome to stop it at all.
But I'm still getting closer, and she sees me rushing through the people. I probably look a bit deranged with the shit-eating grin I'm bringing with me at Frogger speed, arms out like I want brains for lunch.
“What now?” she spits, shaking her head back and forth, raising her arms in wild animation. There are people watching across the street who should be hailing their own cabs, but they’re just as caught up in her luminosity as me.
She unconsciously begs for attention.
“What the fuck?” she fumes.
I know I don't want to draw more attention to the scene, for her sake, because she's doing a good enough job of it on her own, but instead of just coming out with it and saying, “Your dress is up,” or something equally as direct, I grab at it and hastily try to fix it myself.
I am so damn stupid.
It's after I get my hands on it and start redirecting the errant fabric that she starts swinging.
“Who do you think you are?!” The untamed tornado slaps at me like she's riding a bike with her arms, blond hair swinging over her shoulders like a shampoo commercial.
I'm laughing and trying to tell her to stop. Covering my face and vital organs, I attempt to shield off this pretty lunatic's assault.
She tells me that she has mace.
My voice comes back. “No. Stop! Your dress. It was stuck. It was up!”
Her roll slows just a little, although she’s still swatting at me every second or so. “What?” she huffs. Her cute forehead wrinkles. She looks down. Then up at me. “What did you say?” The hitting never completely abates. Though now it's just her one arm running into my arm in methodical repetition.
“I fixed your dress. It was wrapped up in your bag thing.”
Her face shows her brain's recognition of what I've told her. “Shit.”
I wave around her and get the attention of a cab driver. She still needs to get downtown, and she's lost her train of thought, realizing she just half-mooned lower Manhattan.
The cab pulls up and she steps over to it. Turning back to me, she confirms, “Is this for me or are you...?”
I shake my spinning head and gesture for her to take the cab. She's so fucking pretty and my instinct says, “Don't let her go.” Instead I settle for, “I'll get the next one.”
“You'll get the next one. Okay.” She opens the door, a light going off in her head, reminding her of the time, I suppose. She speedily says, “Okay. Yeah. Sorry about beating you up. Thanks.” She keeps popping her head back towards me, punctuating her words. “Yeah. Sorry. You saw my butt. Oh my God.”
She's a calamity.
Then she's back in the game again, yelling the address and building she's headed to, and just waves at me out the window.
When they pull away, she gives we one last look out the dirty cab's back glass. I see her smile wide and shake her head. She waves one more time and then smacks herself in the forehead.
I can't really think straight. I raise my arm first as a gesture of goodbye before I turn to hail a yellow ride of my own.
I've thought about that girl a lot in the last few years.
I only met her briefly on one occasion, but she left a pockmark in my mind. She was dynamite and she had an indefinitely long fuse that never stopped burning. Those around her never knew when she would blow up, not looking away because she was a mess who was fun to watch.
I hope she's still like that when my mind drifts back to her through the years that pass by.
Maybe I should have shared the cab. Got in with her. Stayed with her.
I don't know.
Who ever really knows that it is the first time, the first time you meet? It's only the first time after there's a second time. Up until then, it's just an only. One moment to the next could alter everything.
Every decision pushes you or pulls you where you're going in life.
At times, after running into her, when I felt like I was pushing every day to do better, to get further, make a bigger difference, and like I was getting nowhere and I was just spinning my tires, I’d think of her.
She pulls life along. That girl was making life keep up with her.
And that's too special to forget.
