Unfinished
I was sifting through my external HD and found this unfinished "holiday" piece which was my last attempt at prose in recent years. I wrote it in December 2005. It's pretty silly like most of the things I wrote in my late teen years (weird that I can say that...wahh, old).
For the first seventeen years of her life, Anneke was ever-so-grateful that she wasn’t born within the last few weeks of December. A New Year’s Day birthday-which was what she had-was perfect...even somewhat romantic. All the Christmas and reindeer hoopla always died down by then, and all the attention was focused on her exclusively. Plus, January was, obviously, no longer December, and this had its perks; the two-for-one-Yuletide-Birthday-Deluxe had missed the window.
Unfortunately for poor Anneke, this theory applied only to those very seventeen years that she had previously basked in so blissfully. Come this New Year’s Day, aside from the obvious “Oh my God, it’s freakin’ two-thousand-whatever!” floating amidst everyone’s minds in the morning, the word hangover would be flashing in multicolored neon bulbs.
Anneke was no prude, but excessive December 31st partying had the potential to leave her out in the cold and alone like a spoilt, aging piece of cheese on her birthday. What fun would it be to spend the entire day with her friends constantly popping aspirin and incessantly yearning for their warm fluffy beds?
Optimism, however, was key. Anneke had her pre-birthday celebrations all planned out. In October she had pre-ordered two very expensive tickets to attend the gala opening of a new photo exhibit New Year’s Eve at Le Musée d’Art Moderne de Coral Springs, ironically located on the same block as Le Papillon, the French bistro that Elspeth just could not stop raving about for some inexplicable reason.
And the identity of ticket holder number two?
Back in April, Anneke and the rest of the gang had taken a school trip a couple of states up north, and it was like at first sight when she beheld the visage of a floppy-haired brunette of a boy who worked part-time as a valet parker at the hotel her class had stayed at. She and he had exchanged a couple of playful words (“um” was a recurring utterance), and she found out his name was Finley.
Their goodbye was cinematically heartbreaking, though mainly because it never happened since he wasn’t scheduled to work on the day that she had flown back to Coral Springs. But if it was meant to be, they would meet again.
December was actually the one who ran into Finley in early September. She had enrolled in the famous culinary academy a town over since she still had dreams of marrying a gorgeous green-eyed European chef, so she figured that that was the stepping block. In her pastry-making class, she was assigned a partner, and as fate would have it, it was Finley. He had recognized her from somewhere, they became somewhat friends, and she learned that he was (surprise, surprise) working part-time as a valet.
Anneke made an effort to pay him a visit at the restaurant he worked at each time she made it back to Coral Springs from college, foolishly paying the insane fees just to have her crappy Mustang taken care of when she could have easily taken the train and walked there. The first time she drove up he gave her a surprised wave from the little lectern that he was hunched over. They would only say a few words to each other each time she pulled up, but she made sure that she had the CDs of his favorite bands playing on her stereo as she left her vehicle. (December had been secretly feeding her vital information about him.)
On Christmas Eve she decided to ditch her wheels when she came up to visit, the best way to ensure a proper-amount of speaking time. (Her sneaky hobby was also getting very, very costly.) He was leaning over the lectern as usual, talking to Wills, his red-faced Anglophile co-worker who was actually named William.
“Hullo there, Anneke!” Wills called out in his pseudo-posh English accent.
Anneke waved shyly. “Hi, Wills. Finley.” She said his name with an extra pearly-smile.
“No car today?” Finley asked, stating the obvious. Anneke loved when he said obvious things. In fact, she loved when he said anything at all.
“Figured there’d be too much traffic today,” she said coolly, her eyes wandering. I wish Wills would go do something else...I can’t talk to Finley with him around!
Luckily, a forest-green Jaguar pulled up moments later, and Wills, being obsessed with anything and everything having to do with the U.K., decided to put himself to use.
Anneke sighed with intense relief. Now she could finally take action.
“So, I was wondering,” she began. Finley had just zipped up his cobalt blue windbreaker and took a drab of his fancy herbal cigarette. She didn’t approve of smoking, but he looked awfully cool and so macho like a 50s pin-up boy that felt she could make an exception. He took a step closer now that she had his full attention.
“I was wondering what are you doing on New Year’s eve?” Whew. She had finally said it to someone out loud after practicing fifty times in the mirror earlier that morning.
Finley held the ciggy between his fingers, paused in thought.
The silence felt too long, so Anneke continued, to ease the awkwardness. “It’s just that I’ve got two tickets to this fancy art opening thing, and I was wondering if you’d like to come along. I mean, just as friends...I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, but I thought it’d be a good way to get to know each other better, since we only say ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ all the time. I figured it’d be..."
“Uh, Anneke..." Finley said, cutting her off mid-long-sentence.
You figured you would be verbal vomiting at this very moment, that’s what. She thought to herself foolishly. You idiot, moron, dunce, socially inadequate female...
*I just Googled "D.S. Greenwald" and there are ACTUAL people named that, UGH
For the first seventeen years of her life, Anneke was ever-so-grateful that she wasn’t born within the last few weeks of December. A New Year’s Day birthday-which was what she had-was perfect...even somewhat romantic. All the Christmas and reindeer hoopla always died down by then, and all the attention was focused on her exclusively. Plus, January was, obviously, no longer December, and this had its perks; the two-for-one-Yuletide-Birthday-Deluxe had missed the window.
Unfortunately for poor Anneke, this theory applied only to those very seventeen years that she had previously basked in so blissfully. Come this New Year’s Day, aside from the obvious “Oh my God, it’s freakin’ two-thousand-whatever!” floating amidst everyone’s minds in the morning, the word hangover would be flashing in multicolored neon bulbs.
Anneke was no prude, but excessive December 31st partying had the potential to leave her out in the cold and alone like a spoilt, aging piece of cheese on her birthday. What fun would it be to spend the entire day with her friends constantly popping aspirin and incessantly yearning for their warm fluffy beds?
Optimism, however, was key. Anneke had her pre-birthday celebrations all planned out. In October she had pre-ordered two very expensive tickets to attend the gala opening of a new photo exhibit New Year’s Eve at Le Musée d’Art Moderne de Coral Springs, ironically located on the same block as Le Papillon, the French bistro that Elspeth just could not stop raving about for some inexplicable reason.
And the identity of ticket holder number two?
Back in April, Anneke and the rest of the gang had taken a school trip a couple of states up north, and it was like at first sight when she beheld the visage of a floppy-haired brunette of a boy who worked part-time as a valet parker at the hotel her class had stayed at. She and he had exchanged a couple of playful words (“um” was a recurring utterance), and she found out his name was Finley.
Their goodbye was cinematically heartbreaking, though mainly because it never happened since he wasn’t scheduled to work on the day that she had flown back to Coral Springs. But if it was meant to be, they would meet again.
December was actually the one who ran into Finley in early September. She had enrolled in the famous culinary academy a town over since she still had dreams of marrying a gorgeous green-eyed European chef, so she figured that that was the stepping block. In her pastry-making class, she was assigned a partner, and as fate would have it, it was Finley. He had recognized her from somewhere, they became somewhat friends, and she learned that he was (surprise, surprise) working part-time as a valet.
Anneke made an effort to pay him a visit at the restaurant he worked at each time she made it back to Coral Springs from college, foolishly paying the insane fees just to have her crappy Mustang taken care of when she could have easily taken the train and walked there. The first time she drove up he gave her a surprised wave from the little lectern that he was hunched over. They would only say a few words to each other each time she pulled up, but she made sure that she had the CDs of his favorite bands playing on her stereo as she left her vehicle. (December had been secretly feeding her vital information about him.)
On Christmas Eve she decided to ditch her wheels when she came up to visit, the best way to ensure a proper-amount of speaking time. (Her sneaky hobby was also getting very, very costly.) He was leaning over the lectern as usual, talking to Wills, his red-faced Anglophile co-worker who was actually named William.
“Hullo there, Anneke!” Wills called out in his pseudo-posh English accent.
Anneke waved shyly. “Hi, Wills. Finley.” She said his name with an extra pearly-smile.
“No car today?” Finley asked, stating the obvious. Anneke loved when he said obvious things. In fact, she loved when he said anything at all.
“Figured there’d be too much traffic today,” she said coolly, her eyes wandering. I wish Wills would go do something else...I can’t talk to Finley with him around!
Luckily, a forest-green Jaguar pulled up moments later, and Wills, being obsessed with anything and everything having to do with the U.K., decided to put himself to use.
Anneke sighed with intense relief. Now she could finally take action.
“So, I was wondering,” she began. Finley had just zipped up his cobalt blue windbreaker and took a drab of his fancy herbal cigarette. She didn’t approve of smoking, but he looked awfully cool and so macho like a 50s pin-up boy that felt she could make an exception. He took a step closer now that she had his full attention.
“I was wondering what are you doing on New Year’s eve?” Whew. She had finally said it to someone out loud after practicing fifty times in the mirror earlier that morning.
Finley held the ciggy between his fingers, paused in thought.
The silence felt too long, so Anneke continued, to ease the awkwardness. “It’s just that I’ve got two tickets to this fancy art opening thing, and I was wondering if you’d like to come along. I mean, just as friends...I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, but I thought it’d be a good way to get to know each other better, since we only say ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ all the time. I figured it’d be..."
“Uh, Anneke..." Finley said, cutting her off mid-long-sentence.
You figured you would be verbal vomiting at this very moment, that’s what. She thought to herself foolishly. You idiot, moron, dunce, socially inadequate female...
*I just Googled "D.S. Greenwald" and there are ACTUAL people named that, UGH