Vicky, and who I can only assume is Nia, were doing the most classic girl thing ever. They were holding hands while jumping up and down and screaming. They finally stopped screaming and were just hugging each other. They were also talking at the same time I could swear they couldn’t understand what the other was saying but they would reply to each other. After they were done Jake went over and gave her a quick hug and caught up a little.
Next Alex went over and they stayed hugging for a while, not saying anything, just hugging. Next thing I knew Jake was standing right in front of me, and smiling. “Can I help you?” I asked, then took a step back.
“I just wanted to say, don’t get too upset, he may be currently emotionally unavailable but there’s plenty of fish in the sea.” He had this cocky grin on his face and he leaned up against one of the lamps that were around the fountain. From what I gathered they were currently not together.
“Riiight…” I looked around and Vicky started to walk up to us. “I’m not upset.”
“Oh come on. Don't lie.” He still had that stupid grin on his face.
“She’s not lying.” Vicky backed me up. “What’s it to you anyways? Why do you care?” She crossed her arms across her chest.
“I already have a boyfriend.” I spoke up before things got even a little intense.
“And where is he now?” Jake was still smiling and was looking around. “Is he here?” He put his hand over his eyes like he was shading them from the sun.
“I haven’t exactly been able to meet up with him for a while, now have I.” I put my hands on my hips. His smile never wavered though. “Although, because I didn’t contact him that whole time he probably took it as a break up.”
“Oh sweetie I’m sorry.” Vicky tried to comfort me.
“It’s okay. We barely saw each other anyway.” She was still giving me a look of pity. “It’s just how it is where I’m from, it's really not that big of a deal. I’ll text him tonight and see what's up.”
“Well… that made me sad.” She still looked at me with slight pity. “I know what will make me feel better.”
“Shopping!” Both Vicky and Nia said it at the same time. Nia came up and looped her arm through Vickys’.
“Quinn, Nia. Nia, Quinn.” Vicky gave a quick introduction. She hooked her arm in mine and started walking. “Alex just caught Nia up on everything so you don’t need to pretend around her either.” She explained in more of a hushed tone. We were now in public and we had to make everything about us seem believable. Not that anyone has asked yet, but this school is full of future cops and we had to be thorough.
I was dragged into a store that Vicky said ‘everyone goes to.’ I didn’t bother to learn the brand names because this was supposed to be a fast mission, only a few months. When everything was over I would go back home and wear my regular clothes. Both Vicky and Nia were obsessed with the idea of being able to dress me up and style me however they wanted. Nia was the youngest and Vicky only had younger brothers. I did try and tell them to keep in mind how Maz’s dressed so I trusted them that they also know that kind of fashion. I didn’t really care about that kind of stuff and dressed more for comfort and flexibility.
Alex and Jake were sitting awkwardly on ottomans that were clearly too small for them. They weren’t talking, just looking at everything but toward the dressing room. I felt a little bad, this was mostly a women's store so they didn’t even stand a chance of pretending to shop.
All the clothes stores were set up so they were connected on the inside so you could do one large continuous shopping spree. We ended up grabbing about 20 different pairs of day clothes, a few pajamas, about five pairs of workout clothes, and a couple of dresses just in case there was a fancy occasion. I had a whole new wardrobe. The nice thing was because of how all the stores had their system set up, you could pay at any store and the money would still go to the correct places.
We went up to a register and put everything down, the poor teen who was working the register had a look of defeat as everyone had their arms full of things. She ended up calling someone over to help bag everything while she scanned. She showed the screen with the total, I reached for my wallet to grab out my card.
“Oh let me.” Everyone else spoke up almost in perfect unison.
“I’m fine. I got it.” I waved my card and went to pay, but Vicky grabbed my hand.
“No really I got it.” She gave another look of pity and went to pay, but this time it was she who was stopped.
“No, I got it.” Jake and Alex exclaimed at the same time and both grabbed out their cards.
“Nope, nope, nope, nope. I was the one who made her get more than half this stuff. I should pay.” Nia said while reaching for her wallet. Well this started, not an argument, but a gentle debate. Everyone gave reasons why they should be the one to pay or pitch in the most.
My conclusion, Mov’s are too good for this world, it kind of weirds me out and gives me goosebumps. I also have concluded that it’s easy to pay when everyone else is too busy trying to be the nicest person.
“Lets’ go.” I started to grab a couple of the bags. “Jake, grab the dresses and don't let them touch the ground.”
When I looked at everyone they looked slightly surprised but then it switched to defeat when they started to put their cards back into their wallets and then their wallets into their pockets and bags. I got a series of ‘you should have let me pay’ and ‘I can pitch in’ from everyone. I kept reassuring everyone that it was fine and they grabbed the rest of the bags. Even on the trip back to the cars everyone was still trying to give me money.
We split up and the boys took Alex’s car and us girls took Nia’s car. I got in the back seat and sat in the middle. We got on the phone with the boys on the car's speaker phone because they didn’t want to feel let out. “I feel absolutely awful about the fact that I am conforming to stereotypes but I have to ask. How did you pay for that?” Nia asked sheepishly and was slightly blushing.
“It’s okay.” I reassured her, it was kind of a stereotype but not really considering that 75% of Maz’s are either lower middle class or upper low class. It is hard to keep a lot of money when at least one of the members in your family is in jail at all times. “My dad is a doctor and works in experimental technology.”
“Oh!” Nia sounded pleasantly surprised. “My dad is also a doctor. Maybe I know your dad?”
“Probably not.” I let out a little laugh. “My dad used to be a doctor when he was very young, but despite him being a young genius, he got fired. After that he kind of lost his way, but after a few years he went back to being a doctor. Now he does all of his work for the hospitals anonymously. We still get paid though.”
“Wow. That’s actually amazing.” Vicky looked back and was smiling. “Maybe we can meet him someday.”
I could tell she was being completely serious. “Oh, I don’t know…” I let out yet another nervous laugh.
“Come on. I don’t know what you are thinking but after all this I hope that we can become friends and stay that way.” Vicky said with an almost defeated hope. The world we lived in sucked and people who were different hardly mingled with one another.
“My parents are just a little private, that's all. They hardly go in public showing all their faces or even showing their real face.” More than half of society now had these face disguisers, they were little stickers with micro projectors attached to them so that when you put one in front of each ear, and turned them on, you could become any person you want.
“Well I think we will meet them.” Nia spoke up, she too was smiling.
“We all hope that we can become friends.” Alex spoke up over the phone. “And stay friends too.”
That gave me false hope, but still hope. After I get down to whoever or whatever is doing bad things to these students, I will most likely be asked to leave the school. I have never let anyone get too close, not even my boyfriend has met my parents. It made me kind of jealous, Mov’s had such great hope for this world, while Maz’s could only see it for how horrible it is. I wanted to see the world that way, but my rose colored glasses were destroyed at a very young age, I could never look at the world the same way they do even if I wanted to.
YOU ARE READING
Cape View
FantasyIn the year 2155, Quinn has to find out how to keep her family secret from her new found friends and enemies. Quinn also has to be able to keep her life as simple as she can despite the chaos of her everyday life.
