Ordinary

* CHAPTER 2 *

I woke up to the sound of my alarm screaming at me. My hand groped the nightstand looking for my clock as my eyes refused to open. I found it and tried to pull it closer which only resulted in it falling off the nightstand.

I swore and snapped out of bed. I grabbed the clock off the floor and ripped the chord out of the wall. Quickly, I hopped in the shower and got my work uniform on, which was a forest green polo and khakis and a black belt. I ran past my mom, who had passed out on the couch, and grabbed a granola bar from the kitchen cabinet and went on my way.

I swung by Meg's house and sat waiting in her driveway. I saw her run back and forth past the window, scrambling to find her bag, then her shoes, all the while her little brother tried to jump on her back. I couldn't help but giggle as she ran out of the house with one shoe on her foot and the other in her hand.

She slid into the car and looked over to me. "What?"

"Nothing", I laughed.

On the drive to work, we filled the air with small talk. Ya know, the usual how are you? It's nice today, isn't it? Aren't you excited?

It was mostly Meg asking questions and me answering shortly, good... yes... yes.

I pulled into the large parking lot that was awaiting thousands of people but would really only get 230... on a good day.

We walked up to a side door that lead into the employee building. I walked down the hall stopping at the clock- in machine and punched in my number. 5-9-5. The little message popped up saying "Welcome Josie Sanders!" I scoffed at the newly added, and rather unnecessarily happy message.

We locked up our bags in our lockers and sat in the so-called "break room" until other workers started showing up. Just as we were all about to go to our spots Allen, our boss, stopped us in the door. Those who were still sitting stood and clumped by the door to hear what he had to say. 

"Now as you all may know", He started. "Business isn't doing too well." I turned to Meg and laughed a little. "In fact, if we don't get more visitors soon we'll be shut down." My slight grin faded away. "But don't worry we're making great efforts to get our name out there. We are now officially commercialized across the country." About 8 months ago Allen decided it'd be a good idea to make a commercial. It was short and dumb and consisted of an action shot of the main coaster, my coaster, whizzing by and the parks name, Addison's Ridge, flashed over it. Don't ask why it was named that because I honestly wouldn't know the answer. Allen went on to explain how the company officially began broadcasting the commercial across all of America 3 months ago to get business for winter break. He said that the phones have been constantly ringing with people asking for information about the park and that we should expect about double the visitors over break.

 After his big shpiel was over Meg went over to her stand and I made my way across the park swinging my water bottle back and forth. When I got my coaster I put my water bottle up in the booth above the carts. I went through the regular routine with the maintenance worker running the ride when he told me to. By the time we were done the speaker cracked on, announcing, "The park is now open." At some point, the other two people who worked at the coaster came in without me noticing. Jill and Dan both helped guide people in line and check the seats and such. Within minutes the line was filled up. I was shocked that the commercial might actually be working

Once the first ride of the day was loaded up, I repeated the same scripted message I did every 2 minutes every day. It was printed out and posted in front of me yet after reading it about 2 million times it gets in your head. "Welcome to the Steel Wolf! You're in for quite the adventure! We ask you to secure any loose items and have fun! Get ready to run with the wolves!" I waited for the thumbs up from Dan and Jill and pressed the green button and the ride started off. My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I slipped it out as the next ride was being loaded and read the message from Meg "I can't believe Allen's commercial bullshit worked!"

"I know!" I sent back.

I looked up at the next ride was filled up, so I read the speech again, "Welcome to the Steel Wolf! You're in for quite the adventure! We ask you to secure any loose items and have fun! Get ready to run with the wolves!" and pressed the button.

After about 2 hours of this, it was time for my lunch break that was required by the state. So I stopped by one of the concession stands and grabbed a hot dog and 2 doctor peppers served in styrofoam cups then went to Meg's game tent. Recently she had been working at the game tent where you shoot at the little red star on the piece of paper. I sat next to Meg as I munched on my food and we talked and watched people go by and Meg helped the few people that came up to her booth. When no one was coming to Meg's game I picked up the gun and aimed at the star within 10 seconds all the red was gone. I spent all of my free time with Meg so all of her games became second nature to me.

"Shit shit shit." Meg turned her back to the crowd and moved closer to me. "Cute guy at 2 o'clock."

I put the gun on the counter and subtly turned to find who she was talking about. "Where?" I furrowed my brow.

"He work's here." I looked again. "he's switching out the garbage cans."

"Oh wow" I finally saw him. "Oh wow. He's-"

"Yeah."  She nudged me "You should go talk to him."

I scoffed and turned back to sip my drink. "Funny." I put my cup down and picked up the gun again. "Put another sheet up." 

She replaced the paper star and watched as I shot it out.

"You got quite the shot there."

I turned and jumped when I saw the attractive guy standing directly in front of me. Meg sipped her drink to cover her face and turned around nervously pretending to be busy.

I paused for a second watching Meg and then turned back to him. "Thanks. I get a lot of practice", I said sounding surprisingly cool and calm. 

"My name's Casper, by the way", he extended a hand.

"Josie", I shook it "My name's Josie."

"Nice to meet you, Josie." We paused and looked at each other dropping our hands back to our sides. His eyes were this beautiful light green. They looked like sunlight shining through a perfectly green leaf. "Anyways", He broke the silence. "I have to get back to work. But I hope to see you around", He gave a half smirk as he glided off into the crowd.

Once he was out of sight  Meg whipped back around. "Holy shit Jo, I didn't know you were actually capable of talking to someone so smoothly."

I let out a breath that I didn't even realize I'd been holding and laughed, "Me neither" I chugged the rest of my soda and walked back to my coaster, my heart now a bit jittery from this recent interaction