Wake me

3: Home

The following month was boring. I wasn't able to do much, especially since both mother and father worked and I was stuck home alone with Margie and nobody else. Margie was the caretaker Mother had hired for me, and although she was very sweet and did her job well, she wasn't very comforting and was at times a little bit awkward to talk to. She was nearly fifty years old, and was too busy cooking or cleaning to really notice me skulking around the house, dragging my slippers across the shiney wooden floors.

It was a Monday morning, and I sat at the breakfast table, the taste of mint toothpaste lingering in my mouth. Margie stood over the stove, stirring some porridge she had made. She had offered me some, but I turned her down saying that I had already brushed my teeth and the porridge wouldn't taste so good. I also added that I was full after the supper she cooked the other night- although I had only had one helping of the butternut soup. She told me it was okay, but I must have lunch later on.
I doodled in my notebook with my black pen, then practiced my handwriting and pondered on some unimportant things like flowers and dragonflies. Ever since I was little, I had always loved dragonflies. I used to catch them in the garden and keep them in jars for days on end, trying to take photos with Mom's Polaroid and sketch their colors down in my sketch pad. When I met Luke, he used to tease me about the drawings I made after he found them when we were cleaning out the lounge chest of drawers. He had found them in a big album mother kept my 'child things', as she called them. This included things like drawings, photos from preschool, old oink hair elastic a and embarrassing tapes and videos of me when I was a chubby toddler marching around the garden in my baby blue panties and pigtails. Luke then constantly used to point out every dragonfly he saw after that, until the day... Until the day.
"My dear," Margie started, "What are your plans?"
"I'm not sure yet, Margie." I sighed, putting the pen down and closing the notebook slowly. Margie sat at the table, blowing on a spoon of hot chocolate. She reminded me of goldilocks from the The Bears tale father used to tell me when I was four or five, and too afraid to fall asleep. Except she looked like a lot older version, with grey plaited hair and misty, dusted eyes that seemed to faded out to be belonging to a child. Her skin was a bit darker and more wrinkling from years in the sun; she grew up in South Africa. But she wore frilled things and lace dresses like a little girl, and wore clipping and clapping heels around the house, which kept me up at night and woke me in the morning. It was like my alarm clock. "Why don't you do some gardening? The shed has lots of spades and forks that haven't been touched in ages! I went in there the other day, and let me tell you, there is so much dust in there! I think I'm going to have to clean out that shed. I didn't even know it existed until I trimmed the rose shrubs, you know." Margie explained, trying to make some conversation with me. However, she knew her efforts would be wasted as I started at the peeling yellow wall of the kitchen, listening but not really focusing on what she was saying.
"I might go to the music store." I replied blankly, not shifting eye contact from the chipping walls. I remembered when Father had painted them, I was in grade five and despised the color yellow. He had done it anyways, to spite mother and I, but the color grew on us. Now, it was old and grimey and started to grow off of me, like the paint from the wall itself.
"That's an idea," Margie smiled toothy, "What music store? Has a new one opened at the mall?"
"No, not at the mall," I said, "there's an old, dusty one down by Oak Drive. It's covered by buildings and cars, like the shed with the roses? And they sell records and old tapes, not CD's or DVD's." Margie looked at me in interest.
"Is that so? I have never seen this music store, why don't we go together? Let me go put some more comfortable shoes on." She suggested happily, her cheeks a bit more colorful at the thought of getting out. To be honest, I quite liked the idea of the cold breeze on my skin too, and went to my room to fetch a tweed jacket and then waited for Margie's clacking heels coming down the stairs.

"It's a nice day, isn't it?" Margie grinned, looking up the grey sky. It wasn't a sunny day at all, but the ticklish breeze and fresh air made it seem a lot prettier. We passed the rows and rows of houses with bricks and ivy growing up the sides of the window frames, and I spoke to Margie about things I liked- movies, songs and bands that she could remember when she was younger. That was something we had in common- a good taste in music. I didn't like the usual stuff they played on the radio, but I liked the old bands. The rock n roll, the heavy metal, the Beatles and the Doors. That music seemed like it actually meant something, as if there was a meaning behind the lyrics. We talked for a while longer before we reached the Corner Café, where I sometimes had coffee after my weekly strolls around the town. We took the left alleyway and right at the end, hidden by some old clothing and shoe shops, was the Rusty Reel, the music shop with old discs and records hanging in the windows, along with crinkling posters advertising specials and concerts. "This is a neat little shop!" Margie exclaimed, admiring the creaking metal sign above the doorframe. It had peeling golden letters on the deep green painted metal, and swayed to the winds beat. I pushed open the door and the bell tinkled above my head,many the smell of tapes and plastic and dust was like home to me. Margie tottered ahead of me to a poster that was displaying her favorite band when she was younger, and began paging through the booklets and music records on the shelf. I walked slowly and carefully behind rows and rows of dusty shelves, and to the back of the store where the vinyls were. I flicked through faded albums of well-known bands, like Nirvana, Metallica and ACDC before finding an artist I had not heard of. It was only a pound, and I picked it up and slung it under my arm while I paged through some more. The old man at the counter greeted me when I went to pay silently, letting Margie still gaze undisturbed at the music she had once adored. "How are you doing today?" Mister Robin smiled a yellow grin as I fumbled through my bag for change. "The usual," I said, "Yourself?"
"Good, good, my dear! I was worried about you, I haven't seen you here in ages! I started to think you had heard some good modern songs, and abandoned me and this little place." He looked around the cluttered store with a passion in his brown eyes. "This store is my second home, Mister Robin, I would not just abandon it." I smiled, and handed him a few coins. He counted them feebly and put the record into a brown paper bag, then gave it to me. "Thank you!" I said.
"No problem- I see you brought a visitor, is it your mother?" He asked curiously.
"No, no! My moms at work- this is my caretaker, her name is Margie." I explained. Mister Robin didn't know anything about me, except the fact I was a normal girl who liked good music. "Oh!" He said, "I'm glad, that you brought her here, I mean. Have a good day, dear."

Margie and I sat at the Corner Café, sipping from our lattes. Margie had shown me five albums that she had purchased from the Rusty Reel, and I responded in interest about the songs she liked and the artists she didn't. "You know," Margie said, "I honestly think Jim was an excellent singer, I wish the Doors was still going on, although they'd probably be influenced my modern music, so maybe it's better they ended the band and now we are left with these masterpieces."
"I agree, but I mean not all artists make excellent albums. They normally have two bad ones before they make a good one." I added, adding more honey to my latte. Margie liked the coffee shop too, especially since the waiter was a very nice looking middle aged man who offered her a biscuit with her latte. She was determined to find out his name, but every time he got closer she forgot to check the silver name badge on his uniform. I knew his name; John Groves. However, I wasn't going to spoil it for poor Margie who seemed very interested in this little game. I lay some coins on the table and counted them out, just enough for my latte. Margie pushed the coins back towards me and shook her head reluctantly, "Now now, you brought me here and to that fantastic store. I think I owe you some coffee for once." I smiled, and without hesitation put the coins back into my cracked, brown leather handbag, along with the dusted off record. The man on the cover had brilliant eyes and slightly slicked back, greasy hair- he looked so much like Luke.