A Day In The Life - {Watty Awards 2015}

Chapter 3: A Day In The Life (Melinda)

All day, I couldn't stop thinking about Anthony's disappearance and his mother's murder. It was all so odd... Then a second odd thing happened that pulled me up out of my thoughts. It was Jezebel. She was saying something.

"What do you think happened to Anthony? I mean, it's not like he's called in sick or anything, and he hasn't been at work."

This suggestion at exactly the subject that I'd been thinking of made me turn. I stopped stuffing pita bread and looked at Jezebel. I told her what I'd seen in the cafe while she was asleep in my car. We thought the same thing at the same time: it was odd that Anthony's mother hadn't called in his kidnapping to file a missing persons report, because they had a really strong relationship and he was a responsible kid.

Wow. We are twins in an alternate universe.

All the rest of work, we were both quiet, so I assumed that we were both thinking about the kidnapping and murder. After our shift ended at ten, we went back to my car. The ride to take her home was a blur, so was the ride to my house. I vaguely remember taking out my contacts and going to bed.

Thursday morning, I woke up to an air horn and Jezebel standing over me with earmuffs on. "Sorry," she said, "I tried nicer ways to wake you up, but you, my friend, were practically comatose."

I grumbled something at her about how polite to was, even though I was drowning in a sea of my own subconscious, to resort to an air horn. She apologized again, with slightly more sarcasm. I slid out of bed, onto the floor, with a weird taste in my mouth. Then I remembered that I forgot to brush my teeth last night. Feeling gross, I got some clothes and went to shower. Then, after my shower, I got a text message: I'm in the car :) - Jezebel, so I headed out to the car. So ensued another day at Pita Pit. The same went for Friday, and on Saturday, I actually got out of bed at what most would call a "decent" hour, some other people would call it "seven A.M.", and I call it torture for one on Summer Vacation. After I spent a couple hours on the computer, I got bored, as I often do, and decided to go see Jezebel.

I made the ten-minute trip to her house to see Jezebel, or the back end of Jezebel, her top half in her Impala, which she was restoring. I had bought mine pre-restored, but she wanted to restore her own. It meant the world to her. Somehow, she heard me pull up over the sound of Alice Cooper's School's Out For Summer blaring from her garage. When she removed her head from the car, she looked at me, smiled, and waved. She signaled me to get out of my car, so I did. She looked like she wanted to greet me, but she was practically covered in car grease, so I fully supported her decision not to. She went inside, and I followed her, to come in and say hello to her mom and sister.

"Hi, I didn't know that we were kidnapping you for the day Melinda," Annette said, the word "kidnapping," making me cringe a bit on the inside. I had still not forgotten about Anthony. " I hope your parents are okay with it, but I'm sure they are." So I sat talking to her mom for a while, before her sister, Nell, came down the stairs. She was positively tired-looking and adorable. She was fourteen, but she looked like she was four, with her strawberry curls and whatnot.

It was when Jezebel came down the stairs, about to address her mom, when the door opened. A figure filled the doorway. He must have been 6 feet tall, because he was slightly but noticeably taller than Jezebel, who is 5 foot 11 and change. Everyone turned to look at the door. "Andrew!" Jezebel yelled. "I didn't think you'd be home for, well, a long time. Melinda," she turned to me, "I want you to meet my brother Andrew. He's the one I told you about."

This took me by surprise. "I thought you were kidding about having a brother."

She looked at me cheerfully. "Nope. And he's the best brother ever."

"Can I come in, or should I just stand here and be talked about in third person?" Andrew asked from the doorway. Smiling, he stepped into the room. He was, very honestly, truly, and however cliche it may sound, tall, dark and handsome. "I see you made a friend."

"Yes, Andrew, this is Melinda, my best friend in the entire universe!"

"Nice to meet you, 'Melinda, my best friend in the entire universe.' How are you?"

I tried to think past him, which wasn't working all too well. "I'm... doing good... how are...you?"

"I'm well. I just flew in from Italy, so I decided to stop in and say hello."

"Hello!" came all of our enthusiastic replies.

"Andrew," Jezebel began, "Melinda and I were just going out for french toast, would you like to come with us?"

Oh crap. If I couldn't talk to him, how could I survive a breakfast with him?

"Sure. I'll go drop my stuff downstairs and we can go."

As soon as he was out of the room, her mom went back to cooking and I saw her sister, asleep at the table, having missed all of the previous scene. The room was quiet until Andrew came back up the stairs, having dropped his bags downstairs. "So, shall we go?" he asked.