This maybe not be exactly two and a half pages, but it was such a funny spot to stop at that I have to.
The next bus rolled in five minutes late, at 8:40. After the bus took twice the amount of customers it usually did to accommodate the broken down one, it was already pretty crowded, but after its’ second stop it was getting pretty ridiculous. After its’ third stop, it was getting unbearable.
Olivia was sitting on an aisle seat. The man standing beside her had his hair slicked back and was wearing a fancy suit and a large wrist watch. He was stacked between a lady that looked just like Mike’s land lady, plump and holding a flowery carpet bag and a kid holding a skate board. The flowery bag kept hit Olivia in the knee and the wheel of the skate board kept bumping her head. The man with slicked hair, took out a coin from his back pocket and started flicking it in the air, threatening to hit Olivia in the nose. Every wave of his arm sent a strong smell of cologne into Olivia’s face and mixed with the body odor of the kid behind him, Olivia’s eyes watered a few times. The man sharing her seat looked respectable enough, it was the same man she had spotted rocking back and forth on his heels at the bus stop. His mannerism made Olivia more nervous about being late. He sat stiff as a board in his seat, back straight and eyes straight ahead and only strayed to look at his watch on his wrist resting on a brief case on his lap.
Every stop took twice as long to situate. People getting off the bus had to battle their way through the crowd and people coming on had to find places to squish. Olivia couldn’t see out of the window on the other side of the bus because of so many people. Her stop came. First she had to get by the slicked hair. Then she managed to trip over two pairs of feet and one back pack. She felt like she was going through a trash compactor till she popped off the bus and reinflated like a cartoon character. The store was only one block down Timpa, which was the intersection her bus stops at. By the time she got to the front door it was 9:20.
She swung the door open. Sam, stamping books, was standing behind the dark wood front desk that lined the front of the store. When she saw Olivia walk in she said, “Olivia! Are you alright? Twenty minutes late for opening, we thought you died.”
Olivia smiled, “No just a crazy morning.”
Sam shrugged, “You? Have a crazy morning? I thought you tackled those kind of things out of your life.”
“Well, I guess, sometimes, they fight back.”
Olivia kept walking to the back of the store, toward the stores small office space. Mark, a tall blond man, was stacking books on a shelf in the horror section. “Olivia! You ok? The store’s in a panic.”
Olivia shook her head, “Good morning Mark. Yes, everything is fine.”
She turned down the row of horror books and turned again toward the back wall. Next to the office door Rad was on a latter, leaning against the back wall, taking down the display of Jane Austin off the wall. Olivia looked up at him. “Rad, what are you doing here? I thought you worked tomorrow?”
Rad flicked his head, so his long brown hair swept away from his eyes, “Oh, dude, Miss. Liv. Tim is gonna be thrilled to see you. He called me all worked up cause you hadn’t shown, wanted me to come down for a bit. I think he locked himself in the office.”
Olivia smiled, “Thanks Rad.”
Rad gave her double thumbs up sign. “Yeah, no prob Miss. Liv.”
When Rad started working there three months ago, she tried to correct his grammar and stop him from calling her Miss. Liv. Most of the time he would just respond, “Oh man, sorry Miss. Liv.” Olivia eventually gave up.
She checked the door and indeed it was locked. Tim must have heard the doorknob jingling because he said, “I am little busy right now. Come back later.”
She could hear the hint of panic in his voice. “Tim, come answer the door.”
His voice raised another pitch, “I just need some time ok. I am feeling a little anxious in here. I am not sure where Olivia is,” Olivia started to talk as well, causing Tim’s voice to only get louder and more high pitched.
“She is almost an hour late.”
“Tim, this is Olivia.”
“She is not picking up her home phone or her cell phone. She has never been late a single day the past three years that I have worked with her here, ever.”
Rad looked down at her. She smiled and said to him, “He is just a little panicked.” Then went on talking to the door, “Tim would you stop, this is Olivia!”
Tim’s voice started to pick up pace as well, “and every time I have ever called her she has picked up, if not the first time I ring, then always the second.”
“Tiiim… Tim… Tim, IT’S ME.”
“She could be hurt or dead or-” Tim finally heard her scream, there was a pause then, “who’s me?”
“It’s Olivia.”
“Olivia? Olivia!” The door knob started to jijjle and Tim swung the door wide open. He stood and stared at Olivia for a moment, then barreled into her with a hug. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
Rad shook his head. “Man, Tim you have got to learn to chill out.”
Tim let go and started turning Olivia around. “So what happened to you, were you mugged? I thought you would have been all muddy and torn up when you came in. Did someone hassle you? What happened?”
“No. It was just a crazy morning.”
Tim looked at her, “Crazy morning? I have crazy mornings, Samantha has crazy mornings, Tom Cruise has crazy mornings, but Olivia Daven just gives “crazy morning” a look and it is neat and orderly.”
Olivia tossed her hands in the air, “Well not this morning.”
Tim crossed his arms, “What could have possibly thrown off Olivia Daven’s grove so much she had a crazy morning?”
She started digging through her purse for no particular reason and nonchanlotely said, “Well Mike stayed over last night and-”
Tim leaned down trying to look at her with her nose buried in her purse and interrupted, “Whoa, Mike stayed over last night? Last time I asked about this you said, and I quote, “I have my boundaries.”
Rad gave another double thumbs up sign and nodded his head like a swaying turtle. “Way to go Miss. Liv, showing Mikyrooster a good time.”
Olivia looked up from her purse at Rad, but avoided Tim’s eyes, “I did not show Mikyrooster a good time.”
Both Tim and Rad waited for farther explanation as they stared at her. Olivia indulged them. “We watched a movie last night and he was too tired to drive home, so he stayed the night.”
Sam walked around the corner dragging a cart of books, “Who stayed over last night? Did Mike? Did you guys finally…” She waved her fingers in the air looking for the right words and ended with, “…you know?”
Olivia cut the air with her hands and made big gestures, “No, Mike stayed over, but we did not have intercourse.”
Mark yelled from a few aisles away, “You didn’t have intercourse? Why not? Are you two ok? Did you guys fight? Is that why you were late?”
Olivia pursed her lips together and ran her fingers through her hair, “No. We did not have a fight. Not that this is anyone business, but I just don’t want to get into an intimate physical relationship until we are married and Mike is a respectable person, who is ok with that. So Mike and I will not be having any kind of sex until we are married. He just used the last of my cereal, messed up my coffee maker, used my toothbrush, moved my towel and my cell phone, which all together, made me miss my bus which broke down anyway, making me late. Any other questions?”
A gruff lady’s voice from behind Olivia asked, “Are guys about done with your coffee break? I would like to check out.”
Sam let go of the handle of her cart and walked over to the customer, an elderly lady, wearing a pink crotched shawl and jeweled sunglasses. Sam motioned to the front of the store with her hand. “Right this way miss. Did you find everything you need?”
The older lady answered, “Where’s your medical section? My husband started complaining about this rash on his private parts and I thought I’d look it up before we went to the doctor.”
After Sam controlled her gagged reflex, she said, “Right this way.”
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