NOT Forever 21 (Thank God)

Last night I was sitting on the butt-torturing chairs of the 24-hour Starbucks located on the corner of North Ave. & Wells St. in Chicago. My neighborhood. I wanted to get out of the house, write, see where the evening creatively took me. When I got there the only table I could find that also had an electrical outlet for my laptop was a 6 person one. I felt guilty for a moment then snagged it. After about an hour of sitting alone, a couple of young girls, no older than 20 or 21, circled in on me. They asked if they could sit on the end. No problem. I then pulled out my iPod from my bag in an effort to build a somewhat false sense of privacy, to drown them out and focus on trying to be creative. It was no use. Quickly their conversation began to smother the smooth melancholy of my Ray LaMontage songs and I began to get agitated. I was blocked, I couldn’t write. I had only been here an hour and I did not wish to give up. I tried harder to drown them out. Damn. After a solid ten minutes imaging all the various ways I could beat the shit out of them, I calmed. Let them be my gift. So I wrote. Both girls were roughly 21 years old, one wearing expensively adorable eyeglasses with a Burberry cheetah-esque print on them and the other a sweatshirt/cable knit combo that splashed “Abercrombie” across her chest. The girl facing me had whispery long brown hair which always makes the perfect ponytail and a mouthful of braces. Each looked 15, spoke 21, and from their discussion, longed to be 30. Their chatter began with a brief touch on professors and classes and roommates. The remainder of the evening was dedicated to their boyfriends. Boys they had been texting throughout the day and cuddling in their apartments and going to Jimmy John’s with. Boys they had only been dating, or “hanging out” (they themselves were not quite sure) for a mere few weeks. I became a spy. I cherished it and I let it shroud me. I would sneakily listen as each would dreamily contemplate their life-long plans with these boys aloud, they would do “real” things like make meals together, plan trips, double date with each other’s best friends at swanky Chicago BYOB restaurants. Twirling their tea bag strings and rotating their worn cups, each girl’s relationship fantasy would grow and grow till a crescendo of, “Oh my gawd, and I’ve only known him a few weeks.”

I imagined their childhood rooms in the suburbs of Chicago, nothing touched from the day they moved out. Mountains of stuffed animals and saved birthday cards and glittery BEST FRIENDS picture frames. Color palettes taken directly from IKEA catalogs. Those braces. Big honking chunks of metal bolted onto this milky naive face. Hair that has not yet seen a box of Clairol. She worried aloud to her friend why this boy always wanted to cuddle at her place but not his and why she had not met any of his friends yet. She tortured herself on what that must mean, her empathetic Burberry-cheetah eye glasses friend consoled her. “You know, you guys should think about where to go on Spring Break together.” she said.

I found myself agitated again. I began thinking....you don’t get to be in the same world with me.