Finding My Way Read Online Free PDF Page B

partying.  Also I
should cool it with Kelly, if things continue in this way I just know I will
never be rid of her.
    Whoa and that guy
needs to slow down on the garlic!  I hand the customer in front of me his
change and am glad to be rid of him.  I look up to serve the next customer
and I am pleased to see this one.  Yeah she is lovely, I see her most
days.  In fact I saw her on my first day and I have noticed her ever
since.  She always looks so sad and I often wonder about her.  She is
so young and attractive, yet looks so miserable it is a shame, wasted talent.
    Looking at her I
notice she is altered today, though.  I have seen her plenty, but I have
never seen her like this, she is carrying herself differently today,
straighter, taller somehow.   Then she
does something I have never seen her do before.  She smiles.  She
smiles and I am momentarily lost. She looks so unlike her normal self, more
like an angel, a goddess.  She smiles and it is the most glorious smile I
think I have ever seen.  I can’t look away, she is astounding.
    She buys her ticket
and I hand her the change, but I find it impossible to look away.  It’s
like she has had a personality change over the weekend, she smiles with her
whole face, eyes bright.  I don’t think I have ever seen anything like it,
it’s intoxicating.  I give her a wink and she blushes which only enhances
her features, her pink cheeks bringing out her gloriously green eyes.  She
walks away and my eyes automatically follow her.
    “Ahem.”  And
there is the next smelly customer.  So I’m forced to tear my eyes away
from her and then the day drags on.   This
being a main train line to the city it is constantly busy on weekdays.  I
work four mornings and one afternoon a week.  It’s not too bad. 
Short days, reasonable money, I get by.  Best part of the job today is,
being that I finish at 12, I can go back home to bed.
    Which
is exactly what I do.   No one is home when I get there, which is a
bonus.  Peace and quiet, just what I need to help relieve the headache
that has plaguing me all day.  I fall asleep pretty much as soon as my
head hits the pillow.
     
    ***
     
    I am awoken by
banging again but this time I recognise the clashing of pots and pans in the
kitchen.  Looking at my alarm clock I see it’s already after 6pm, I’ve
been out for hours.  The smell of dinner wafting from the kitchen makes my
stomach growl.
    “Hey Ma !” I greet her with a peck on the cheek as I
enter the kitchen.  I have to bend down a fair way because she is such a
shorty.  “Smells good!” I say as I motion to the
casserole she has just taken from the oven.
    “Nicky, how was your
day?  I didn’t hear you come in last night,” she says smiling at me.
    “I crashed on Dan’s
couch, got in this morning.”  Shameful I know, lying to my mother like
that.  It’s not like I could tell her I fell asleep in a girl’s bed
though, she thinks better of me.  My mum is the typical Greek
mother.  Believes in settling down with a good Greek girl, and Kelly does
not fit that picture at all.  Sleeping with a girl that I don’t love,
sneaking out while she sleeps, that is not what my mum has planned for
me.  So I don’t ever tell her of my conquests, of course, I never want to
disappoint her.
    Dad enters the
kitchen and takes his seat at the head of the table.  “I visited Con at
the store today, Nick.  He is doing so well, his store is something to be
proud of, business is good.  Got his head screwed
on right, that boy.”  Then he looks at me briefly with pity, or is it
shame?  My dad is a good man, but he is obsessed with success.  A
man’s worth is what he does for a living, marrying the right girl, providing
for his family, blah blah blah . 
At 26, unmarried, working at a train station kiosk, I am a disappointment to
him, and comments like this about my cousin Con, who is only a few years older
than me and runs his own furniture store, are his way of