Page 12 of Last Letters to Ara
Dad knows how much this means to me, it’s why he went through all of this effort. I don’t have to blubber all over him for it, it’ll just be embarrassing for both of us.
“It’s the dust,” I say with a sniffle, motioning to my eyes.
“Yeah, I noticed it when I was in there earlier.” He clears his throat. “It got me too.”
I smile because we both know there is no dust.
“Do we have to dance?” I ask.
“Hopefully not.”
“Good. I’ll be dressed in five.”
Present - Ara
IT’S BEEN FIVEweeks since Dad died. It’s been four weeks since I received his first letter. Part of me still worries the first was a fluke and I’ll never receive the next, but Dad always keeps his word. The letter saved that day, and being able to look forward to another one is what helps me get through the hard moments.
Sometimes I wake up convinced it was all a bad dream, only to put myself through the loss again when I realize it wasn’t a bad dream at all. Sometimes I open my thread of texts with Dad ready to send a joke, just to remember he will never receive it. Sometimes I embrace the pain, calling his phone over and over just to hear his voice on the other end when I reach his voicemail. I don’t know what I’ll do when one day, my call no longer gets answered.
Every day I feel the loss of him over and over in different ways. If I was going through life based on my emotions, I would most definitely be spending most days in bed. The only thing which is getting me out of it is work and the wrath I’ll face if I don’t show up.
My unusual work hours are something I’ve always sort of appreciated, never having to wake up early for work, now more than ever. Working from 5 PM to 1 AM at the café allows me to be home during the delivery window, regardless of what day the letters arrive, so I’ll never miss one.
The schedule is probably the only thing about my job that I mildly tolerate. In fact, I try not to think about my situation too much. There’s nothing to be proud of being almost twenty-three, working nights at a café, heading to destination nowhere.
Most parents would be disappointed in their child becoming a business degree dropout such as myself, but not Dad. He understood that I didn’t want to spend four years of my life preparing for something that I didn’t love. He always encouraged me to pursue something that brought me joy, because if you love what you do and you do a good job, it will inevitably lead to success. The only issue with that is, when you love something, failing becomes even scarier. So I decided to play it safe, get a temporary job until I figured out something that I can do which I don’t hate.
With his support, I didn’t realize that dropping out of college and working at a café would become something to be embarrassed about. I first noticed it when I told my ‘friends’ that I would be dropping out. None of them could understand where I was coming from, and they kept talking about how disappointed their families would be if they made that choice.
It got worse when a distant family member would ask how my classes were going and I’d have to inform them that I dropped out. They always assumed it was because I got some incredible opportunity, such as an apprenticeship on Wall Street or something. Do these people live in the same world as me? We live inFlorida. The biggest opportunity here is getting on a front page in some local yokel newspaper for riding an alligator naked.
Plus, that amazing stuff doesn’t happen in real life. In real life, you drop out of college to start working at a café, and when you tell people, they get that shitty condescending look on their face because they think you’re a failure. Since when does someone’s career choice decide that anyway?
For example, Dad loved solving problems, finding things which didn’t add up, and numbers, in general. So, he became an accountant. It wouldn’t be most people’s dream job, and everyone assumed he was boring because of it. But he wasn’t.
I’m not sure at what point in my life I started to feel like I was running out of time, but I did. One day I woke up and found myself looking at my life through their eyes and felt disappointed, too. Dad’s advice about achieving success is sound, but my dilemma is that I don’t love anything career-worthy. Nobody is offering fifty dollars an hour to binge watch Netflix.
Finding the café gig was a total accident. I had just got back from dropping out of college, ending a bad relationship, and an even worse friendship, thinking maybe I could figure out what to do with my life by watching others. I ended up coming to the same airport terminal, every night, just watching strangers go by. One night on my way out, I stumbled across the “Help Wanted” sign at the café just before security.
I went inside and got the job right away. Even though I had no skill set, sucked with people, and had no work experience, they were desperate. It’s not easy finding people whose lives allow them to work the night schedule for crap pay.
The job sucks. My manager is named Karen, which is fitting. In fact, I think they invented that termbecause of her. She is stingy about any time off (even when your dad dies) and never misses an opportunity to let you know what you’re doing wrong. Giving a single word of encouragement would probably make her drop dead.
Why don’t I quit if I’m so miserable?
It’s the question that I ask myself every day as I get ready for work, the answer remaining the same, never noble or admirable in any way. It comes down to the fact that I have nothing better to do.
Stepping in front of my long mirror, I take a moment to assess myself. You can’t really tell by looking at me that I lost the person closest to me last month. My reflection is pretty much the same as it’s always been.
Long dark hair, naturally tan skin with even tanner freckles. My eyebrows, which are just a bit too thick, frame my weirdly colored eyes. Some old lady in Walmart stopped me to say that my eyes were the color of chocolate sapphires once, her favorite stone, but I just think they’re bizarre.
Sadly, my frame hasn’t changed either. You’d think that I’d have lost some weight after barely eating for weeks on end, but no, I’m still stuck with a shape that’s just slightly too soft. Not in that curvy bombshell way either, no. I’m permanently stuck in the middle of both ends of the beauty spectrum. I’m not thin enough to be on the skinny side. I’m rocking a B-cup, at best, and nobody is turning to watch me walk away, meaning I don’t qualify as curvy either.
It’s never really bothered me, not being most guys’ cup of tea. I don’t think I would do well with that kind of attention anyway. It just bothers me that I’m stuck at average in almost every area of life. You’d think I could at least fail at lifewhilebeing hot.
All the girls swoon over my long hair and say that they would kill for my thick eyebrows if they were “properly shaped.” I can guarantee they don’t want everything else that comes with it, aka body hair. Not sure why thick hair is only acceptable incertainplaces, but God forbid I have some hair on my arms and lower back. The reality is you can’t get one without the other, and I sure as hell can’t be bothered trying to get rid of it.
I throw my hair up into a bun that is decidedly more messy than cute, following it up with some concealer under my eyes in an attempt to cover up those bags. A dust of powder across the rest of my face, and a swipe of mascara for each eye to finish it off. That’s as much of an effort as I can manage.
