I set off wobbling down the road in my work-appropriate moderately high heels and laughed at the fact that the contents of my life were currently all stuffed into a rusty Nissan Micra.
How could this be happening to me? It was all going so well and to plan: move to the city – granted it’s only Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and ten minutes from home, but it was what I'd always wanted. I planned to get a good job, make good money and enjoy my well-structured, traditional, normal life. There was not a part of the plan that involved my less-than-monogamous boyfriend power-driving a stick insect!
Could this day get any worse???
It had all begun with being late for work: another jumper off the Tyne Bridge had caused a huge tailback. Then I walked into school and boom – parental attack! I received a bollocking from a student’s mother for supposedly introducing her child to the 'Dark Arts'. Yep, the Dark Arts. After setting a book report on a Young Adult thriller novel (that was written specifically for use in schools, may I add), the horror-filled face of Mrs. Reilly blindsided me as I made my way into my classroom.
Apparently fictional vampires and wizards taint the sanctity of blood, encourage magic and give children impure thoughts that could result in evil behaviour. Naughty Ms. Munro, swaying the youth of today to the dark side with child-friendly and demographically-appropriate English literature. Just call me the modern day Darth-friggin’-Vader of the English private school system!
Then the day had concluded in spectacular fashion with Nathan having his unfaithful fun on my much-loved sofa; the one saving grace was that we had at least paid for the Safeguard coating and the love-fluids currently being spilled on the chocolate-brown upholstery could be easily wiped away.
Every cloud...
I bowed my head and let the sorrow wash over me. I had never been one to wallow in self-pity, but given the day’s events and finding out that my ex was a closet exhibitionist who couldn't stop nailing his tramp for two minutes to kindly explain what the f**k was happening to our relationship – I mean that’s unheard of, surely? – I was going to allow myself a short reprieve and have a pity party for one!
So with a sombre gait, I meandered down Northumberland Street and the many dark and dingy roads of central Newcastle, trying to come to terms with the fact that my life had just been flipped on its head.
After ten minutes of aimless wandering, I tilted my head and smiled in confusion at where I had ended up. The cinema. My mother would bring me here every Saturday growing up to see the current 'picture show', as the oldies called it.I walked to the grandly decorated foyer and looked at the walls plastered with posters of current films and all their stars. I moved from poster to poster and studied the actors and imagined their lives. I bet they didn’t have a care in the world. They had it all – fame, fortune and the job of their dreams.
Lucky bastards.
What did I want to be? What were my dreams? It was so long ago since I’d thought about that sort of thing, I couldn’t actually remember – how sad is that?
I walked back outside and tipped my head to the sky. Then, like a crazy person, spread my arms and began to sob, begging the gods for a sign of what to do next, where to take my life.
I waited in silence, the only sound coming from my heavy breathing. Nothing. No shooting star or flash of divine intervention, just the sound of a bottle being smashed in the rowdy pub across the street.
With a huff of a laugh at my desperate cry for a mystic solution, I took one last look at the theatre and flinched as a light bulb on one of the poster frames popped, almost in my face. Even slightly less illuminated, I could see that the man on the poster was perfect – muscles, tattoos, brooding expression and pure gorgeousness. I bet right at that moment he was living in a million-dollar mansion somewhere, making love to some Amazonian goddess, not a care in the world.
Some people have all the luck.
As I headed back to my car, I tried to figure out what to do next. I passed my favourite bookstore and smiled at the window display – Jane Austen month, my idol. I took in the famous titles spread on luxurious red velvet, the most popular perched high on pedestals: Persuasion, Emma, Mansfield Park and of course Pride and Prejudice. The books that keep most women warm in bed but ruin our lives when we realise that real Mr Darcys do not come and save us from a life of loneliness after swimming through a lake.
Just as I was about to turn away, my breath caught in my throat as my wandering gaze fell on a small piece of paper showing a quote by the lady herself, tucked next to Sense and Sensibility.
"Why not seize the pleasure at once, how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations?" Jane Austen