(Untitled) Part 2 of a short story I began writing... read part 1 first!!!

My love life had become as generic and rehearsed as the stories we see on television or hear our friends rant about when we go for lunch, or on that drive to the movies. Sometimes I would get so sick of hearing the same story, I became infatuated by chick flicks, just so I could believe that out of the ordinary, some ‘left field’ not by the books romance could develop. The kind of happy endings that existed in the Elizabethan era, without the incest and statutory rape.

Soon my DVD collection mutated to include movies like ’10 things I Hate About You’, ‘The Notebook’ and ‘Bridgette Jones Diary’. I only reserved movies like ‘Pretty Woman’ and ‘Dirty Dancing’ when I wanted a girl to feel comfortable enough to spend the evening with me till she was forced to fall asleep on my couch and ultimately in my arms!

It wasn’t long till I became one of those people that would slip into the routine of work, gym, shower, dinner and a movie. For those nights I had insomnia there was late night infomercials or that Maxim magazine I couldn’t help grab at the airport to quench my unbearable boredom on the flight home. You would always skim through the pictures, read an article or two and then fake like you were asleep, just so you could hide the fact that you were terrified the plane was bouncing so much.

It was in a book review section (right underneath Anna Kournikova) that I discovered Harry Potter, and would later have read all 7 books in the series. When that thrill was over my interest returned to the television set and I became a huge fan of the late night music videos on BET, or the ever popular reality show re-runs. Music channels had suddenly managed to change their agenda completely, and soon I discovered a new form of romance television that replaced the chick flick, only the stories weren’t as sweet, and the endings weren’t always as happy!

Right about the time I was getting over my ex was when I was slipping into the journal keeping part of my life which coincidentally coincides with what you are reading now. It just so happens that that was the same time my desire to break free of this introverted lifestyle started to make me feel uncomfortable just being in the same spot for more than 5 minutes. I was no longer happy being alone, and found myself making more long distance phone calls to friends back in the city. When my bank account could no longer manage that, I became a cliché to the handbook on Filling that Desire for company. When telling myself I was happy being along didn’t work anymore, I bought a cat. I played loud music in my room just so I didn’t have to listen to myself breathe. Because I had no internet at home, instant messaging and blogging was not an option.

It was also very difficult to make friends at the hotel, because half the people there were either prehistoric, pre-disposed or pre-occupied; that and an insurgence of different cultures. You see the hotel was built by a Spanish chain, which called for the inclusion of Latin cultures at the helm. It was impossible to walk through the halls without hearing the echo’s of rolling r’s and rapid gibberish. The Spanish I felt were a lot like the Japanese in that you couldn’t tell where one word ended and the other one began. Everyone back in high school was forced to learn a bit of Spanish grammar, which would ultimately amount to maybe a page of information by the time you graduated, but I discovered that a simple reply of ‘pocotito’ to “do you speak Spanish”, would amount to a nuclear attack of Spanish words that would leave even the most rehearsed linguist motionless.

I learned to just smile and nod my head as I would pass a co-worker in the halls. My IPOD became my best friend at lunch sessions, and I would pass the time in meetings doodling the faces of the managers I hated the most on my notepad. This was probably the reason I never noticed her before. She would always sit quietly in meetings with her hands tucked neatly in front of her ribs, so it would make her breast appear a lot larger than they actually were. Her responses were short and always followed by a schoolgirl smile. I’m not sure if she did this to distract the General Manager or to mask the fact that maybe she wasn’t so sure about everything she was talking about.

She spoke with a sort of broken accent which allowed me to understand more of the words she was using, but not enough to hold a full on debate about the state of affairs in the world market. She was shorter than your average Spanish girl; still very curvaceous with very simple features. A regular ‘chick-shark’ may not have given her a second glance had you not been able to see past her glasses into her curious yet understanding brown eyes, which always seemed to shoot open in amazement whenever you approached her with a question. Her cinnamon complexion was endemic to girls from her region in Mexico, but she wore her hair back and in a bulb which only meant that she wasn’t afraid to show her highlighted cheek bones and exaggerated lips. This girl almost looked like a creature from out of a fairy tale book that you would catch in the corner nibbling on hidden fruits, only to turn around and gaze at you in astonishment when they found out they had been discovered. She looked at me like I was the first one to notice she even existed, and her frightened demeanor, as if she had been called to the principal’s office, only made me conclude that maybe Cynthia was very shy.