Life is What Happens to you While you're Busy Making Other Plans
Same day-After schoolTwo hours away from the adolescent angst of two teenage boys in San Diego,
California who were only trying to survive their youth in one piece and come out of it
confident young men was a busy greasy spoon diner in Encino.
The kind of place where runaways looking to hitch a ride come to at midnight to
scale the joint for responsible truck drivers to take them to their destinations which
usually meant "they wanted to be in show business", but if they were lucky would get
a job as a housekeeper and at worst a job selling themselves. Wondering
why they left home in the first place.
Some people just make terrible decisions. The tip of a cigarette glowed in the
cheap disposable soft metal ashtray. The middle-aged woman who was relatively
skinny, with dirty blonde hair, and brown eyes tapped her foot nervously as she
stirred her lukewarm coffee in the white ceramic cup with the shadowed pink rim
design.
The marriage was done and there was no changing that. From what she heard he
was happy. She couldn't give him that so she was happy. The coffee was bitter and
so was her soul.
She wasn't sure why she was here and why she stopped at a roadside diner in
Encino instead of driving straight through to San Diego. Her navy blue 1975 Valiant
made the journey without its usual sputter. She even stopped the blame that she
carried. Thanks to her good friends at Ginghamsburg Church. It was only through the
acceptance of the Lord that she came to terms with that day at all. Accidents
happen all the time. The young boy said he had to answer the telephone and his
back was turned for only a minute and in that minute the family changed forever. It
didn't help matters that she was seeing another man on the side at the time, but they
broke up when she found a Bible at a rummage sale and joined the church. Maybe it
was better to leave this alone but it pulled at her that she wanted to see him again
"to make it right".
"May I take your order?" the waitress dressed in pink and white uniform asked her.
"I'm not hungry. Just another coffee, please."
The trouble was she didn't know how to make it right.
San Diego
Josh tried to concentrate on his homework. He had to work at the Premiere tonight
and really was in no mood to put up with a class where the teacher gives them
homework on the first day of school. He normally liked homework, but he felt like he
was missing the world go by.
"Where were you after school?" Drake asked breezing in.
He had to be at Guitar World in an hour and he had no plans of doing any homework
until after he got home and that was still going to after his nightly telephone call to
Torey.
"I figured you wanted to walk Torey home."
"Well not quite she started a new job today at Ralph's market. Remember when she
couldn't go to my concert at the San Diego Country Club? Her mother made her
have a boring dinner with her friend's sister who is the manager. I walked her to
work."
"Good for her. I heard it pays better than the Premiere."
"Josh," Drake nervously rolled one of his guitar magazines, "I don't know how to
really say this so I'm just going to say it okay?"
"Okay?"
"I don't know where you got the idea from, but I'm not going to college."
"Haven't you thought about your future, Drake?"
Drake picked up his electric guitar, "No."
He couldn't help being sarcastic. Come on now how long have he and Josh known
each other let alone be brothers?
"You might kick yourself someday."
"Then it's my mistake to make, Josh."
Even Mom and Dad didn't press this issue because they realized he wanted to be a
musician. It would only be wasting their money and not to mention his time,
especially on days when he never would have bothered going in and just would have
played college hooky.
"Okay," Josh replied non-committed, "I have to finish my homework."
He watched Drake put his guitar back against the wall and leave the room.
He certainly had it all. Josh knew these past few months were difficult for everyone
and he wasn't the only one in this house with problems. But Drake still had the looks,
the charisma, and most importantly the girlfriend.
Josh was never going to feel attractive in his own skin. He even told that to his
therapist.
He might have lost weight, but he wasn't going to ever look like Drake. The only
reason those girls at Belleview High didn't like him anymore was because he was
serious about Torey and it became the high school drama that television for women
made for TV movies were born from. But other girls still fancied him. Josh also had
no girlfriend.
There were no sightings of Mindy Crenshaw in school and he got stubborn and
didn't even call her house. She was making her feelings known by not calling him
correct?
Yeah, Drake was a virgin, big deal. Josh was convinced that he himself was going
to die one. It was only going to be a matter of months before Torey was ready to
give herself to his brother and Josh didn't want to hear about it when the night came.
Megan knocked on the door.
"Why did you knock, Megan?"
"I don't know. I guess I'm feeling nice today." She was holding something behind her
back.
It looked like a plain brown envelope.
"What do you have there?" He stood up.
"Five dollars."
She knew it wasn't the best of her trickery, but Megan was too busy tormenting the
neighbor boy to be bothered with the Boob today. She also could use the five
dollars.
"Fine." Josh went into his wallet and took out a wrinkled five-dollar bill.
The envelope had neither postal markings nor stamps on it, which meant that
someone had just dropped it in their mailbox. It was a piece of notebook paper with
the squiggly ends that Josh would normally cut off with scissors if the paper weren't
perforated. The letter was typewritten and so was his name and address on the front
of the envelope.
Dear Josh,
You are always on my mind.
unsigned
"Drake! Drake! Get in here!" Josh called from the doorway
"What is it? Are you on fire?" Drake replied coming up from downstairs.
"Look what I got in the mail! It's a letter from Mindy!"