Please make sure you have read “Hi – I’m Linda” Part 1 before reading this.
Linda didn’t sleep at all well that night. She was exhausted, but too tired to sleep, and on top of everything else, she had the mother and father of all headaches from trying to see without glasses for 3 days. She got up at 3 am and took another 2 paracetamols, her third lot that day, and went back to bed. She eventually fell asleep listening to her MP3 player to take her mind off everything. Then she had the mother and father of all dreams.
In her dream, she went to Starbucks in the mall after getting her glasses from the optician. She saw a goofy looking geeky guy with bottle-bottom glasses sitting over a coffee at the window, and straight away she knew it was Rich. She decided there and then – “No – no way! I’m not going to be seen with THAT!” But at that point, he spotted her, waved, and beckoned her in. She was trapped! Turn and run? No, she was nicer than that. She went in, said “Rich?” to him, he nodded, and she sat down opposite him. He reached over and gave her a welcoming peck on the cheek and she politely responded, while at the same time she spotted Jane, her girlfriend/partner, standing outside the coffee shop watching them. She panicked and didn’t know what to do, and then Jane walked in, stomped right up to them, slapped her in the face, took Rich’s coffee mug and poured it right over her.
At that moment, Linda woke up with a yell. Was that some kind of omen that she shouldn’t have arranged to meet this Rich guy off the Eyechat forum last night? Was her subconscious trying to tell her something? Was she feeling guilty? She looked at the clock – it was just a mushy mess of red LED digits - in double. She picked it up nearly knocking it over, and put it up against her nose, closing her left eye to see that it was 10 o’clock. She was shaking, sweating, and scared. It took her a while to calm down, and she got up at noon. She had to keep her left eye closed while she fumbled around her blurry room with no idea of the distances between objects. She bumped into furniture and stubbed her toes several times while trying to get showered and dressed, but eventually managed it. She thought better of trying to make tea or coffee, and just poured herself a glass of milk, misjudging the edge of the glass the first time and flooding the kitchen counter top.
Eventually her taxi arrived that she had booked to take her to the optician. She asked the driver to lead her out to the car just to be on the safe side, and he obliged. He was very nice she thought, and couldn’t do enough to help. Soon they reached the Jupiter Mall, and the taxi driver even asked her if she wanted him to assist her into the optician’s store. She said she would be OK, but he insisted, and he got another driver to mind his cab in the taxi rank while they went in. When he left her, he gave her his card in case she wanted to call him again for a cab.
The receptionist took her details and asked her to take a seat. Miss Mackenzie the optician came through and spoke to Linda, telling her she was very foolish not ordering a spare pair of glasses now, as she is totally dependent on them. Linda said she would do that if she could get her parents to pay for them. Getting money out of them was like getting blood out of a stone. Otherwise she would have to save up her allowance, and that would mean no shopping or nights out for months! Miss Mackenzie personally took Linda’s glasses down from a shelf, took them out of the packet, and slid them onto Linda’s nose. The effect was immediate. “Oh my God – what a relief,” she sighed. “It’s been hell without these!” “Can you see everything OK?” Miss Mackenzie asked. “Yes, YES! Wonderful. Wait a minute….. when I look around things are going double.” “You’re forgetting Linda, due to your lazy eye muscles in your left eye, you will only see converged images straight ahead. You must turn your head to look around you. But you have aggravated the eye muscles with not wearing glasses for 3 days, and I can see your eye has started to turn in quite dramatically again. Things should even out after today. Let me know if they don’t, but you will still have quite a pronounced squint. You really should have got the surgery years ago.” Linda had heard this so many times before, she just ignored it now. She paid the extortionate bill for the new lens and left the store.
As she was leaving, a text came in to her phone. She sat on one of the seats between the multitudes of stalls all selling rubbish that nobody ever needs, but still buys regardless. This was great – she could now read her phone normally. “hi lindie – meet u in starbucks now – I know you had the opt today” It was from Jane. “Oh shit!” Linda exclaimed out loud. The old lady sitting next to her gave her a condescending look down her nose, and muttered to her husband next to her, “The youth of today. Terrible!” Linda was panicking. What to do? Jane was in Starbucks. Rich was in Starbucks. Rich was looking for a girl with glasses. Jane was looking for Linda. Linda didn’t really want to see any of them in this situation. Oh dear! She decided to play it by ear. She would stroll along to Starbucks and check out the situation without being seen, then decide what to do. As she got nearer to the coffee shop, her insides were churning up. Her heart was racing. It was genuine fear. Then she saw them.
Sitting at a window seat was the most gorgeous, handsome, attractive man she had ever seen outside of a movie screen. He was Hugh Grant to a T. He was sitting there, chatting to….. yes….. it was Jane. ‘Well, that can’t be Rich,’ Linda thought. ‘He’s much too good looking, and he’s not wearing glasses.’ Then she noticed that Jane had an extra pair of glasses in her hand, examining them while the good-looking guy pointed out various parts of them to her. Then she handed them back to him and he put them on. “Oh fuck!” Linda shouted out quite loud. The old lady and her husband were passing by, and the lady couldn’t stop herself from saying, “You young people today need taking in hand. That’s disgusting language, young lady. If I was your mother…..” and she trailed off as she walked on. ‘You’re old enough to be my granny,’ Linda thought. Either Jane must have heard her through the glass, or sensed she was there, but at that precise moment she looked out of the window and saw her. She immediately jumped up from her seat, said something to Rich, and ran out of the shop towards Linda. Linda didn’t see this coming. Jane ran right up to her and shouted, “You bitch! Bitch!” and gave her a slap in the face. Totally taken aback, Linda staggered and almost fell. She turned to try to talk to Jane, but Jane already had a clenched fist aiming a punch at Linda’s face. Linda did the only thing she could do – ran for her life. She made for the nearest door at full speed, hotly pursued by Jane who was shouting and screaming abuse at her. The old lady turned around to see what the commotion was, and was horrified when two rabid screaming girls forced themselves between her and her husband, scattering their shopping and causing a torrent of fresh fruit to roll across the mall and bounce off the shop fronts. The old couple were speechless.
In the meantime, Linda made it to the revolving door, and had an idea. After she got through it, she took her shoe off and jammed it into the door edge, which stopped the motor from working. Now, nobody could get in or out. Jane immediately went for the wheelchair access and pushed the button. The door opened, and soon she was hot on the tail of Linda running across the bus stance towards the taxi rank. “Oh no you don’t, you bitch,” she yelled, “you’re not getting away that easily.” Linda found it difficult to run with one shoe on, so she paused to remove it, and Jane launched a full rugby tackle on her. They both crashed to the ground, and what followed was a classic “girl fight” of hair pulling, scratching, lashing out with full arms, shouting abuse, all while rolling about on the ground. By now, a small crowd had gathered, and people were trying to intervene, and getting hit for their trouble. A dog was also trying to get into the melee, barking its head off at them. Then Jane landed a full blow on Linda’s face, knocking her glasses off. They went flying through the air, and the dog caught them perfectly, with all fours airborne, and immediately ran off with them.
At that point, Linda had to give up. She lay there blind and helpless, and put her hands up in front of her face shouting, “No, NO, STOP. Jane – no! I can explain.” They both lay there out of breath, still giving out little token punches and kicks, when a siren was heard and a police car pulled up in the taxi rank. The security guards also came out of the mall, and converged with the police on the fighting duo.
And standing there, watching the whole performance, was Rich.
To be continued.