Pick me up on a rainy day

“You look about as wonderful as the fine day outside.”  The man beside her grinned. It was 6:45am and the rain was pounding hard enough to break the windshield.

It was 6am on a Saturday and Tina wasn’t enjoying a nice long rest enveloped in warmth, nor was she sipping on steaming tea before heading for a crisp morning walk (not that she ever would)… No, she was panicked and hastily hopping about, never once ceasing the mumbles of incoherent profanities spiraling off her tongue.

It was 6:30 and she was late. She was late, late, late. Her stomach was grumbling on par with her mood and her mind was a steady chant of curses aimed at her so called friend who had begged (no threatened) for her to switch shifts … ‘just wait until your mom finds out you sold her antique cat’ her friend had warned, and suddenly the tables had turned and Tina was the one kissing Linda’s baby blue painted toes in prayer. 

She groaned as she got on the bus, not making contact with the driver -who honestly seemed to be grateful - and instead heaved her body hastily onto the corner seat of ripped and faded blue plastic. The bus moved along on its steady path and she swore that they had the pleasure of acquainting with every single damned red light.

“You look about as wonderful as the fine day outside.”  The man beside her grinned.

 It was 6:45 and the rain was pounding hard enough to break the windshield. Tina had to breathe and gasp and clench her every muscle in order to not slam her face against the bus’s filth stained window.

At 6:57 the bus dragged to a stop and Tina got off- but of course not before glaring at the smug old man beside her. She ducked her head at the driver and started her 2 minute trek to her 7am hell. It wasn’t that she hated the quaint café, it was just that it was Saturday and it was raining and it was 6am for god’s sakes. She felt like a bucket of sunshine.

 

Mark smirked when he saw her stiff frame trudging through the door. “Did you sit on a steel pipe on the bus or has it always been stuck up your-” Tina prided herself in her aim, watching her most-hopefully-deadly-acid-rain soaked umbrella whip him across his ugly face.  He glared as he lifted one finger in front of his face. “Hey don’t blame the rain, maybe it’s a sign you need a shower.” She said snidely as he curled his fingers to a fist.

 “You wanna go?”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

 

The café opened at 8:00am sharp and to Tina it was a shock to be pushed back mere moments after unlocking the stained glass door. A bunch of girls, mostly definitely in high school, scrambled inside with their lips glossed and lashes curled to the sky; Tina bit back a laugh as she saw them flirtingly inch towards Matthew. Matthew was tall and slender with broad shoulders and a mess of black hair that framed his face at all the right angles. He was the epitome of “I woke up like this” and had the kind of slurred and husky voice that made the goose-bumps dance across your skin. He was completely oblivious to all the blushes and flushes and winks and high-pitched giggles although being an innate womanizer.

Tina was behind the counter- trying her best to ignore the giggles- when someone tapped her shoulder. She jumped looking up in surprise, and straight into golden orbs folded into crescents. The man before her laughed.

“Um hey, can I order?”

Tina sheepishly bowed her head and rushed to the till, her cheeks blossoming into tufts of pink.

“And what can I get for you”

“A medium caramel latte please… and maybe a side of you.”

Her eye’s widened in shock before her eyebrows settled into a repulsed glare.

“Excuse me “she snared cheeks puffing in anger.

The man chuckled before patting her head,

“Can’t hurt a guy for trying…” he glanced at her name tag “…tiny.” he smirked.

Tina took a deep breath before smiling through clenched teeth “That’ll be $3.57, sir” she spat.

The man handed her a five, and had the audacity to look smug. “I’ll keep the change” Tina said, dumping the coins into the tip jar.

He didn’t even protest, just winked before taking a seat.

As she was hastily making the coffee, still seething in anger, she turned to glare at the offensive being breathing her air. She saw long limbs folded over the archaic pink cushioned metal chair, brown hair defying gravity as his head dipped towards the ground. He was copper hued skin and black skinny jeans, and oh- Oh, boy was he handsome. The man looked up catching her gaze and arrogantly grinned, she rolled her eyes and quickly looked away, trying to hide the red creeping up her neck.

“Hey, um, hey you” Tina called directly to “pickup line guy”. He ignored her. Huffing she picked up the coffee and made her way to his table, slamming it down upon contact. He didn’t look too surprised.

“Thanks, when’s your break tiny”

“It’s Tina”

“But you’re so tiny… and that wasn’t a rhetorical question” he said matter-of-factly.

“Oh by the way I’m Michael, but you can call me Mike. Seriously, you can call me.” He grinned, handing her a 10 digit number completed with a winky face and hearts. Tina laughed head tipped back as she took the paper, balled it up, and threw it at his head.

“You wish.”

“I do. I like you a latte!” Michael called after her. She face palmed.

 

Michael left at around 10:00am after- most obnoxiously- savouring his $3 medium coffee for much over and hour. By 1:30pm Tina was absolutely exhausted and completely done with Mark and Matthew.

 “Thank god the shifts almost over, I need to rest my eyes for like a week after looking at Tina so early in the morning” Mark mock whispered to Matthew.

“At least its looks better than what your face is gonna look like in a few.” Matthew replied, nodding his head towards Tina who was intently staring at knives with a murderous gaze.

Mark shuddered, “Guess I’ll be sleeping with my eyes open tonight.” Matthew just blinked. “Wait, I thought you were resting them?”

“God man, whose side are you on.” Mark huffed, throwing his dish rag at the oblivious boy’s face.

 

At 2:00pm Tina prided herself in being the first of the trio to be out the door. However, she took 2 steps out and 3 breathes of the fresh yet pollution enriched city air, when a heavy frame fell into her arms.

The face of the body turned and grinned in a daze. “Now I can finally tell my friends I touched an angel.”

“Gross. Get off you nasty.” She said, pink hued cheeks defying her venomous voice, but wide eyes perfectly conveying her shock.

For the first time since they’d met Michael smiled- genuine and pure. Tina felt herself falling, slowly but surely.

“So tomorrow again at 8?”

“Actually I work two to ten” she blurted, before her hands flew and clasped her hanging mouth.

Michael grinned then suddenly his lips slipped into a frown “Oh wait” gold globes flooded with sheer panic, concerned, Tina stopped in her tracks and waited for him to continue.

“I think I lost my number” he cursed “can I borrow yours?” he looked up from between long brown lashes, lips twitching upwards.

Tina huffed before flinging her umbrella at his face, he deftly ducked.

“Hey wait” annoyed Tina turned and a familiar ball of paper landed at her feet; she swiftly picked it up, forcing herself to not look back so that Michael didn’t see the grin that was stained and stretched from ear to ear.

She walked to the bus in accord with the beat of her heart taking quick and uneven steps.

 

“You seem to be outshining the lovely day outside” the old man beside her quips.  

Tina looks outside at the rainbow stretched across the busy streets, and clenches her fists against the balled up paper pressed against her palm.

“It takes some hard showers to bring out the rainbow” she says feeling giddy and mysterious.

“Is that some sort of innuendo” Tina gasps looking up to see a fully blinding 3000 watt smile and crescent eyes keenly looming above her.  

“Are you following me?” Tina asks, eyes widened in shock.

“Well my parents always told me to follow my heart.”

3 seconds after the last word leaves his mouth Tina’s fist meets his face.

“Hey Tina do you have a band-aid”

“Why, because you scraped your knee falling for me?” she asked smugly

“No. I think I’m bleeding”

Author's Note

I am 16 and want to submit this to a contest but I'm not sure if it's any good. Please review and comment with criticism and maybe some praise lol... thanks a lot for reading and helping me out!

Reviews

[R. W. Graham]

This isn't bad, but I did notice a few grammar mistakes, mostly to do with punctuation. Also, so you know, this is long and I'm pointing out quite a bit, but don't take it as me saying that your writing sucks or something. It's actually pretty good, it's just that English is annoying and has too many dang rules and everybody is going to slip up a time or two.

The first thing is your use of ellipses at the ends of sentences. I'm sure that you've seen other writers use these before, but it's actually not what they are for, and if you're submitting this to a contest where the readers are educated, then they'll spot that immediately. I get why you did it, because you're trying to indicate a pause, but it isn't necessary. Just put a period there and you'll be alright.

The second thing is with your dialogue. When you're writing dialogue, you have to remember a comma if the dialogue ends before a tag line (ie. he said/she said). Here's an example of a sentence where you made this mistake:

“It takes some hard showers to bring out the rainbow” she says feeling giddy and mysterious.

After the word rainbow, you need to put a comma, because the dialogue, "[i]t takes some hard showers to bring out the rainbow" precedes the tag line, "she says feeling giddy and mysterious."

Furthermore, if the tag line precedes the dialogue, then you still need to have a period, exclamation mark, or a question mark to finish it.

Next, at the beginning you use exact times, which is fine, but I'm going to urge you to do that with caution. At first, I actually thought it was a nice touch, because it really emphasized her morning schedule and how she was late. However if you want to give exact times, then make sure the timeline is down, because if it isn't, it can make your writing weaker. In the early paragraphs, you wrote that it was 6:57, and then later said it was 6 a.m. While it isn't technically 7 a.m. yet, most people would consider 6:57 that time. Another note, and I don't think that I saw you do this, is to just make sure that your numerals are consistent. If you start out writing "6 a.m." don't go back on that and start writing "six a.m." or "6 AM," etc. Be consistent in your formatting.

Next, I did note one little issue with your character's treatment of the customer. She works in customer service, so acting the way that she did could really get her in trouble. In the service industry, one is always expected to treat the customer nicely, even if the customer is being harsh. Now, given that I don't know the workplace's environment, that might not be the case. Maybe the joint is own by a hip young dude who is protective of his employees and would be lenient on your protagonist, or maybe she just lost her temper and didn't care if she was reprimanded. I just need an explanation of how and why she was engaging in that behavior. Furthermore, treating someone nicely does not mean that one isn't angry. Honestly, she could be passive aggressive and still achieve the same effect you were going for in the story.

Anyways, that's all I could spot in just reading it once. It's a fairly clean piece, and I normally wouldn't have written a review quite this long, but since you want to submit this to a contest, I decided it might benefit you to hear some more specific examples. Overall, I think it's a decent little story, and with a bit of editing it should be good to go. Nice job with this, and keep writing.