Today’s going to be a bad day.
I was sleeping quite peacefully in the adorably soft white sheets which honestly feel like I was reclining on a cloud, when I was woken up by this odd…scraping sound. Justin and Trace were trying to make omelet (“for me”, apparently, but I have little doubt in my mind that was a pathetic attempt to get on the better of my worse sides) and it went horrifically wrong. I didn’t even know where to start with the coating of charcoal on the base of the pan, so I left the washing up with them to go and get some much needed hot chocolate.
I always feel cool when I go into Starbucks. Everyone is so busy and wrapped up in their own schedule, but they unknowingly look really trendy as they read the paper whilst sipping away at a caramel frappuccino or an iced Expresso. All you need is one of those little cartons in your hand and you’re definitely “with it”.
I got a weird concoction of ice and chocolate topped with whipped cream and was just debating whether I should be nice and go back into the store to get Trace and Justin some coffee (and one of those ridiculously large chocolate chunk cookies), when one of those infernal, omnipresent yellow taxis whizzed past me and positively drenched me in last night’s rainwater. I stood there in shock for a moment, feeling the murky brown water seep through my relatively thin shirt, before turning around and seeing a homeless person on the side of the street laughing his ass off at my expense.
So I decided my large chocolate chunk cookie and I would have to be united another time and headed off home; not after missing a round of catcalls from a group of teenaged boys hanging outside the record shop because my black bra was clearly visible through the soaking material of my shirt. I was going to turn around and tell them exactly how long it was going to be before they got laid, but I took the high road and scuttled back to Justin’s space age apartment.
Justin and Trace…what a pair. They certainly do know the right buttons to push when you’re just incredibly pissed off. Imagine being utterly humiliated in front of half of New York, and then coming home to this:
“Hey, baby. Whoa…what happened to you?” (Insert appropriately horrified expression--as though I had grown an extra head.)
“Cat, you trying to earn a few extra bucks or something?” snorted Trace, his eyes taking a gander down my saturated front and raising an eyebrow at my clearly visible cleavage.
“Shut up,” I retorted, thrusting my drink into Justin’s hand and stomping up the stairs to soak my top; the last thing I need right now is a huge stain saying ‘I’m the kind of idiot that stands too close to the road’ on my favorite shirt.
“Oh, is this for me?” he asked, already sipping at the melting ice. “Do I have to pay extra?” he called up the stairs.
“Shut up!” I repeated, peeling the cold material away from my skin. “I’m really not in the moods for prostitute jokes.”
Justin’s heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs until he was at our bedroom door, grinning. “Baby, why am I getting the feeling you’re pissed off?”
“Why? Oh, I don’t know why, Justin. Perhaps it’s because you and Trace woke me up at a ridiculous hour this morning--”
“Eight thirty, sweetheart. It’s not that bad.”
“And then I got pissed on by some fucking neon cab, so everyone from here to 59th Street now knows my preferred bra choice!” I snapped, heading into Justin’s bathroom and picking one of the three handles to turn, but no water came out. “And now I can’t even turn on the fucking shower!”
He snorted, but quickly stifled his laugh at my thunderous glare. “Here,” he said, twisting on of the handles and causing a spurt of lukewarm water to pour from the showerhead. He kissed the top of my head. “There you go, baby.”
I pouted. “You’re not supposed to be nice to me when I’m being a bitch.”
“If I was like that every time you were a bitch, how successful do you think this relationship would be?”
He dodged the swat I very carefully aimed at his head and grinned as he shut the door. I stood under the water and felt a little of the muscle tension in my shoulders ease up. It’s terrible to be so wound up at nine thirty two in the morning.
I was feeling relatively relaxed until I got shampoo in my eye and had to have Justin assure me I hadn’t poisoned my blood stream with Pantene Pro-V’s Smooth & Sleek. Hey, it could happen.
So, as I was saying…today is going to be a bad day. It’s a well known fact that the first few hours of your day can be a premonition of whether it’s ultimately going to be one of those “I hate the world and it hates me” days or “Wow, I can fit into those jeans…isn’t life wonderful?” days.
Dressed in my second outfit of the day, I plod down the stairs at an alarming slow rate, my footsteps landing heavily on each step. I drag my feet into the living room to see Justin muttering away on the phone in the corner and Trace watching TV, looking incredibly bored.
“Hey Catherine,” he says.
“Hey…Juan,” I reply, throwing myself down into the plush depths of the sofa.
“How’s your eye?”
“Sore,” I reply, rubbing the red skin for the fifteenth time in the last five minutes. “I think I’ve done permanent damage.”
Justin comes to sit next to me on the couch smacks my hand away from my eyes, frowning at me in disapprovingly.
“Alright…no, that’s fine Amber…sure, okay, bye.” He snaps his phone shut and quickly delves into his reprimanding. “Don’t rub it, you’ll make it worse. And you’ve not done permanent damage,” he snorts.
“I think I have. Look,” I point to my pupil frantically. “That’s not supposed to be that color.”
He rolls his eyes and reluctantly looks in the direction of my finger. His annoyed expression quickly fades into a frown and he peers at me curiously. “Oh yeah…oh my god, Cat. Maybe we should get you to a hospital,” he says.
“What?” I reply in shock, blinking rapidly. “Is it that bad?”
“Oh my poor baby,” says Justin, gently touching the skin around my eye with his thumb. “I hope you don’t lose your sight.”
“What?!” I repeat in terror, feeling my stomach knot up. “Am I going to lose my sight?”
It takes one moment for me to spy the undertakings of a smile playing on his lips, before it erupts into a full on grin and I hit him with a cushion.
“You asshole!”
“You’re such a prima donna, do you know that?” he giggles, holding up his hands to fend off my strikes.
“And you’re such an unbearable idiot, do you know that?” I mock, unable to keep the smile from my face as I throw my weapon to the side and sulk on the couch with my arms folded.
He taps at my arms until I lift them up and he can rest his head on my lap. “I know. It’s an endearing quality.”
“Yeah, like herpes,” I retort, before seeing his pout. I let out a little grin and run a finger through his hair. “So, was that the stick thin vegetation on the phone?”
He grins and tries to bite my wrist. “I take it you mean Miss Suflower and yes. We gotta go meet her at the studio today.”
“Oh do we?” I counter, wrapping a lock of wet brown hair around my finger absentmindedly. “Did she sound nice?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, she sounded alright.”
“Are you looking forward to it?”
He grins. “Definitely. It’s been far too long since I’ve felt those cans covering my ears, and the--”
“Sorry, the what covering your ears?”
“The cans. It’s what we of the musically gifted call headphones,” he smirks, receiving a swift eye roll from me. “But yeah, it should be fun,” he yawns, stretching out on the couch. “We’re recording at Electric Lady Studios.”
Is that name supposed to mean something to me? “Really? That’s…nice.”
He smirks and looks up at me from his position in my lap. “It’s the place Jimi Hendrix recorded in. It’s pretty dope.”
My fingers stop running through Justin’s hair and I frown. “I’m sorry, it’s pretty…what?”
“Dope.”
“Dope? As in cool?”
“Cat, no one uses cool anymore,” Justin says in a over the top, diva manner, poking me in the stomach. “Everything has to be “the shit” or “dope”.”
“Sorry,” I smile. “I guess I’m just not up-to-date in the lingo of hip pop stars.”
He smiles and closes his eyes, patting my leg. “That’s okay, my Cat.”
My heart melts at ‘my Cat’ and I continue to fondle with the tiny, soft curls sprouting from his head. As much as I hate those ridiculous Hallmark moments that couples have, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else except on the sofa, my wet hair dripping down my back, with Justin’s head on my lap as I stroke his hair. Perhaps today won’t turn out so bad after all.
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“So they actually grabbed his crotch?” says Cat through a throng of giggles, barely able to process the words through her laughing mouth.
“Oh yeah, they went straight in for it,” laughs Tiny, easing the car round a corner.
“Justin was practically crying like a little girl,” adds Trace, lowering his magazine to insert his commended opinion into my degrading story of humiliation. “‘I’ve been molested! I’ve been molested!’ he screamed!” Trace snorts, bringing his pitch to an earsplitting high tone, impersonating me. If I wasn’t such a good citizen, his life would have come to a bloody end long ago.
“Well I was!” I complain, placing a hand protectively over my groin. “That girl was going after the Crown Jewels, man. I don’t let just anyone near those babies.”
“Oh my god, Justin, you’re so protective,” laughs Cat, shaking her head as she sips at a replacement frappuccino from Starbucks. “I’m sure it was just a bit of fun.”
“Cat, if Trace leaned over and put his hands on your boobs, what would you do?”
“Justin, I don’t have ‘boobs’, I have breasts,” she says, rolling her eyes.
“I’m sorry, was there an offer for me to squeeze Cat’s boobs in there?” asks Trace, lowering his magazine and reentering the conversation.
“Breasts, Trace, breasts!” Cat corrects exasperatedly.
He waves his hand. “Yeah yeah, whatever…so if I call them breasts do I get to squeeze ’em then?”
“No,” I interject harshly. “No one squeezes Cat’s boobs except me.”
“I’m going to put aside my extreme sorrow that this conversation is even taking place for a moment to just say last time I checked, these breasts where my own,” Cat argues, pointing towards her chest and frowning jokingly.
“Well, you were wrong,” I reply firmly. “In fact, you should really get some sort of tattoos on those babies…you know, like ‘Justin’s Property’ or ‘No Touchy-Touchy…Unless You’re Justin Timberlake, In Which Case Go Ahead’. It would be a great way to let people know whether they could cop a feel, or whether they should keep their distance, don’t you think?”
“I think you’re insane,” she says frankly, unbuckling her seatbelt and raising an eyebrow at me.
Cat thanks Tiny as he opens the door for us, and Trace and I quickly follow her out of the Escalade that has become the official vehicle to shepherd us around New York in. I remember the first time I came to New York with the guys and we were escorted around the city in a tiny Honda. As much fun as it was having Chris on my lap for three months, I’m more than happy with the upgrade.
“Oh crap,” whines Cat, glancing into the tinted window of the car. “I look awful,” she says, ruffling her hair with her hand and pouting at her reflection.
“No you don’t,” I assure her, wrapping my arms around her mid-section and resting my chin on her shoulder. “You look great.”
She smiles. “You’re like a boyfriend robot filled with appreciative comments and special programming about the right times to say them.”
I laugh and kiss her neck. “And you’re like a complete nerd who always seems to draw parallels between me and things that are smarter than myself.”
“I’m not a nerd,” she protests, slapping my cheek very gently and increasing her pout.
“Sure you are,” I reply, grasping her hand and pulling her away from her self-critical staring competition with the car window. “Remember when Trace messed up your sock drawer?”
“Hey, that was completely justified, okay? He put all my pantyhose in with my socks!” she exclaims, as though it was a federal offence.
“So?” murmurs Trace, opening the door to Electric Lady Studios. “I swear Cutie, that is the last time I do any washing for you.”
“Well, nevertheless, I wish your nerdy girlfriend would have had enough sense to do something with my hair today,” she complains again, stopping to run a hand through her hair once more as she catches sight of her image in the glass doors leading into the studio.
“Come on Cat,” I groan, tugging on her hand and pulling her into the building. “Quit using every reflective surface as a mirror and just hurry up!”
She rolls her eyes and falls in step behind me, grumbling a few choice phrases about me under her breath as we walk through the studio. Her grumbling slowly falters off and when I stole a sneaky glance of her out of the corner of my eyes, I saw her wide eyed gaze darting into the corner of the studio, drinking in her surroundings. She looks neither impressed or disappointed, she’s just…examining.
“Do you like it?” I ask, squeezing her hand slightly and snapping her out of her reverie as Tiny approaches the desk to confirm which studio I’m in.
Her eyes take another gander around the 60s themed building, taking in its dark purple and red velour décor. Finally, she nods. “It’s…dope.”
Laughing, I bend down to brush my lips against hers, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I prefer your hair like that, you know,” I point out, as Tiny and Trace head towards Studio A.
“What, frizzy?” she says, grabbing a strand of brown hair and pulling it before her eyes.
“No, curly,” I reply, pulling her closer to me and slipping an arm around her waist.
“Justin, this isn’t curly. And it’s not straight either, it’s just…blah.”
“Ooh, what an excellent addition to the Webster’s Dictionary--blah.”
“Shut up,” she huffs, contradicting her irritated tone by reciprocating my actions and putting her hand around my waist affectionately. “I’m just having a ‘blah’ day, alright? Look, I think I’ve gained weight,” she says as we step into the elevator and she pinches at her hips.
“Ridiculous,” I mutter, rolling my eyes and looking away. “You don’t look any different at all. Actually…” I lift up my shirt and pat the abs in my stomach. “I think it’s about time I called my trainer and had him put me back on an exercise regime.”
Cat laughs and shakes her head in despair. “Why on earth would you, the only person in the world who doesn’t have fat on their legs, need to have a trainer?”
“I think I’m losing muscle definition,” I whimper, tracing my not-as-evident-as-it-should-be six pack.
“Justin, this only confirms my suspicions that you are in fact crazy,” mutters Cat, rolling her eyes and shaking her head again.
“I don’t know why you’re complaining. You’re the one who’ll be benefiting from my new hot bod,” I grin, slyly bringing my hand to her ass and slapping it.
She blushes and smacks my hand away as the elevator dings at our studio. We are met by the tinkling noises of the piano, and no sooner have we stepped into the room the sight of a woman’s back as she sits at the piano greets us. She stops playing and scoots off the bench, pulling down her short denim skirt that seems to have ridden up when she sat down, and approaches us with a broad smile.
“Hi, I’m Amber,” she says happily, holding her hand out to me.
I return her smile and shake her warm hand. “Justin.” I motion behind me and she shakes hand with Tiny, Trace, and a very dubious looking Cat.
The moment my hand returns to my side, Cat grasps it protectively. Casting a quick glance into her direction, the fiery embers of distrust radiating from her as she stares at Amber.
Returning my gaze to Amber, I can’t imagine why. She certainly has the figure of a model, with a tall, slender frame absent of any spare flesh at all. Her indistinguishable color of blondish-brown hair sits in jagged lengths around her oval face, and her wide set green eyes stare at us inquisitively. Her thin physique is quite skeletal in appearance, with none of the Cat’s curves in sight. The excruciatingly short skirt shows miles of long legs, and a lace white tank top and a multi-colored scarf adorn her upper body, showing the distinct outlines of her collarbone.
She’s pretty, very pretty in fact, but so far from my type it’s ridiculous. Her figure is too…skinny, in a way. I can tell straight away she’s one of those girls Cat might refer to as “lucky bitches”, because she could eat a horse and never gain a pound. But to me, I just find it quite boring. Yeah, so she has great legs. Yeah, I could probably lift her up with one hand. Yeah, her green eyes are very intense. But…nah, there's no excitement. Cat has nothing to worry about.
Judging by the firm grip on my hand, I’m not entirely sure she knows this as well as I do.
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So her name is Amber, right? And her hair is an amber color, a mixture of browns and blondes and reds. How ingenious to call her after her hair color. Wouldn’t it just be fantastic if my name was Boring Mousy Brown?
I wonder whether anyone has every considered dying her hair a horrific red when she was asleep, just so she would have to change her name to Ginger or something. I mean honestly, Amber Sunflower. What a ridiculous, irritating, silly name. I haven’t heard a name that preposterous since that Spice Girl called her child Phoenix Chi or some other embarrassing term that represented “inner strength”. As far as I’m concerned, Amber Sunflower is the worst name in the world.
Listen to me; rambling like some demented housewife who saw her husband talking to the neighbor. I hadn’t had time to dwell on the “Ex model now producer” extravaganza before this day, otherwise I’m sure I would have spent the far too long fretting over it. You know how dramatic and fussy I get over things that are yet to even happen…I suppose you could call me neurotic.
But I think I have every right to have the urge to flush myself down a toilet at the moment. I knew, despite Justin’s claims to the contrary, that I just wasn’t looking my hottest today. It‘s a simple matter of fact. Some days you wake up and your hair is bouncy and tidy, your eyebrows are perfectly arched, your skin is flawless, your lips look pouty, and you’ve just found the outfit that makes proportions your figure perfectly…
Yes. Well.
Today just wasn’t one of those days.
I had accepted I was not exactly the epitome of gorgeousness, but I got sidetracked when I was talking to Justin and didn’t even trouble over the horrific state of my hair. Well, not for long, at least. In fact, I was in a good mood for once.
But then we walked into the studio and met “Amber”.
When I was in good old High School, contemplating suicide and hating life, there was always this gang of popular girls that were just immaculate. In the way they walked, talked, dressed, did their hair, their makeup, their jewelry... It just didn’t seem fair that I was this awkward geek with glasses and numbingly boring hair and yet they were these wonderfully rounded individuals with great teeth and gorgeous hair. Every time I saw those girls it was as though I had stepped in front of one of those mirrors at fair grounds that contorts your shape and makes you look hideous. I felt ugly and ashamed, it was awful.
But back to present day, where I’m a confident, beautiful, self-assured woman dating Justin Timberlake. As hilarious as that description of myself may be, it was exactly how I didn't feel when I met the walking twig. I was zapped right back into high school again, in front of the same gang of girls, feeling the same depressing things.
She was wearing one of those skirts that guys always look up to see whether the girl is wearing underwear or not.
The type of skirt I would look awful in.
She had this very stylish, trendy haircut, with carefully swept bangs and choppy layers.
I haven’t changed my hairstyle in three years.
She had an aura of bubbly confidence about her, as though she knew exactly how fantastic her life was.
I couldn’t be more pessimistic if I was dead.
So you see? Can you possibly grasp the suffocating feeling of inadequacy I felt the moment I laid eyes on her? I know the second I tell Justin any of this, he’ll launch into some sermon about self-esteem and my lack of it, etc, etc, and I’ll switch off before snapping back with some sarcastic reply. Perhaps I do have low self esteem, but I assure you it’s not by choice. I would give anything to be able to walk up to Amber confidently and feel terrific as I introduced myself. I would love to be a more social, approachable person, and that I didn’t scare off people with my immediate deadpan responses to everything.
But sadly, I can’t change who I am. And I do mean, sadly.
My only strand of confidence was Justin. He seemed a little taken aback with my somewhat fierce hand lock, but I had the awful feeling that if he wasn’t holding me up, I would have just fallen down. Not to mention the fact I was making it very clear to Amber who had priority over Justin. Dogs pee on their territory, I hold its hand. I am more willing to ignore the fact I haven’t been this immature since I demanded a later bedtime when I was seven, but I have been known to act in strange ways in the face of challenge.
“Cat!” A sharp voice jolts me from my thoughts.
I snap to alert. “Yes…sorry…yes?”
Justin frowns at me, before nodding towards a velvet couch in the corner. “I’m going to listen to some of Amber’s beats. Do you want to listen, or sit over there with Trace?”
“I’ll sit over there with Trace,” I reply, so engrossed in my thoughts Justin’s question was slightly hazy.
“Are you okay?” he asks, peering at me curiously. “Do you feel ill?”
I smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. You go…” I point over towards the table of different buttons and switches. “Make music.”
He sends me a confused look, before smiling. “Alright. I’ll talk to you in a few.” He drops a kiss on my lips, in full view of Amber, before sitting down in front of the table and messing around with the buttons.
Feeling ever so slightly smug about my kiss, I saunter over to the couch and collapse next to Tiny and Trace.
The welcoming cushions of the couch support me and remind of Justin’s bed back in the apartment, from which I was cruelly torn from at a ludicrous hour. Settling down into the sofa, I yawn and lean my head back, staring at the red lights above me.
I knew today was going to be a bad day.
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