Chapter 3

There was a loud and blaring beeping sound. It seemed to reverberate off of the walls and find a million different ways to penetrate my ears into my brain. My brain didn't enjoy being wracked with this niggling sound so it sent a jolt to the rest of my body. Not to mention my ears didn't like being penetrated either, because they didn't roll that way.

Ow! Jesus christ brain, I'm up, I'm up! You would think that after experiencing this sensation for most of my life, I would be used to it. Nope. I started to crack my eyes open but there was that little agitating feeling when one wakes up so I rubbed them clear.

I glanced at a black rectangular box on my night stand. It had red numbers on it, 5:59, with smaller red letters 'AM' beside it. Cindy once asked me why I set it on 5:59am and not at 6:00am like any other normal person. I told her that it was too settled and mundane. That while most other people who woke up during this time would set it at six, I was different and I was a unique individual! She laughed at me and said she couldn't tell the difference.

I reached out and smacked the top of it. The noise stopped and for a brief moment, everything was silent. Actually, there was still a quiet hum of the air conditioning unit in the apartment. But still, I liked it. It was glorious.

I sat upright on the bed, while my feet touched the floor. I took a deep breath and stretched upwards with my arms. 'Reach for the stars'! I smiled, still savouring the gloriousness of the air conditioning hum.

But before my arms lowered in my stretch, I heard a mutter beside me, "Someone kill me now!" My smile widened, recalling that Cindy was never a morning person. She burrowed her head lower into her pillow face down, her bed hair oscillating as she did so. She muffled into the pillow, "Is it five fifty-nine?"

I glanced back at the clock. Nope. "Nope, it's six on the dot now."

"Great... ," she lifted her head off of the pillow and inhaled sharply before continuing, "back to the grind."

"Come on! Why so pessimistic! It's a brand new day and there are more cases to work on!" I teased with a smirk on my face. I wasn't actually that big of a morning person either, but I liked to occasionally poke fun at Cindy.

Cindy glanced towards me and was about to say something, but she smirked instead and looked into my eyes for a moment's pause. Then she opened her mouth to say it.

No! Oh no! "Don't say it! Don't you fuckin' say it!" I pleaded with her.

"Another day, another dollar!" Cindy said, still with the smug smirk on her face.

Goddamn it! We both heard a coworker say it once, back when we were both starting out at the firm. We were still getting used to waking up at a set time everyday, having to adjust after graduate school. When I first heard it, it didn't bother me. But after it marinated in my mind a little, it really bothered me.

I told Cindy about it. "You remember what Phil said earlier?"

Cindy replied. "Yeah, about the bagels, they actually do get them at Al's down the street."

Alan, another coworker, was mixing cream into his coffee. "Yeah they're pretty good. I get them myself on the weekends, it's better with cream cheese instead of just plain like we have them here."

Cindy laughed, turning towards Alan. "Yeah, we're here to work Alan, not to just pack away the company bagels."

Alan gave a slight shrug. "Well, I'm just saying."

I smiled at their little exchange. "No, not that. The other thing ... when he said 'another day, another dollar'." I gestured the quotation marks in the air as I quoted Phil.

Cindy glanced at me, curiosity forming, as her eyebrows raised slightly. "Yeah, what about it, you've never heard that saying before?"

I ripped open a packet of sugar and added it to my mug. "No, no, I've definitely heard that saying before. It just didn't bother me as much then."

Alan chuckled before taking a sip of his own coffee mug. "Alright, I'll bite. Why did it bother you so much mister Sigmund Freud, or whatever philosopher people reference nowadays?"

I looked upwards past Alan's face, thinking about what I wanted to say. "Well ... it's just so ... meh. It's our lives and yet it seems so ... mundane and boring. We're people in New York, the big apple! We're in the prime of our lives with the rest of our lives ahead of us! Just to write off 'another day' as 'another dollar' (I quoted the air again) ... it just doesn't sit well with me, you know?"

Both Cindy and Alan looked at me with mild surprise at my words. After a brief moment of his own contemplation, Alan said, "Whatever man, they're just words, you don't have to take them so seriously."

I huffed and retreated behind my coffee mug, taking a long sip of it. Afterwards, when Cindy and I walked past Phil in the hallway, I grumbled. Cindy smirked at me.

It was that same smirk that Cindy had on her face.

"Fuck your days and fuck your dollars." I said to her smirk indignantly.

"Who's pessimistic now?" Was Cindy's reply as she smiled.

We both went about our morning rituals. I did my three S's (shit, shower, shave), while Cindy was getting dressed outside. Personally I liked to dress after I had breakfast because Cindy usually used the full length mirror first so I had to wait my turn.

I already poured my wheaties and was in the process of making my morning protein shake when Cindy came into the kitchen to make her oatmeal. We wordlessly went about making our breakfast. I was shaking the shake bottle to mix it as Cindy was cutting bananas into her oatmeal before adding some milk.

We glanced at each other a few times. Honestly, the morning wasn't awkward at all. We were still cordial with each other. The only difference was that she didn't give me a kiss as she came into the kitchen like she did every other morning. I was contemplating this as I was spooning wheaties into my mouth.

After I washed my bowl in the sink, I went into the bedroom to get dressed. I put on a white collared shirt first, before tucking it into a pair of black slacks. I then went to the washroom to gel my hair. I slicked my light brown, matted hair into a sleek professional but suave style that I favoured these days. I slathered on some cologne that Cindy got me a couple weeks back that she said she liked. I slid on my rolex watch that my father got me for my own graduation present half a year ago onto my wrist. Lastly, I grabbed the suit jacket off of the rack in my closet, slid it on, and buttoned the bottom two buttons.

I addressed myself. "Look at you, you handsome devil! Ready to kick some ass in the corporate world!" I pointed both my index fingers at the full length mirror, smiling at the reflection looking back towards myself.

I heard a scoff from outside the bedroom. I looked towards the door, Cindy was leaning against the door jamb watching my antics. "Alright there sonny jim, we ready to go?" She asked.

I patted my left pocket. Wallet, check. I patted my right pocket. Keys, check. I cupped my balls. Most important thing in the world, check. "Yep, let's go!"

Despite being a rich daddy's boy, I didn't think of myself as a spoiled brat. Okay, I admit that probably every rich daddy's boy says that. Let me explain, or at least try. Growing up, I never asked for anything it was just given to me. Okay, I see my explanation isn't winning hearts and minds. At least I wasn't out every night blowing money on hookers and blow.

The rolex that I was wearing as my graduation present was exactly that, a present. I never asked him for it. I never would have bought it for myself, although I would have bought a lesser watch because at the end of the day, I was a lawyer and appearances needed to be kept.

Even the diamond earrings I got Cindy I had bought using my own money I earned from working at Bradford & Preston. Bradford & Preston was a neighbouring law firm I worked at during my summer terms in my graduate years at Harvard Law School. Of course I never told Cindy that I used my own money for her earrings. I went down that road once when we first started dating and I paid for the meal. She rebutted with the fact that I must have been so independent with my non-existent student loans, which my father happily paid for. I mentioned to Cindy that she didn't have tens of thousands in loans either, because she came from money as well. Needless to say, we didn't get into any post-dinner activities. So I learned to never try to correct her afterwards. I mean, what was the point?

Yes, I never went to a public school. Yes, daddy paid for my expenses when I went out of state to study at Harvard. But I never had any crazy yacht parties, I mean that has to count for something, right?

Anyways back to the story, the reason I was mentioning any of this was because I didn't have a car. Cindy didn't have one either. I guess it wasn't only a monetary issue. I mean who enjoys driving in downtown New York? So Cindy and I have been taking the subway since we started around six months ago.

Cindy and I, along with our fellow New York citizens, piled mindlessly into the subway train. Being in the early morning, it was packed pretty tightly but not as tightly as it would have been in an hour or two during rush hour. I found a couple of empty seats and sat down in one. I looked at Cindy and she scoffed. Cindy took her professionalism seriously and even if she took the subway like the rest of the herd, she wouldn't be caught dead sitting on a public subway seat. I asked her about it once and she told me that it was filthy and she wasn't going to be 'sitting where hobos have puked on before'. Whatever, I didn't have a problem with that as long as she didn't try to make me stand up alongside her.

The subway ride was about twenty minutes or so before we both got off on our stop. For the first few minutes, the ride was very quiet except for the hum and the occasional screech when the subway stopped at another station since it was still the early morning and most people weren't that chit-chatty.

Five minutes in, the subway made another routine stop and another couple people of the mindless herd piled on in. At first they seemed to be a normal bunch, but then a man who migrated towards the end of the car started talking loudly to himself.

"They said that enough weed can't fit into a joint, what the fuck are these niggas talking about man?" That was when I first heard the man talking to himself.

I mean this was the twenty first century, you just didn't hear that kind of racial slurring so loud in a public setting very often. I turned my head towards the speaker, along with everyone else in our subway car. It was some middle aged white guy with a sort of crazed look in his eyes. He wasn't talking to anyone, just sort of looking down at the ground. He was continuing to speak loudly to himself.

Oh goody, a crazy person! I looked at Cindy, standing beside myself, and she looked back at me. Her eyes were slightly squinted in an expression of disbelief. I then heard a slight sniggering from across myself. I looked forward and there were two young women around our age. One was dressed smartly in a buttoned up blouse and a very flattering black skirt. Her dirty blonde hair was styled in wavy curls framing her head. She also had a very embarrassed look upon her made-up face. The other woman was wearing a nurse's white ensemble, including the ugly white safety shoes. She was the one sniggering, trying very hard not to dissolve into a full blown laugh. Her hazel eyes danced with mirth and her right hand was covering her mouth. Visible on the ring finger of her hand was an engagement ring, signifying her betrothment.