a little bit more Deception

...lumberjack-chic.

I walked in and asked the lady behind the counter where to pick up my stuff. "Straight back there and to the right," she said as she pointed to an entrance at the side of the sales floor.

Still got lost.

I paused, looking around at the pristine order of nondescript paintings lining the white walls. Another lady asked me what I was looking for.

She'd just been engaged in a conversation with whom I must assume was a subordinate colleague, "You look absolutely gorgeous!" the subordinate stated with contrived affection through slightly clenched teeth.  Cunts don't give complements like that to other women unless there's money involved.

The lady had glossy, close-cropped, strawberry curls with a copper brown complexion that suggested amalgamation, but resembled purity. She wore one of those long wool jackets in a heather gray menswear print, the kind that automatically made you look important if you were attractive enough.
She was.

She looked like somebody.
She acted like somebody.
She knew I was nobody.

Maybe she wasn't as well-bred as I was, but I definitely would never see her cellulite through her sweatpants while she was slumping off the bus dragging along four children she never should've had.

Her kids probably get straight As--even if she has sons.
She might actually have a husband too...anomalous.

"Straight back and to the right," she instructs before she flutters away to her life that is all in order unlike this over-grown black girl with bad hair.

In a few steps I was surrounded by true aspiration; tidy and professional, unremarkable normalcy.

A shrew-like older white woman was found finishing up a phone call in the middle of a spacious receptionist cubicle. "Can I help you?"

I stated the reason of my clearly unnecessary presence and handed her my slip of paper. "I have a pick up..."

She returned with my parcels vigorously crumpling up my slip of paper in her small fist.
It was useless now so it had to disappear.

[...] because I feel like what I really want is so out of reach so I always go for things that are easily tangible....material things based on a life that hasn't materialized. I tell myself that I've wanted these things or needed these things for so long, but really it's like my father says, I'm deceiving myself.