“Maria, wake up.” Maria Morales felt a tap on her shoulder. It was her 12-year old younger sister Samantha.
Maria slipped on her bunny slippers and felt her head feel all of a sudden, light-headed. It had been five weeks since Maria had last woken up without a hangover, but it also marked five weeks since Maria woke up everyday with a painful headache. Maria pulled the curtains and looked outside. The scene was a beautiful winter wonderland. Maria resided in Surrey B.C’s beautiful, golf-course ridden, Panorama Ridge neighbourhood. It was “a gem in a rough,” as she often described to the guys she would meet and cringe when they heard the phrase, “ I am from Surrey, and you.”
Maria Morales walked down the stairs of her family’s five-bedroom house. Christmas felt different this year. As she stepped downstairs, she could see her mother slouched across the couch. The O was playing in the background. “Mom, wake up – it’s Christmas Day” Samantha tapped her mother on the shoulder in the same fashion as she had tapped Maria’s shoulder.
“Get off me, you little slut” Maria’s mother shouted slapping Sam across the face. Samantha, stood back stunned. To Maria’s surprise, Samantha didn’t cry but rather looked at her mother angrily.
“Get your shit together Mom, please” Maria yelled rushing over to pull Samantha away. “It is Christmas Day. You are not ruining today like you have ruined the last three months.”
“Fuck you alchy, go make me some breakfast,” Maria’s mother slurred. Suddenly, there was silence and only loud snores.
“Sam, I am sorry” Maria whispered to Sam. “Let’s go out and grab some Jimmys. I think it’s another one of mom’s bad days.”
Their mother had been acting this way for three months. It was the day that Sam had accidentally revealed that “Dad has a new girlfriend,” while fighting with their mother, unraveling a series of quick and unforutnate events leading to the family of five, now becoming a family of four. Maria’s older brother, Todd, had long left the family in pursuit of his own career ambitions doing God-knows what.
Long-story short, Maria and Sam’s dad, a divorce lawyer (ironically), had started seeing his secretary and within a month time had moved out of their Surrey home and into her Yaletown condo. Maria felt depressed, thinking about her mother, a former fashion consultant was now a 24-hour W Channel afficianado.
Maria helped Sam get her coat on as they left their apartment driveway. While it was municipal b-ylaw that the driveway was to be shoveled, there was simply no one for the task. No man of the house. Maria felt tears run down her cheek.
Maria herself had been through a tough patch. She had an abusive five-year long-distance relationship end earlier in the year. She had spent the last nine months dating various guys online, only to realize none of them wanted more than a short-term hit and run. Maria, as self-conscious as she was, knew she was pretty by all cultural standards. She had this vivacious, rich, yet innocent look to her – ‘real stature’ as her Dad once complemented her. She looked younger than her 20 years.
Maria looked at her younger sister, trying to maintain herself emotionally. Maria’s year had been filled with way too much alcohol, way too much marijuana, and even one incident where she had accidentally taken fentanyl after being coerced by a few of her former old high school friends one late night out. Maria secretly hoped her sister could have her memories from 2016 erased.
Through all the madness, there was some good news. Maria had recently accepted a coveted internship at a marketing firm. While Maria was not sure if she had been selected to do marketing or be the one marketed, it was an end to her unemployment. Maria had obtained a certificate in marketing two years back but had never been able to find a firm to take her. They all said her grades were too poor, her certificate worth less than the paper it was printed on. One interviewer even accused her of being a fraudster and asked her for a criminal background check for a job (as a fashion model!).
Maria would start her new job, downtown, on boxing day, apparently as the Firm was short staffed for last-minute New Year promotional materials that were being requested by their retail clients. Maria felt nervously brave about this new job and her only worry was running into her father downtown. She had not spoken to him since he had tried to explain to her that he needed to ‘pursue his own happiness’ and move out with Anastasia (his secretary).
After a fifteen-minute walk, Maria and Samantha had arrived at Jimmys. They saw that the line-up was a mile long. In the front, she could see a Arab man with her wife, wearing a hijab. The man was yelling at the front-desk attendant, who appeared to be an Asian girl.
“This coffee is cold. Why is it cold?” the man yelled at the girl, who looked as though she was near years.
These damn refugees think this is Saudi Arabia or something. Maria thought to herself. I hope they deport these guys. Such a burden on our society.
