1 The Grind

Jade had spent the Christmas holidays with her cousin Jenny and some of their friends. They went boating, swimming and soaked up the sun. New Year's Eve was a blast. They partied, smoked it up, drank too much, and slept off their hangovers.

She had hooked up in a yacht on the lakeside with one of the guys, Nick, who planned to join the army. There seemed to be a mutual understanding that it was what it was and they would never see eachother again. It was out of character for Jade, but then again, it was New Year, and she was not one to try to make something out of nothing.

On the way to her uncle and aunt's house, Jenny kept insisting that Jade tell her where she had gotten the hickey on her neck.

"It's the 2nd of January, I don't remember." she said lamely

"That's not an answer," Jenny persisted.

"It's a 2nd-of-January answer."

Jenny's Dad put on a mix of his favourite songs. Musically, his taste was not that bad--he liked Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Eagles, all the old school stuff. Secretly, Jade had always looked fondly upon previous generations, musically and otherwise. Of course, she wasn't there, but maybe that's what she found so appealing about it.

The world is just getting worse all the time, and no one seems to understand that. Like those ignorant people who say every day is getting better--are they naive, or are they just not willing to admit that things are alwas getting harder? Actually, it's also possible that they have found a secret that I don't know and every day really does improve their life.



People mostly knew Jade as a wild, hard-partying, angst-ridden teenager, but what only those close to her knew was that she thought a lot about everything. There were so many unanswered questions she had about life, such as "What am I on this earth to do?", "Can one person really change the world?" and "How come I don't look like Kate Moss?" Before the answer came to her regarding any of these questions, the car pulled up in her Aunt's driveway and came to a stop.

The country house smelled of barbecue and loud laughter could be heard coming from inside the house. It was Jenny's sister Adriana's 20th birthday and she had invited some friends over for a small-scale party.

"How are ya, gorgeous?" Adriana said, hugging Jade. "This is my boyfriend, Drew."

Drew was tall, heavy-set, pasty-skinned and and small, dark eyes and hair. He looked like a country thug.

Then there was Benny, Drew's best mate, and his girlfriend Jay. He was a chubby brown-haired guy and she was a tanned, blonde, blue-eyed knockout. They were a vulgar bunch after a few beers, and not surprisingly, Jade fit right in.

"I heard anal sex is really big in Japan," Jay remarked.

"Iwouldn't know," Jade replied. "Personally, I would never do it."

"Aw why not?" Drew said jokingly. "What good's a chick who won't take it up the backdoor?"

"Well, it's just not natural, it's a dirty practice."

"You can shower though!" Benny chimed in.

"But it's never clean enough. I mean, imagine you were doing your function and it crawled back up, you know? It can't feel good!"

The guys laughed boistrously, but the girls didn't.

There was a pause in the conversation, and Jade's grandmother aproached and said, "Jade, how are you, beautiful girl?"

"I'm good, Nonna, thank you,"

"Come on bella, have something to eat before it gets cold. Come on children." She said to the group as she turned to leave.

Drew shook his head and said, "Just how is it that you can be so wild while your grandmother thinks your some kind of a saint?"

"I never thought about it," Jade replied.

*****

Jade and her cousins had had a pleasant time together, but now it was time to go back to work, back to the city. Jenny and Adriana's oldest brother Christopher generously offered to drive her to the station.

A two-hour train ride and one's night's sleep away, and it would be back to the grind.