The New Year

“So this is the new year,” Sophie muttered to herself, taking a sip from her poorly mixed cocktail. She made a face as she swallowed the sugary firewater. “I don’t feel any different.” She surveyed the apartment, the get together turned party still churning. The ball had been dropped, the obligatory Auld Lang Syne had been sung/inaccurately slurred. The sound of 2010 pop hits had been replaced with softer music, the clanking of plastic cups acting as crystal. Sophie imagined what was happening in the upstairs bedrooms – explosions of heavy groping and sloppy kissing in the distance. She wished she was one of those lucky ones, locked in a borrowed bedroom, ringing in the new year.

Her daydreaming was interrupted by a presence felt. She turned to find Jess, a friend she had since high school. Jess was tall, dark, skin like caramel. In her outfit, she looked like a villain from a postmodern film noir. Lipstick the color of electric cherries. Slim black dress and smokey tights. Heels that could double as weapons if necessary. “This is the new year!” Jess yelled, bumping glasses with Sophie. Sophie raised her eyebrows unamused and finished her drink. Sensing her friend’s apathy for the celebration, Jess continued. “Any resolutions? Like...not being a stick in the mud?”

“Ha ha,” Sophie mocked, holding her stomach. “No resolutions for me. They’re just one more thing to feel bad about. Like lent... I never understood lent.” Jess nodded, not following Sophie’s logic. “Self-assigned penance,” Sophie explained. “It’s not for me. Wait, let me fix that. It is for me, all year long. I don’t need a resolution to make me feel bad about myself. I majored in self pity.”

Jess laughed. “You’re such a pessimist.”

“I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist.”

“But you’re not,” Jess scoffed, setting down her drink on a nearby end table. “I’m not going to tell you that people have it worse off than you, you already know that. You’re not stupid.”

“Thank you?” Sophie replied, cocking her head.

“You don’t like your life,” Jess pressed further. “I get that. Everyone feels like that...maybe not as often as you feel like that, but everyone has their days. Not every problem is easy with an easy solution.”

“Well it seems like everyone here has it easier than me,” Sophie commented, turning back to the room full of friends. Jess shrugged, walking towards the kitchen. Sophie followed, picking up Jess’s empty glass from the table. The two friends stood at the refrigerator, scanning for their next libation. They settled on two Stellas.

Jess leaned against the counter, fumbling with the paper wrapper on top of the bottle. “That’s what nights like this are for, Sophie. The promise of a new year – that’s what people hold on to. They want to believe that things get better, even if – ” Jess put up a hand to stop Sophie from interrupting. “Even if things are going well for them. Everyone wants better. I want better, different. You want better.” Jess popped the cap off the bottle and took a sip. Sophie was still fumbling with hers. “So, once a year, everybody puts their best suits or dresses on. They play pretend – they pretend their celebrating, that they’re wealthy or loved or successful for one night. Because if they believe enough, maybe it will happen. Do you need help with that?” Sophie nodded, handing the beer over. Jess reached into a drawer beneath the counter and pulled out a bottle opener, cracked it, and handed the bottle back.

“I get what you’re saying – ” Sophie started. She paused when a herd of partygoers ran past her through the kitchen.

“Fireworks! Front lawn! Now! ” a random man yelled as he disappeared out the door. Jess and Sophie looked at each other, then at the door. The thirty-odd dialogues that filled the apartment had poured out of the house, leaving only one.

“Like I said,” Sophie continued. “I get what you’re saying. But I don’t care what other people are dealing with, or what they want. I’m selfish. I’m twenty-seven years old and I’m still young enough to care about only one person – me.”

Jess sighed. “That’s a fair point. But you have two options. The first, do nothing. Stay trapped in your home town forever, hang out at the same townie bars, working at a job you fucking loathe. Or, the second, do something. Get the fuck out of this place. Be happy. Do something. Do anything. I got out, and look at me. I’m dolled up like Angelina Jolie...less slutty, of course.” Jess smiled, prompting Sophie to laugh. She set her beer down on the counter next to Jess and rubbed her eyes with both palms. Jess rested a free hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“Fuck Jess,” Sophie sighed, leaning into Jess slightly. “I miss being a kid. Things were so simple. The biggest problem was weather Johnny So-and-So invited you to his birthday party, and a hundred dollars felt like winning the lottery. I wish the world was flat like the old days, you know? Then I could travel just by folding a map.”

“I know,” Jess comforted, smoothing out the back of Sophie’s hair. “Life will never be that simple again, but that doesn’t mean it has to be terrible. You’ve always said that money is blood, and that’s true. We need money to survive – money is a big thing. But it’s not the only thing. You’ve got options – airplanes, speed trains and freeways. Any one of them will take you where you want to go, where you belong. There is no distance too great to hold you back from what you need. It’s just distance. It’s just money. You’ll figure it out, I know it. You’re close and, more importantly, you’re ready. Escape.”