My Story

Anisa walked down the crowded sidewalk with tourist, runners, and businessmen. The wide streets were filled with everything from Honda’s to BMW’s. Her feet kept sliding out of her wedge heels that showed her freshly manicured toenails, and her pink hobo bag kept itching her side. The southern heat smoldered her and she could feel droplets of sweat forming on her nose making her Michael Kors sunglasses all nasty. She walked in to Mocha Café, one of her favorite places to hang out when it was really hot outside, other than her mom’s job at the National Archives in D.C. She sat down by the window and pulled out her laptop and began typing. A girl with long dark hair pulled tightly up into a bun came in and looked around, Anisa caught her eye and waved.

“Hey Carmella”, she said, still typing.

“ How did you get back to Old Town so fast from D.C.? “ Carmella said sitting down and put her large Coach on the table.

“ Umm... I just took the Metro, you know King Street.”

“ Oh okay anyway, how hot is it outside?” Carmella asked, now digging in her bag and pulled out a platinum card.

“ It is so hot, they said 95”

“ OMG I have to tell you about Penn Clark…”
Penn Clark was the quarterback on the high schools football team, he was from southern California and looked like one of the Hollister models. He moved to Alexandria about a year ago, because of his parents work. Carmella walked towards the line for her drink. Anisa knew it would be a while, she pulled out her pink Sidekick and started typing on that.

“hey Ken wht is up? Anisa typed to her other friend Kenedy.

“ nothing and you” Kenedy answered.
Kenedy always uses proper English when texting, but she always managed to know what everyone was saying when the rest of them used acronyms.

“ k, wud?” Anisa typed fast.”

“typing a paper for bio class”

“Car has to tell me bout Penn”

“What she is always talking about him, but he is something to talk about ?”

“here she comes call u l8ter”
Anisa clicked her phone closed and pulled her laptop back to her. Carmella sat down and handed Anisa a cup filled with a cold smoothie, and began sipping hers.

“ Who were you talking to?”

“ Oh just Kenedy, thanks for the drink”

“No prob, so Penn stopped me in the hallway and said that he had to talk to me about something.”
Anisa tried to look interested, but boys were so not part of her agenda right now. She was into her studies and fueling her love for history. But she had to act liked she cared just a little bit.

“ So he has to talk to you about something, when are you going to talk?”

“ I don’t know just yet but soon!!” Carmella said looking out the window towards the crowded street.

“Well, I hope he does. Umm, have you talked to Gwen?” Anisa asked.
Gwen was their other friend she was in the Bahamas for two weeks and should be due back in a couple days.

“Yeah she called me yesterday at like 1:00 in the morning, time differences, why do you have your laptop?”

“ I wanted to get a head start on my bio essay”

“But it is due in like two weeks” Carmella said pulling her bag closer to her

“ Yeah I know, my dad is supposed to come into town tomorrow”
Anisa’s mom and dad separated about ten years ago and her dad would visit every second week every month, he lived in Texas. This time it would be very different he was going to bring his stepdaughter Millie who was 16 the same age as Anisa and his other stepdaughter Kim who was 10, as well as his wife who Anisa only meet once a long time ago.

“Oh you’re going to meet the whole family this weekend” Carmella said looking concerned

“ Yeah and I really don’t want to, I just want me and my dad, but no I have to meet the whole gang”

“ Well you always have your other dad”
Anisa’s mom’s husband and her were really close, so close that she calls him dad. She knew him for like ten years, so she was six years old, she tried calling him by his first name: Jaden, but that didn’t work, so she calls him dad.

“Yeah I guess so, but I know I will not like all three of them, they want me to take them on a tour of Alexandria… yeah right, I already hate them.” Anisa said slamming down the top of her laptop.

“Calm down, you know if you need a break you can crash at my place and we can have like an all girls night, me, you , and my mom” Carmella said “ How long are they going to be here?”

“ A couple of days…I am really going to irk my dad by calling Jaden dad, he hates that, but I really don’t care!”

“ Do what you want, just think things out before you do it.” Carmella’s phone began to buzz “Oh my mom said I have to come home”
Carmella stood up and threw her cup into the recycling bin and came back and grabbed her purse.

“Look call me if anything happens alright?” Anisa shook her head


“ Love you girl” Carmella said blowing a kiss Ania’s way and winking

“Bye Chica” Ansia smiled and waved out the window and began pacing up her laptop.
Anisa loved the walk to her house, Old Town Alexandria was full of historic row hoses dating back to the 18 hundreds. The walk to her house was not really long if you took your time a noticed the little things in Old Town, like how almost every store had a wooden sign hanging in front of the door like in old books, and everyone had a flag hanging somewhere. She plugged her earphones up to her I-Pod and pressed play and “Rock with U” by Janet Jackson began playing. Friday was the most hectic place in Old Town, the streets where crowded with tables and hot dog venders on the sidewalk. She finally could see her house and she walked faster, she could also see her father’s (not her real one) BMW parked in front of the house. The sun was now setting behind the trees and the smell of honeysuckle was in the air. She walked up the three small steps into the two-story row house. It smelled of Spanish cooking and Pinsol all in one.
“Chrissy, Dad?” Anisa said looking in their stainless steel kitchen, she found Chrissy over the oven. “Chrissy” she said again. Chrissy nearly jumped through the roof when Anisa called her.
“Do not scare me like that again hija, do you hear?” She said pushing her dark grey hair back from her face.
Christina was the maid around the house; Anisa’s mom insisted that they needed someone to take care of the house because of their hectic schedules. But Anisa and her father had objected, but her mom kept nagging everyone so they made a pack that they would only have a maid on Wednesday’s and Friday’s. Anisa affectionately nicknamed her Chrissy.
“Sorry, I thought you couldn’t hear me.” Anisa said sitting on the stool facing the island in the middle of the kitchen.
“How was your day at school?” Chrissy asked, sitting a hot plate of enchiladas on the marble island
“It was alright, happy that it is Friday, and I think I passed my espanol test today… thanks to you. Where is dad?”
“Very good, my work paid off, and he is upstairs working on something for his job, or something like that” she said getting two forks and handing one to Anisa. They both took a big scoop from the steaming food and nearly choked trying to swallow it, the heat burned Anisa’s mouth.
“Okay don’t ever do that again” Anisa said choking back tears that where trying to escape, they both laughed. Anisa jumped off the stool and headed to the stairs that where down the skinny but long hallway, she walked up the stairs and past her room to her father’s office. It was dimly lit and smelled like leather, he was sitting in front of his laptop, tying furiously.
“So how was work 007” Anisa said leaning against the door frame, he finally looked up and smiled his blue eyes shielded by his square glasses and his black hair fell over his forehead, licking his eyelashes. His was wearing his black suit that made him look a lot like Men in Black.
“Work was fine. How was your day?” he asked
“It was fine. I passed my Spanish test thanks to Chrissy, and are you allowed to tell me your day was fine?” she said chuckling. Anisa’s dad worked for the FBI for the department where they looked for espionage in the United States, it is called Counterespionage. He usually he doesn’t or can’t tell Anisa or her mom what he dose at work or what he does on “business trips”.
“ Yes I can tell you that my day was fine, and that I am happy that you got a passed the Spanish test” he said as a blinking light flashed on his cell phone, “hold that comment” he flicked open his phone and started talking, he held his finger up for her to hold on, but she went into her room to change. Her walls were pink and her bed was all maple wood her sheets where pink too and she had a bay window on looking the street and all those passing by. She slid her wedges off and opened up her closet and found her pajama shorts and long polka dot socks that reached up to her knees along with her tank top. Her father always asked why her and her mother always have to dress fashionably around the house, but they both had no answer to his question. She walked back into her father’s office, where he was just finishing up on his phone call.
“Okay.. yes, bye” he said clicking his phone shut “ sorry about that, so school was good today that’s good, you ready for your other dad tomorrow?” Anisa sat on the floor cross-legged.
“ I guess I really don’t want to meet any of his little family, he could have left them in Texas. But I can’t change anything so I will have to just live with it” she said making a sad face.
“yeah something’s your going to have to do even though you may not want to do it. That’s part of what life is, you know doing things you don’t want to.” He took his glasses off and laid them on the table.
“ You should get contacts.” Anisa said looking at his eyes
“ Why? I only need them when I work on the computer and why are you changing the subject?” he said.
“ So? You have really nice dark blue eyes and glasses hide them. Plus because your hair is so dark, it really makes the color of your eyes pop” Anisa said standing up
“ I don’t want contacts, I don’t know maybe later… but other than my eyes, are you going to be alright tomorrow?”
The door downstairs closed and her mom’s voice echoed off the wooden walls
“ Hello, oh hi Chrissy how are you?”
“ I’ am going downstairs” Anisa said walking out the door she turned and looked at her dad “You should really consider contacts” she said, smiling.
She came downstairs to find her mom sitting on couch with her heels on the rug next to it.
“ Hey mom, how was your day?” Anisa walked into the living room
“Oh hey honey, my day was fine. I am just sleepy and I’m so sick of tourists coming into my office thinking they have real artifacts when all they have is one they made themselves.” Her mom worked for The National Archives in Washington D.C., she is the one who deals with all of the artifacts and people that come from all over and say that they have artifacts that are worth looking at. Most of the time the people make the so-called “artifacts”. Anisa spent most of her time there when she was little, opening up her love for history.
“ That stinks.” Anisa said going into the dining room.
“How was your day?” she asked
“ Oh fine” Anisa said, her father came down the steps as she entred back into the living room, Chrissy called Anisa into the kitchen.
“ Yeah Chrissy?” Anisa asked sitting on the stool
“ Can you please get the plates and forks?” she asked putting the food on the table, as Anisa set the table all she could think was about her dad coming tomorrow with his family, she had to push the thought away for good. Dinner passed effortlessly and so did the night. Before she knew it she it was time to go to bed. Her father texted her saying that they where in North Carolina, “Great” she thought as her head hit the pillow.