Loretta of the Lamp

Meant to live for so much more

[Loretta's POV]

"Stan. You know, like Stanley Kubrick, but just Stan."

'Stan' held his hand out for me to shake, but he kept his eyes on my face. I didn't like it, the way he stared. It was unnerving.

But why should I care?

I didn't.

His stunning girlfriend with bubblegum pink hair allowed him to hang one arm lazily about her shoulder, but even she seemed disinterested by his behaviour. She looked across the crowded room idly, seeking entertainment elsewhere.

I shook his hand, because it was polite. It was clammy, warm from the heat of the room and damp from the plastic pint glass he had been holding.

"And that's Peter!" Jess squealed, dragging me on from Stan by my wrist. Across the room Jess stopped in front of her well-built, and very tall boyfriend.

Peter flicked his shock of mousy brown hair out of his face and smiled down at Jess, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her up into a quick kiss. "Hey shorty," he grinned, his eyes locked on hers.

Jess beamed back, and then wriggled free. "This is Loretta," she pointed at me, "the girl I was talking to you about, the girl from my college."

I knew what that meant. When they found out at college that I had been 'away' they all wanted to know why.

I just told them I was really good at breaking into shit.

To her credit, Jess had been the only one who had asked what that meant. I wouldn't say we were the best of friends, but she was the closest thing I'd had to a friend in some time.

And yes, she was telling her boyfriend that I could break into things. I wondered what her boyfriend wanted to break into. He seemed nice, and little bit geeky, not the kind that was likely to want me to break into a place for him to steal something. But then, it takes all types.

"Loretta, Hi!" he gave me a hug. It was awkward, I didn't really do hugs unless it was my little sister. It was over before I could be bothered though, a friendly, 'Hi, nice to meet you' kind of hug.

There was no way this guy broke into places and stole things.

"Peter takes photos," Jess said, running her words together very quickly.

Peter put his glass down. "I like taking photos, it's true. I like many things," he laughed and squeezed Jess, who giggled appreciatively.

"It's actually a long story." Peter grinned, "But you don't care about stories, do you? The short version is that I do photography, I run a blog called the Decayed Collective. We do it anonymously. It's a forum for urban exploration."

I looked at him blankly, though I could tell this was supposed to be the moment where I understood everything.

I didn't.

Peter chewed his lip, "We explore derelict buildings and modern day ruins."

Vaguely I remembered seeing something on the internet that was hashtagged with the word "Urban exploration". It was a man standing on a rough, broken edged slab of concrete in the middle of a deserted city. I'd thought it was a photoshop thing when I first saw it, but later I learned that it was in China, a whole town of apartment blocks and places that should have been homes, alive and filled with people, that were empty and alone, slowly crumbling to pieces as the jungle reclaimed the land.

I couldn't imagine there were places like this in London, or in England even. There were too many people needing places to live. A deserted building in London was a squat. A place where people lived for free in substandard conditions because of archaic laws that struggled to kick them out once they managed to get in.

Someone turned the music up. It may have been a house party, but even here it seemed I was unable to escape the season's festivities.

'Santa Baby' played out loud and strong, and Jess looped her woollen scarf around Peter's neck to pull him in toward her.

The last thing on my mind was to dance to a Christmas Carol. Actually, it wasn't even that, it was just a cheesy Christmas song sung by a washed up pop star for a trashy Christmas compilation that was bound to sell well over these two weeks before December 25th because that's what trashy Christmas music does. The room bobbed along with the tune, singing off key where possible.

I watched.

"Horrible music, isn't it?" said a voice beside me. I turned, and it was the girl with the bubble gum pink hair, Stan's girlfriend.

"That's an understatement," I replied.

"I look around, and I see people dancing and drinking, kissing and laughing, and I know they are all in the mood because they know it's Christmas, and at this time of year this is how we should be. But there is nothing different about their lives, nothing special to make any of it particularly worthwhile." She stopped and turned to Loretta, "My name is Emmeline by the way."

"Loretta," Loretta clinked her glass against Emmeline's and smiled.

Emmeline sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Don't you just get the feeling sometimes that we were meant to live for so much more?"

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I'll probably share more about this later, but this chapter crosses over with Emmeline's story (okay, novel) available on kindle and www.lulu.com/jrmanawa