“Just go talk to him and get it over with.” She nodded towards me. “Can’t you see I’ve got customers to deal with?”

   He sighed and gave me a quick, “I’ll be back in a sec.” Then he walked down a long hallway and through a set of double doors.

   She grabbed her pen and notebook from the counter. “What can I get for you?”

   “Veggie Italian. Diet soda.”

   She shuddered, hollered back my order and took my money. And stared. I hated that. When she gave me my change I pocketed the coins and shoved the bills into her tip jar. I’d been on her side of the counter so I knew: You can’t live on minimum wage. That cheered her up a bit and she managed a real smile as she said:

   “You’re Tess.”

   I glanced at her nametag. She’d pinned it on upside down. “You’re Rachel.”

   She glanced back towards the doors her brother had disappeared through and asked, “So, what do you think of him?”

   The question caught me off guard even though it shouldn’t have. I stumbled through a variety of vowel sounds before managing, “He’s...I think he’s nice.”

   She laughed loudly at that. I wasn’t sure if she was laughing at me or if everything was funny to her in her present condition. Once she recovered she gave me a smirk and said, “‘Nice.’ Right. I’m sure ‘nice’ is the first adjective that popped into your head.”

   I knew this game. I returned the volley with, “Actually, the first was, wicked hot. Then came, sweet ass. So I guess that makes nice number three.”

   That got another laugh. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear it.”

   Home: 1. Visitors: 0.

   She handed me a ticket, number 76. Just like the Bicentennial. I shoved it into my pocket and headed for the restroom. I inspected the toilet and decided I could wait until I got home. Washed my hands and examined my hair. It sucked. I shook it out, twisted it into a half-hearted ponytail, then opened my purse to debate my lipsticks. Red or pink. I looked up at my tired reflection and settled for Chapstick instead, then heaved a great sigh and entered the arena again.

   Brian was leaning back against the counter upon my return, but Rachel was nowhere in sight. “Howdy.” He said it just like a cowboy.

   “Hi.”

   “My friends are here.” He gestured towards the corner booth. His posse waved. “I’ve already told them all about you.”

   All about me? What did he know? Cleaning lady. Foul mouth. Big tits. Big, obnoxious brother. Can’t climb stairs. “Lead me to them.”

   He guided me through the obstacle course of the dining area. Red and white checkered plastic tablecloths, white and brown plastic salt and pepper shakers, families out for a nice lunch. He nodded a greeting to nearly every table; singled out husbands and kids, diplomatically ignored staring wives.

   Then, his table. He introduced me to his friends, the Burkes, and I took turns shaking their hands. They were dressed up, probably came to the diner right from church. Jeff had sandy hair and was big enough to be a football player, but wore dark framed, deliberately nerdy glasses. The contrast made me like him immediately. Laura was skinny and pale, but very pretty; like a porcelain doll. Lots of wavy hair that was too auburn to be natural and her make up was Just So. She seemed genuinely friendly, like someone who was used to working with the public and liked it. I took off my coat, slung it across the back of my chair, and sat down.

   Brian looked around the room. “Their daughter is running around here somewhere. Where is the little pinhead?”

   Laura said, “She’s playing video games in the other room.” Then she turned her attention to me. “So, how do you like New Mills?”

   “It’s a pretty town.” I hadn’t been here long enough to add anything of substance to my review.

   “It’s a lot smaller than Brookfield, isn’t it?”

   “Brookfield isn’t exactly a huge town.”

   Jeff laughed. “Maybe not, but your boys still manage to kick ass in the basketball tourneys every year.”

   I managed a we sure do that made it sound like I was sufficiently proud of the Hometown Heroes. Basketball was a sore subject with me but Jeff had no way of knowing that. He was just making polite conversation with the woman who’d been forced on his family’s lunch.

   We continued on with the small talk, because that’s what you do when you make a new acquaintance. Jeff sold cars at his dad’s dealership in Westville. He could give me the names of some businesses he knew of there that hadn’t yet found a replacement for the recently departed Mrs. Arsenault. I thanked him and nodded, because it was a nice gesture, and didn’t tell him that I wasn’t interested in traveling that far for work if I could help it. I didn’t want to set the world on fire. All I really cared about was making enough money for rent and music and beer and food and jeans. Maybe enough to save aside for the oil bill in the winter.

   But when Laura told me she worked at a hair salon right in town that was still looking to hire someone to clean I was interested in more than just the work. The salon back in Brookfield was Gossip Central and I’d avoided the place all winter long.

   “I’m so overdue for a trim.”

   She cast a quizzical eye over my hair and I could see she agreed wholeheartedly. She handed me a business card that had her hours written on the back and told me to pop in. Soon.

   Rachel’s voice boomed our order numbers over the loudspeakers. I stood up but Brian waved me back down. “Me and Jeff’ll get it.”

   I gave Laura an awkward smile and tried to think of something to say. She returned the smile, apparently as inept at small talk as me. After about thirty full seconds of silence, she turned towards the counter and I followed her gaze. Brian and Rachel were in the middle of what was obviously a heated exchange. Laura and I turned to each other simultaneously, relieved that a topic for conversation had presented itself.

   “Zeke--that’s Rachel’s boss--told Brian that he’s going to suspend her for a couple days if she comes in stoned again.”

   I didn’t ask why the boss had bugged Brian about it, only nodded sympathetically. Brian was still upset when they returned a minute or so later, accompanied by the Burke’s daughter. She introduced herself as Cassidy Rose Burke. She was eight years old and very proud of it. She had auburn hair that proved Laura’s to be natural after all and something about her was familiar. Not just because she looked like her dad. It was something else, someone she reminded me of, but I couldn’t quite place it.

   Brian handed me my sandwich with a shudder. “Veggie Italian?”

   “Shut up.”

   And then things were quiet for a few minutes while we ate, at least as quiet as they could be inside a crowded family diner, until Cassidy pointed to my coat. “Your pin is broken. Did you drop it?”

   I finished chewing a cucumber and said, “I bought it that way. Last summer at a yard sale.”

   “You bought a broken pin on purpose?”

   I nodded, unfastened the brooch from my coat and handed it to her to look at more closely. It was an odd looking piece of costume jewelry, oval shaped with four pieces of round, cut glass. A fake emerald, fake amethyst and fakes of whatever gems were naturally orange and light blue. One stone was missing. I liked to think it had been a fake ruby.

   “Why did you buy it if it’s broken?”

   “Because the lady I bought it from told me a cool story about how it got broken.”

   She bounced in her seat. “Ooh! What’s the story?”

   I was exhausted, and not really in the mood for Storytime. But she looked so excited and she was so damn cute. And she reminded me of someone. Who the hell was it? I wiped my mouth, took a sip of my diet soda and cleared my throat.

   “The lady I bought it from, her grandmother had just died and the pin belonged to her. She got it when she was young, back in the thirties, from her boyfriend--”

   “Didn’t they call them beaux back then?”

   “Uh...I don’t know. Maybe.”

   “Scarlett O’Hara called her boyfriends beaux.”

   That didn’t go over well with Jeff. “How the hell do you know anything about Scarlett O’Hara?”

   “Grammy let me watch ‘Gone With The Wind’ at her house last week.”

   Jeff rolled his eyes and shot Laura a look. She only shrugged. I waited a few seconds before I went on with the story.

   “The beau bought the pin for the girl because he knew she liked colorful things, and she loved it. More than anything. Time went by and they got engaged, but a month before the wedding the beau lost his job.”

   “Did he get fired?” Cassidy asked.

   She probably didn’t know what the Great Depression was, unless Laura’s mom had let her watch Grapes of Wrath. I didn’t want to go off on another tangent so I told her that the mill where he worked closed down. She nodded to let me know it was a concept she was familiar with.

   “The girl’s parents wouldn’t let them get married until the guy got another job. So he packed his suitcase and headed to New York City to look for work. The poor guy was only there a week and he got mugged. He didn’t have a whole lot of money to begin with and they took what little he had left. So there he was. Stuck in New York with no money and no job and no place to live.”

   That sounded fair to Cassidy. “That’ll teach him to go where the Yankees live.”

   “The girl’s parents apparently thought so too, because when they found out about it they made her break the engagement and set her up with someone else, some guy they’d wanted her to marry all along. And in the meantime the first guy, the beau--”

   It really was the silliest word in the English language, but she literally squealed with delight every time I said it.

   “--found out about his fiancé marrying another guy and he became determined to get rich. Just to show the woman and her family what was what. And that’s just what he did.”

   I took another sip of my soda. I wasn’t used to talking quite so much.

   “He got a job at a furniture store in New York. And he worked really, really hard and after many, many years he opened his own store. And that got bigger and bigger until finally he had lots of stores all over the East Coast. He was very, very rich and he got married to a really rich woman--”

   “I’ll bet he didn’t really love her,” Cassidy said, her eyes gleaming merrily. “Rich people never marry for love.”

   “True. Anyway, he came back to Maine with his new wife so he could say--”

   Fuck you and the horse you rode me out of town on. It’s what I would’ve said.

   “‘How do ya like me now?’ And by that time the woman’s husband had died, but when her beau came back into town she was--”

   Pissed because she missed out on the gravy train.

   “--broken-hearted that he was married to someone else. And that’s when she knew: They’d never be together. Ever. And so she grabbed that pin right out of her jewelry box and flung it against the wall. And it busted right...there. And the fake ruby fell out.”

   If I was going to tell this story I might as well do it right.

   “She burst into tears when she saw what she’d done and tried to fix it, but she couldn’t. But she kept it anyway so she’d always remember her beau.”

   It really did sound better than boyfriend.

   “She hid it in a shoebox along with a diary and a bunch of letters he’d written her. And her granddaughter found it, and that’s how she learned The Story of the Broken Pin.”

   It was a little anticlimactic, and I wasn’t the world’s greatest story teller, but it made her smile anyway. Every freckle on her face seemed to pop right off. And that’s when I knew.

   Anne of Green Gables. That’s who the kid reminded me of.

   “So,” Laura asked, “who was the beau?”

   “Beats me. Just some rich furniture guy. It couldn’t have been anyone famous or she would’ve sold the pin to a dealer somewhere instead of sticking a three dollar price tag on it for her yard sale.”

   Brian laughed. “You only paid three bucks for it?”

   “Nope. A dollar. I talked her down.”

   “But it’s an antique.”

   “Well, yeah. But it’s broken.”

   “So you like it because it’s broken, but because it’s broken you only paid a buck for it.”

   “One buck, three bucks. It’s all the same. I talked her down because it pissed me off that she was selling it. She should’ve kept it and handed it down as a family heirloom or something.”

   I went back to my sandwich. I’d neglected it and now the bread was a little soggy from the oil. I choked down a bite anyway.

   Cassidy gave me back my pin. Then she asked, “Are you Brian’s girlfriend?”

   It had been a long time since anyone had made me blush. I snuck a quick peek at Brian. His face was burning up, too. I cleared my throat. “No, I’m not.”

   “That’s too bad. Because you’re nice.”

   Laura gave her a kick underneath the table.

   “Well, she is.”

   “Uh, thanks. I think you’re nice, too.”

   I finished my sandwich quickly and stood up to leave. Muttered a sincere it was nice meeting you to the Burkes and a see you later to Brian. He only nodded.

~~~~~

   Small town market. Narrow aisles. Customers who appraised me with expert eyes. Nice coat, but not new. Old boots. Worn out inexpensive jeans. Verdict: She’s from out of town, but she’s not From Away. And then they’d nod. That meant approval, a novel thing for me, so I nodded right back. I had a clean slate here. Best to take full advantage of it.

   Check out counter. I stood behind a young woman and her son. He was maybe five or six years old. Both of them were dirty. Smelly. Old, ripped clothes. Her groceries: a candy bar, a gallon of milk and a half gallon bottle of Allen’s Coffee Brandy. I clenched my teeth, because I knew. Even though it’s wrong to judge. Even though I’d been judged--unfairly--too many times to count and knew better than to do it to someone else. I judged her anyway.

   And I was right.

   I’d never had a problem with the concept of State Aid. Food stamps or MaineCare or even welfare. Because sometimes people fall on hard times. Sometimes people work hard and still can’t afford health insurance. Sometimes they roll out of bed one morning and find that their job has been shipped South or East. And that’s when they need a helping hand. A little something to see them through the rough spots. I’d been there myself.

   Then there were people like this woman.

   She paid cash for the twenty dollar bottle of liquor. Used her food stamp card for the candy bar and the milk. The milk that wasn’t for her son. He wouldn’t drink it with his supper tonight or dip any cookies in it for dessert or pour in onto his breakfast cereal in the morning. He looked up, gave me a huge smile and I smiled right back. He had greasy blonde hair and big blue eyes. Probably the kids picked on him at school because his clothes were dirty. Because he smelled. Because his front two teeth were black and rotten. But underneath the dirt he was a beautiful child.

   I wondered how much longer it would be before he realized exactly what kind of family he’d been born into. Before he understood that the twenty dollars his mother was using for liquor should have been used instead for soap and shampoo and laundry detergent. Would he grow up resentful? Bitter? Would he rise above it, determined to make a better life for himself? Or would he grow up thinking that it was normal to live that way?

   The woman turned back, too, and glared at me. She knew what I was thinking and I didn’t care. I wanted to say something to her. Wanted to tell her to go get some fucking help. Tell her that twenty bucks would buy a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo and a box of cheap laundry detergent. Or maybe tell her about all the childless couples out there who would gladly take that little boy off her hands and give him a good life. A life that was filled with baths and toothbrushes. With leafy green veggies and cold milk. The kind of milk that was poured over breakfast cereal and not mixed with coffee brandy.

   I didn’t, of course, because right now--right now--the boy was at least somewhat content. Living with a mommy who probably loved him at least a little. And he loved her. That much was obvious. Bad days were coming for him. I knew that, too. But right now, to him, today was The Day Mommy Bought Me a Candy Bar. I couldn’t turn it into The Day Mommy Yelled at the Mean Lady in the Grocery Store. So I gave the woman an almost friendly nod, waved goodbye to the boy and watched them walk away. The little boy was holding his mommy’s hand. Because right now he still loved her.

   Then it was my turn to face to Agnes, the nosey cashier. Older than the hills. She quizzed me about my life while she scanned my groceries, personal questions that no one except priests and very old ladies could get away with asking. I gave her cryptic answers and smiled politely. Even though I didn’t feel like smiling.

   Then home. I drove quickly because I was already tired and I had to finish unpacking. Brian was still out, and I remembered that Jeff had said something about a poker game. That meant silence. It meant I was going to spend the evening alone. And, worst of all, it meant I was stuck lugging the groceries up the stairs by myself. Four trips up and down, but it was good exercise and I needed it. I’d spent the winter a slave to Kim’s snack cake cravings and gained thirteen pounds in two months, most of it in my ass. It had taken me three months to lose eight of it.

   I wanted to sit down for a break but there was too much to do. I started by hanging my art up on the walls which made it feel more like home. Even with the white paint. Then I tackled the remaining boxes. It didn’t take too long to unpack every box but one, and that made it feel less like home. And then, finally, the bed.

   I’d saved it for last--except for the box that I didn’t want to open--because I knew. Temptation. The kind that would have whispered for me to leave the damn boxes for later and just get some sleep. I put the frame together. Box spring. Mattress. Hopped on it a little to make sure it was sturdy. It squeaked loudly in protest and that’s when I remembered: this was once Our bed. Mine and Jason’s. And I tried not to remember all the things we’d done on it. Made love and cuddled and laughed and talked and fucked and made plans for The Future.

   Sheets, blankets, pillows. And that was when I heard Brian’s truck heading towards the house, maybe half a mile away. And that meant temptation, too. The kind that didn’t whisper. I ran out into the living room and snapped off all the lights, locked the front door then peeked out the window. He was just pulling into the driveway. I ran back into my bedroom, stripped naked and slipped between the sheets. Listened quietly.

   His truck door slammed. Porch door, open and shut, then his front door. A muffled cough, a little banging around and another door closed, somewhere. Then nothing, for a long time. I felt myself fading. Drifting. Until…

   …a sharp, wet snap, then a hiss. It scared me so badly that I bolted upright in bed. My heart bolted, too. Jumped into my throat, then back into place, and pounded against my chest. Then there was bubbling. Gurgling.

   And then, of course, the other realization.

   He was in the shower.

   I lay back down even though I knew I wouldn’t get to sleep right away. Not now. I tried anyway but the noise was still there. He was still there. In the shower. And even after the noise was gone I still listened. I heard the door again--must be the bathroom door--and then another one. Bedroom door? Probably. Then silence once again. And still I didn’t sleep. And so I gave in.

   He’d been out of the shower for a long time, but in my mind he was still in there. Wet and naked and soapy. The hair on his chest was Van Dyke brown. There was a little guilt, just a little, because he was right downstairs. And guilt, of course, because this was once Our bed. Mine and Jason’s. Even though, now, it really was mine. But the guilt didn’t stop me. And when I was done I rolled over. And finally slept.

Chapter 3

Chapter 5

Table of Contents

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