by Megan McCoy
“The flower shop is only a few miles from here,” Lucas said. “I sure hope they have rich lavender.”
“They probably won’t,” she told him, “but they can order it by the time we need it. I need to pull up my checklist here.”
“How many checklists do you have?”
“More than you have whiskers,” she said, then felt herself blush. Professionalism! She scolded herself.
“A lot then,” he stroked his beard and smiled over at her.
“Yup. Checklists, a major part of the job description.” She got it pulled up and then looked out the window at the growing greenery on the sidewalks thanks to the beautification committee that she belonged to. She loved that group. “We’re meeting Bonnie today. I’ve worked with her before, so it shouldn’t take very long.”
“I’m in no hurry,” he assured her. “I’m here visiting my brother, have a few days off work and today is all yours.”
Mine? She didn’t need a day! She had to work! “Here it is,” she pointed out to him and he pulled in.
She slid out of his truck feeling a little awkward, it was so high and she wasn’t that tall. But she made it down before he got around and ignored his frown. She could open her own door, thank you.
They walked in and she inhaled. “I love the smell of a flower shop,” she said to him, then smiled at a stranger she’d not met. “Hello, I have an appointment with Bonnie about wedding flowers.”
“Oh, you’re Ronnie and Logan, come on. Bonnie is out sick today, but I’m her new assistant and I’ll be handling your meeting.”
Katrina opened her mouth to protest, but Lucas nudged her, “Yes, I’m Logan and my fiancée and I are so excited about choosing flowers. My brother is paying for them so I’m hoping to go wild!”
Katrina clapped her hand over her mouth. What? Hey, why not? Then, giving him a side glance, smiled, gave a little nod and said, “Sorry, I’m just not used to him calling me his fiancée.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet, come on back! I’m Kelly, by the way.”
“Ronnie,” she said. “I am so looking forward to getting my flowers ordered. What all do you have in rich lavender? Flowers are so important in a wedding, aren’t they?”
Ronnie sighed and squared her shoulders. She could do this. Who knew there were channels? So many channels she had to go through to be approved to help people – help people! Volunteer? She’d been ordered to help people and she still had to hoop jump. Has anyone ever hoop jumped in heels before her? Probably not, but if she was jumping, she was doing it with style. It was just... well, she just didn’t like it. Not that she had to, she had to do it and not let Logan know. She’d decided there was no reason for him to know. She’d do it, put it behind her, never think on it again, and that would be that.
Taking a deep breath, squaring her shoulders, she sailed into the store, looking around for someone who worked here. “Hi, hon, I’m Ronnie and I’m looking for Allie, is she here?” She peered down the narrow aisles. This place was nothing like her high-end shoe stores. It was crowded and dense, a little musty, and there were too many people in here. Forty hours and as soon as she connected with Alice – no, Allie – she’d be counting down.
“Ronnie?” A very large woman with a huge head of hair approached her. Ronnie looked in awe. She wanted that much hair! Running her fingers through her light pink spikes, she said, “Yes, you must be Allie. I’m Ronnie and here to work.” She hoped they wouldn’t have to discuss the reason, here in the store, in front of people. It had been bad enough she’d had to talk about it over the phone, but she had to. Explaining ‘community service’ had been much more embarrassing than going over Logan’s knee with her bare bottom in the air. It was not something she thought she’d ever have to do.
“Ronnie, I’m so looking forward to working with you. We always need the help. Now, there’s a bit of paperwork to do in the back room, and then I’ll let you get started. Hopefully, you will like it here and want to stay a while!”
Ronnie stifled a shudder and put on a smile. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” she cooed as she followed that hair back to a tiny little office room, barely big enough for the card table and laptop set up on it. There were two folding chairs and a small printer set up on another folding chair in the corner. A small pile of papers and a pen were ready and waiting for her to sign her life away, or forty hours of it anyway. There could be worse places to work, she told herself. Like in an orange jumpsuit and picking up trash on the side of the road. Here she was fairly hidden and hopefully no one would know anything but that she put in some volunteer hours for the Arts Council. Nothing more.
“Well, here we go,” Allie said. “Every time you come in, you fill out this paper and bring it to me. I’ll sign it before you start work, and then when you’re ready to leave, I’ll sign it again and record the hours. File it here, and then sign these,” Ronnie’s head was already swimming. She had to check in and out like a common employee. Veronica Fischer soon to be Fischer-Jones did not do common, yet here she was. Better than an orange jumpsuit, she kept repeating as she signed.
“Sure, hon,” she scribbled her name and hoped the countdown was starting. Forty hours here. Thirty-nine hours and fifty-six minutes. See, time was flying and she was having fun! Sure.
“You might want to wear something a little less nice, next time,” Allie was telling her and Ronnie looked at her puzzled. “We’re on our feet a lot and if you’re sorting the incoming clothes, well, often they are musty or dirty. That’s where we start all our newbies, so they understand what all we get.”
“What?” Incoming? Dirty? “Okay, what happens then?” Did they send things out to the dry cleaners?
“You wouldn’t believe what people give us in the name of donation. We wash everything that comes in, and that’s where you will start out.” Allie led her through the still crowded store to another back room where a small washer and dryer stood alongside what seemed like hundreds and hundreds of black plastic bags. “Basically what we do is open one bag, and sort just like you do laundry at home. Whites here, colors here, towels and blankets here. Then things that are obviously trash go here.” She pointed as she sorted an already open bag, holding up items. “When you get enough for a load, just go ahead and start it. There is a lot of stain removal cleaners right there. Use the best one for the job. Once it’s clean and dry, then hang it up here.” There was a rolling rack with cheap wire hangers. Ronnie couldn’t believe her eyes. People shopped here for clothes? Why? Then reality hit her. She was on laundry duty. Like the common criminal she was not. Sure, she occasionally washed her delicates in her stackable washer dryer at home, high quality, quiet and efficient, but her dresses, of course, were sent out. Wire hangers? Not in her house! The best stain removal? How would she know that?
She was only here for a few hours today, Ronnie reminded herself, trying to shake off the shock of laundry duty. What had she thought she’d be doing? She hadn’t really thought about it, she guessed. Just never... laundry duty.
“Come and find me if you have any questions,” Allie told her.
Ronnie opened her mouth to ask her, well, what? Wrinkling her nose at the smell, she bent over to take an item from the black plastic bag. Shaking it out, she looked at it. Was there any way she could just start dumping everything into the trash and not even touch it? That probably wasn’t the spirit of community service, but then she didn’t really deserve it, did she? What had she done wrong? Just asserted her rights. And here she was sneaking around behind Logan’s back, doing laundry. She looked at the stain removal bottles and tossed the shirt in the trash. No one wanted to wear that. Not even poor people.
Picking up another shirt, she sighed. Okay. She could do this. Taking the spray bottle, she soaked the shirt and tossed it in the washer. What time was it? Could she leave soon? Surely, hours had passed. Maybe she was already done with the required time? Most of it? Fifteen minutes? Almost. Taking a deep breath, she reached into the sack and pulled out... oh, no. Sock
s. Who would donate socks? Socks came off stinky feet! She could not touch socks that other people had worn! Why would they do that? Didn’t they have gloves around here? If she pulled out panties, she would literally die. Just keel over and die on the spot. Or maybe just vomit. She had to choose. She couldn’t do both, because that would just be messy. If she vomited first, then fell into it and her hair… she didn’t even want to think about it.
She was going home and disinfecting. Disinfecting everything. Her entire body and this dress would go in the trash. It had to. Well, she bit back an almost hysterical laugh, she could donate it. Apparently people donated all kinds of things! Old shoes, for example. They went right in the trash bin. No one wanted to wear second hand shoes any more than they wanted to wear second hand panties! Come on, be real! What was wrong with people? Vaguely, she recalled Logan making her work at a shoe store once, one that was not hers, when they did something called ‘Shop with a cop’. The kids came in and some swore it was the first pair of new shoes they’d ever owned.
She hadn’t believed them, of course. How could you never have new shoes? It made no sense in her brain, but pulling the third pair of shoes out of the sack, she began to wonder if perhaps it was true. Maybe they bought shoes in places like this. Ronnie shuddered. That just couldn’t be right. Instead of trash tossing them, she started lining them up. Surely shoes didn’t go in the washer. And what did they think people would do with one left shoe? Just because you were poor, didn’t mean you didn’t have two legs. Soon she got in a little routine of sorting. Colors went into the washer once sprayed thoroughly with stain remover. Whites, and there were very few whites, into a pile on the floor. Shoes in a line and trash into the trash. This wasn’t horrible, she realized a bit later. It was disgusting and demeaning but certainly wasn’t as bad as litter on the side of the road wearing orange which would not go with her pink today hair.
Allie popped in a while later. “Just checking to see how you are doing,” she said, nodding her big head of hair. Some streaks in that white would look amazing, Ronnie thought. “Smells like you’ve been removing some stains!”
“I’ve done a few sacks!” she said, almost proudly.
“That’s great,” Allie looked at the shoes on the floor. “Looks like we’ve been blessed. Men’s shoes are hard to come by and there is such need.”
Well, blessed was a rather subjective word, Ronnie thought.
“I’ll let you get back to it,” Allie said. “Next time you come in, I’ll show you how to work in the aisles.”
“Sound great, hon,” Ronnie said as if she really meant it. She would see. It might be better to be back here out of sight of anyone. Next time, of course, she’d bring gloves and wear something from last season. She knew as well as anyone that helping customers wasn’t really one of her strengths. How could one explain they got fired from a community service job? That judge didn’t act as if she would take any excuses. Canceling her wedding because she was in jail would not be ideal. Some things were unforgivable and unforgettable. She’d be the laughing stock of the town! No, she would just have to suck it up for thirty-eight and a half more hours and by the time it was over, Allie would be so impressed with her. Whatever it took to get through this, and not let Logan know.
Sighing, she opened another sack. Hopefully this would be her last one for the day.
Oh! Purses! Okay, here was something she could perhaps work with. Purses weren’t designer shoes, but they were better than jeans and smelly blouses. Most were cheap knock offs, but she found two that were actual real designer, very expensive purses. One of them even she would carry, if, of course, it was cleaned up and not already carried by someone else. Naturally. But these were a good find. They could get a lot of money for them here and from the look of the place, they needed a lot of money.
“Look!” She showed Allie when she came in a while later. “Kate Spade!”
Allie smiled at her. “That’s nice.”
Ronnie shook her head. “It’s better than nice, these are very expensive designer purses. You can get a fortune for them!”
Allie laughed. “No, we really can’t. People here won’t pay a fortune for anything, Ronnie. They simply can’t.”
“You could clean them up and take them somewhere else to resell,” Ronnie argued. “EBay or someplace.”
“No one here has time to do anything like that. You’ll find out. And your two hours is up for today. Let’s do the paperwork. I imagine your feet are killing you standing in those shoes for so long.”
Her feet? No, her feet didn’t hurt, but she felt a crushing disappointment that no one was excited about her find.
Now her feet hurt. “Logan,” she whined.
“Explain,” he said. “Just tell me what you did all day. That’s all I’m asking. I know you weren’t in any of the stores. I know you didn’t work on your class. I know, just by looking around the house, you didn’t pack anything. So just stand in that corner until you decide you want to tell me.”
So how was she going to explain this? She had gotten her hair done, then gone to work at the thrift store. Even though she was only there a little over two hours, it had taken a huge chunk of her day. Then, because she had a craving, she went purse shopping and, well, that took a few more hours. After that, she decided she needed a pedicure, which of course, took a while, too. She stopped in her favorite place and had a couple drinks and Ubered home. None of that was anything she really wanted to tell Logan about. None of it was his business. They could be getting married – would be, she corrected herself, but he was not the boss of her or her time, no matter what he thought and she didn’t want to be micromanaged. Or to stand in this corner.
She had better stand her ground now. Or not stand her corner or something. Ronnie whirled around and folded her arms and glared. “What I do with my days is not your business and if we have kids, are you going to be as mean to them as you are to me?”
“Kids?” He looked shocked. “I thought you didn’t want kids.”
“I don’t but as I so well know, crap happens in life! A kid could happen!”
“We can fix things so they don’t happen if you don’t want one,” he told her, slowly.
She noticed he didn’t say a word about her not having her nose in the corner so took a step toward him. Kid talk must have shocked him.
“This is not about hypothetical kids! This is about me not wanting to be treated like a toddler!” Stomping her foot, accidently, she knew, did nothing toward the non-toddler designation. He was just lucky she didn’t stick her tongue out at him, too. He had no clue how lucky he was!
“Then why do you act like a toddler? Just tell your equal partner in life what you did today and why you did nothing you said you were going to do.”
Fine. Just fine. The toddler in her glared at him and the lie was out of her mouth before she thought, because obviously the toddler had taken over her brain. “I had follow-up tests at the doctor’s office.” Damn. Had she really said that? Where did it even come from? How had she thought of it? She’d kept hoping he’d forget about the lie about the doctor’s appointment that he didn’t know was a lie because it was court and now, this. Apparently the toddler knew nothing about compounding and addition because now she knew, she’d have to embellish.
Instantly, he was by her side and held her in his arms, hugging her tightly. Oh yeah, this was much better than bawling over his knee. “I’m sorry, baby, why didn’t you tell me? I would have gone with you. What’s going on? I need the details right now.”
Of course he did. “I don’t really want to talk about it,” she said softly, telling him the complete and utter truth. She did not want to talk about it. Ever ever again.
“I need to know,” he said, picking her up and walking to the big chair and sat down with her on his lap. She liked it here. The big her, not the toddler her. Well, maybe both of them. Her mind raced as she put her head on his chest and felt him stroke her head. What did she know about doctor tests? Nothing. Al
l she’d ever had was regular checkups, fortunately.
“Just some more blood tests and they had to redo the mammogram,” she said, and felt him freeze. Oh no. She’d forgotten about his mom having cancer, so wildly scrambled for a reason to soothe him. “Because they said it was just them, they messed something up, not that it was bad.”
“You sure?” he said and she could hear the dubiousness in his voice.
“Yes. I’m sure.” she assured him.
“I want to go with you to get the results,” he said in that tone.
“They will just call,” she informed him as if she knew what she was talking about. “It will be nothing.”
“I want to know the minute they do, and I want you to find a new doctor. I don’t like this kind of mess up. Taking care of my girl is not something I mess around with or take lightly. They sound like a bunch of amateurs and I don’t like it. I’ll call my folks and find you a decent doctor. My mom knows who is good and who isn’t.”
“It’s why I didn’t want to tell you,” she whispered feeling heaps of guilt upon her. “It really is nothing and I wanted to just do it and not tell you.”
Logan took her chin in his hand and made her look at him. “I need to know. I need to know everything about you and what happens to you. Not knowing is unacceptable.” He kissed her eyes and nose and said, “Nothing is more important than you, do you understand me?”
Ronnie nodded and started sobbing. Wishing she could tell him everything that consumed her. Why was he being so nice? Because he didn’t know what she was hiding. She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She just couldn’t. She wanted to. Mostly. But he would think she was horrible and then what?
Clinging to him, she just sobbed, trying to get the stress out, trying to get the lie out, but crying didn’t seem to help either, so she eventually stopped. No one could cry forever.