by Kilby Blades
“I can’t be responsible for my actions, if you don’t hurry,” Rainbow pleaded.
Grace smiled.“Be there in a second Rainbow,” she called back and kept walking.
A moment later, Grace was tying her smock behind her back as she walked toward the register. She nodded her head toward the man in the tuxedo.
“What’s up with the formal attire?”
“Yeah,” Rainbow giggled, “Halloween is long past so it’s not a costume party. I think he’s probably one of those secret shoppers corporate was telling us about. He’s here to watch us and report back to the suits about our behavior. You know, watching to see if we’re skimming from the till, that kind of thing. You better be on your best tonight. I’ll be back in a minute,” she said walking away from the booth with a wink.
“You’re a conspiracy theorist at heart, Rainbow,” Grace said quickly.
“So, tell me something I don’t know. He could have a date or something. It is Valentines, my most reviled holiday of the year.” Rainbow smiled.
“Seriously? Reviled?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Well, we should love people and tell them we love them, not just on a commercially-generated holiday. It’s just a sales pitch wrapped in roses and chocolate, designed to raise expectations, and to hawk clichéd romance movies.”
“Thanks for the diatribe. I’ll be sure to call you when I’m feeling bad about love,” Grace said, laughing as she watched Rainbow leave the store.
Grace stood at the register, rearranging the boxes of sugar hearts and sweetheart decorations so she couldn’t see them.
Every so often, she eyed the dapper shopper and wondered whether it was his car in the parking lot. Must be, she figured. New car, new person in the store, and he didn’t fit the profile of the average middle-aged, slightly-bulging, woman who regularly shopped there. Maybe he had been sent by corporate.
Not my problem, she finally told herself and began ringing up a sale for a customer.
“He’s awfully handsome,” the pretty silver-haired customer mentioned as if it were a secret.
“What?” Grace asked, shocked back into the moment. She hadn’t realized she’d become mesmerized by the nameless Romeo. “Oh, I just…he’s not a regular here, I didn’t mean to stare,” she said.
“Well, dear,” said the shopper, “if I were twenty years younger, I would do my best to make sure he came here as often as possible. Doesn’t it make you curious what he’s after? I’m going home to my cat. I hope you have more exciting plans than I do,” the shopper said and walked out the door with her purchase in hand.
Grace sighed. The truth about her real life flooded back into her thoughts as soon as the shopper mentioned exciting plans. Feeling a little ruffled by the reality check, Grace started looking for someone to relieve her. It was a night she’d rather walk around and clean up the store and avoid customers. She had nothing to talk about and would probably blow up if someone said the wrong thing.
Just then, Rainbow returned, smelling slightly of cigarette smoke and snapping her gum. Her violet lipstick had been freshly applied, and her multicolored hair looked recently brushed and spun up in a clip.
“I’ll give you a dollar if you go tell him the lights are on in his car. What do you say?” Rainbow gambled and tied on her smock.
“It is his car?”
“Yeah, he came in about five minutes before you did, and he never noticed his lights were on,” Rainbow offered.
“Idiot. Thanks but, no I’m not interested in dealing with him tonight,” Grace said, walking away from the conversation.
“Hey, are you okay, Gracie? You seem a little down.”
The simple, kind question unleashed a tidal wave of humiliation inside Grace. She fought back the tears. She really didn’t want people at work to know her personal struggles and she’d fooled herself into thinking that others didn’t notice.
“Just been a long day,” she lied. Grace would rather lick the kitchen sink than talk with customers.
“Okay then, I’ll bet you five dollars. Will you take the bet for five dollars?” Rainbow asked with a crooked smile.
Grace started laughing. “Why don’t you tell him and keep your five dollars?”
Rainbow called Grace back to the register by signaling with the crook of her finger. Grace reluctantly agreed and returned.
“Listen sister, he’s more your type. I would totally lose my reputation as a snide political reporter for the Gazette if I was caught dead talking with someone like that off the record.”
Grace leaned in over the counter staring Rainbow in the eye. “You’re not a reporter, you work at a craft store.”
Rainbow smiled, “A girl can have her dreams, can’t she? Go tell him about his lights. Come on, it’s Valentines Day. It’s about time you had a good flirt. I have a good feeling about this. Ten dollars?”
Grace’s shoulders drooped. “Okay, I’ll tell him about the lights, but I’m not flirting. I never got the flirting gene and I’m not even going to try.”
Grace walked through the pink and silver balloon hearts filled with helium that were lining the aisles. How she managed to pass the balloons without popping them was a mystery to her. Milling through the web of customers—women with half-baked craft projects, unfinished blouses that need just the right button, and others on the prowl for their next project—was typical. It was a normal night at the Craft Barn.
He was standing in front of a gigantic hot pink heart that was trimmed in white lace. In his tuxedo, and with his slightly-silvered hair, he could have been posing for a cheesy romance novel cover. If it were a better day, Grace might have liked the image. But today, she had to shake off her own sarcasm. He was at the cutting station talking with Janie, a chirpy, large breasted youth who didn’t know much about much. But he seemed very intrigued, or perhaps confused. Grace couldn’t tell which by the expression on his face.
“Sir?” Grace half mumbled into the air. He continued to focus on Janie.
“Excuse me, Janie? I need to tell your customer something,” she said with a tinge more force this time.
Both Janie and the shopper slowly turned and looked at her.
“Sir, I think you’ve left the lights on in your car,” she said. Feeling a moment of relief, she started to turn and then he spoke, drawing her back into the exchange.
“Damn it, I keep forgetting that old cars have a manual switch for the headlights.” Then he started furiously patting his pockets. After finding his keys and pulling them out of his pocket, he held them out to Grace. “Would you mind?” he asked turning back to the project and his conversation with Janie.
Absentmindedly, Grace held out her hand and he dropped the keys smack-dab in the middle of her palm. Grace swallowed. A familiar, hollow feeling gathered in the pit of her stomach.
Customers and employees alike were stupefied by the exchange. To avoid further embarrassment, Grace headed for the door and quickly passed through into the night. It was happening again: low self-esteem, like quicksand, was dragging her below the surface. Emotionally, she wasn’t standing on firm ground and another entitled bastard had just shamed her in public—a total stranger. She saw the looks in the other peoples eyes, part awkwardness, part judgement. It was all a little too much today.
The chill of the evening air soothed her over heated cheeks. She stood beside his car now, his beautiful Jaguar—sleek, sophisticated, and painfully romantic. Staring down at the keys in her hand, it felt like she was somehow trespassing, breaking and entering. A devilish grin passed across her mouth.
What would he do?
She thought again: respect, consideration, codes of ethical conduct, all the things she said to her children regularly.
Take the high road.
She sighed and touched the glistening handle of the car door. An unexpected sensuous chill ran up her spine. As she slid the key in the lock, it gently popped open, as sweetly as a startled breath. Her own heart started to thump, thump, thump in her breast. Grace was ra
pidly growing a taste for engaging in prohibited behavior and was ready to satisfy her desire.
Cracking the car door open, the hearty scent of leather and cologne wafted out of the car, wooing her to enter. She eased her body into the soft-black leather seat. Long-stemmed roses sat amiably on the passenger side. She could smell their sweet scent.
Her hips rested harmoniously in the seat and her heart continued to pound. Her arms glided toward the burl-wood steering wheel and her imagination flew into high gear. She was immediately transported into indescribable freedom, unbound by responsibility and the burden of money, children, and laundry—no cares about her struggles, the rent she couldn’t pay, the dates she didn’t have.
The further she settled into the luxury of the car, the more she was drawn toward emotional freedom. Big-eyed, big gulp, enormous horizon, kind of freedom. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Without thinking, Grace shut the car door. Tucking comfortably behind the steering wheel, she ran her hands across the smooth surface. Control. Deftly sliding the key into the ignition, Grace felt a dizzying sway. Enticed by the myriad possibilities, she started the car, listened to the purr of the engine and pulled slowly out of the parking lot, grinning.
Cruising down main street, she started to breathe a little deeper. Perhaps it was the cologne—maybe the leather, the soft roses, or maybe she was just reaping a moment’s peace in someone else’s world. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except independence—head-spinning independence. At that moment, she wasn’t strapped to any responsibilities. She was untethered, almost whirling out of control.
Suddenly, she heard an electronic version of Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues blast out of nowhere. A light flashed from underneath the roses. Her moment of bliss had been invaded by the outside world: the phone. Reality seeped slowly back into her thoughts. Resistant to the sound of the song, it eventually stopped. She rationalized not answering. It wasn’t her phone anyway.
It rang again, seemingly louder this time. She pulled the car over and peeked under the flowers. Grace Anderson popped up in digital writing on the caller-ID.
“Thanks Rainbow,” she mumbled under her breath, realizing that Rainbow must have given the owner of the car her phone. Now she knew that he was aware of her absence.
Hovering her hand over the phone, she took a moment to review her options.
Ignore it? Answer it? Drive back to the store? Keep driving until the car runs out of gas.
Slightly giggling, she swiped her finger across the glass.
“Who the hell do you think you are? That’s my car, and it’s worth a fortune. Bring it back to the store this very second or I’m calling the police,” he demanded.
She felt pushed-against the wall again.
“Oh, okay, go ahead,” she said feeling sparks of ideas chasing through her head. “But wait a second, you gave me the keys. Explain that to the police.”
She briskly tapped the phone and disconnected the call.
Staring for a moment at the phone, she was hard-pressed to know where her courage had come from.
Wow, who knew?
She smiled and took a deep breath. She leaned a little into the leather seat, allowing herself to bask in her audacious behavior.
Looking at her surroundings, she realized she had parked at her alma mater—the high school where her adult life had begun.
She flipped on the radio. Janis Ian was playing.
I learned the truth at seventeen,
that love was meant for beauty queens
and high school girls with clear skinned smile
who married young and then retired.
She promptly switched it off. She was haunted by things hadn’t understood back then.
Did I really retire after marriage? Is that when I lost myself?
Looking out of the car window, she saw some teenagers sulking in the bushes, hiding from their parents, no-doubt—having a quick cigarette in the shadow of the night. She shook her head, remembering the number of times she had snuck out her bedroom window and stolen away to meet with Robert. Would she be out someday searching for her own children once they reached the teen years?
Maybe, if they still even live with me.
In the distance she saw the old cafeteria-slash-multipurpose room. Memories flooded through her. They first met at the auditions for the senior play, Guys and Dolls. It was kismet, right there, amongst the unfinished lunches and half-drunk coke cans, cold french fries, and abandon notebooks. She had worked so hard in high school: drama, voice lessons, dance lessons, and scene study. It had finally been her time to play the lead role in the senior musical, a dream which she’d relished every day of her life. It had been her time. He hadn’t been a part of her drama classes. He’d swept in from the football field and charmed the director into giving him the lead role of Nathan Detroit, the charming gangster. Grace had been given the role of Puritanical Sarah Brown.
Robert had been great, hands down the best person for the role: charming, confident, with just enough fire to make him interesting. Besides, he’d had a penchant for gangsters and little had she known that he would turn out to be one.
Everyone had been impressed when he’d swanned into the audition and winked at the girls, faked maturity with the director, and sung well enough to make the vocal coach happy.
Grace had barely believed her good luck: the most popular guy in school would be playing opposite her in the play. She would have to kiss him, on stage. Unbelievable.
When they’d sung together, reaching the perfect crescendo, both of their hearts had swelled to a perfect pitch. It had been a match made in heaven. In her heart, she’d believed that it would never end—had believed that their kaleidoscope of love, lust, passion, and dreams would carry them to the brightest stars and beyond. It had all meant so much to her.
They’d married just two years out of high school. At the time she had asked for a long engagement. In retrospect, she wondered why. Perhaps she’d had some intuition about their future. In any case, she’d been compliant to his wishes and had eventually capitulated.
After all, everybody had known that he was going places and she’d wanted to go with him. He had gotten a job with his father’s firm and they’d been set. It would have been too much —for both of them to chase their dreams at the same time. She’d willingly shifted her priorities, made way for his ideas, his desires, and his dreams to grow. After all, she’d rationalized, he’d been making the money. He’d had the right to ask for more.
Grace had pacified herself with the idea that her time would come—that she wouldn’t wait forever. It would certainly come to the point where Robert would make room for her dreams.
She’d wanted to go to college and return to their town as a high school teacher. She’d wanted to give back to her own community. But school was expensive and they’d lacked the funds to send her. But her day would come—she’d known it would. She’d had a mountain of faith. Tonight, she wished they would have waited long enough to realize marriage was a bad idea.
She stepped out of the car and stared though the wire mesh past the football field and toward the old cafeteria.
“Is this where I lost myself? Is this where it all started? I was so fiery, jubilant, and determined that my life would stand for something important. That I was born for a reason and that I would fulfill my destiny. What happened to me, where did I go?” she said to the night sky.
She slipped back into the drivers seat and started the car again. Her shoulders slumped a little this time.
Pulling out onto the street, the phone rang again. She looked at her name and focused this time on Anderson. She picked it up at the third ring.
“Hi, look we need to talk,” he said.
“No, I don’t need to talk with you,” she said, and got ready to hang up again.
“Wait, I’m not going to threaten you either. Or scream or anything like that. In fact, we both need to stay calm and talk like adults. How does that sound?” he s
aid.
She thought for a moment.
“Sounds condescending,” she said and abruptly hung up the phone.
Immediately, she flipped on the radio to drown out any negative thoughts. She listened to a talk radio interview.
“Now let me get this right, most relationships fail because people don’t know what they want or they don’t really know who they are getting involved with?” the DJ said, moving the conversation forward.
“That’s right, and then when the inevitable happens everyone runs around with their hair on fire, blaming each other. My suggestion is, of course, to get to know the person your dating. Take some time, have fun—” said the caller.
Disgruntled, Grace snapped off the radio. “I hate pop-psychology.”
Continuing to drive through town, she wound up at the downtown mall; the old one had been replaced by a newer, younger version, when nobody expected it.
At the back of the mall there was Leonard’s Furniture store. They’d had the swankiest furniture in town when she was a newlywed. She and Robert had had the world by the tail. They had entertained clients within a year of him working at his father’s firm. They’d needed the best-of-the-best furniture and Leonard’s had had it. They’d been determined to climb the social ladder and it had been important that Robert have the furniture he thought best.
At the time, she’d agreed. After all, he’d been making the money. He’d have known best how to spend it.
The phone rang again. She stared at her name in neon again. This time, she stared at her first name. Grace. She tapped the phone on the third ring. There was silence on the other side. Grace sat, staring at the run-down, dilapidated old building that used to be Leonard’s Furniture Store. The treasured building had fallen into disrepair when nobody was looking. Just like her life.
“Where have you gone?” he asked, carefully.
She sighed.
“I’ve been asking myself that same question, over and over, where have I gone? And for the life of me, I can’t find the answer,” she said.
“We’re not talking about the same thing are we?” he asked.