by Alice Bello
~*~
The bus ride from San Bernardino to Four Corners had only been the first of many trips she had taken on a bus. Though all buses looked alike, they certainly didn’t smell alike. Some smelled of feet and body odor. Some smelled of industrial strength air freshener (the driver’s halfhearted attempt at masking the stench. But that usually just made the bus smell like lilac scented gym socks).
But there was one driver—her name was Shirley—who actually kept her bus spotless, and Lucy always took a seat close to the front on the days she’d catch her bus.
Shirley talked to anyone and everyone, her curiosity seemingly boundless. The best part for Lucy, though, was that Shirley would just let you sit there in silence as she happily drove and chatted up others. Yet somehow she made you feel as if you were in on the conversation.
Today Lucy caught Shirley’s bus and she happily took her usual seat, fading into the scenery as Shirley told a rather old man with a wrinkled radish for a nose that her petunias were shriveling on the vine. “It’s just not natural,” she continued, pushing a large frizzy strand of her red hair out of her eyes. “I water them three times a week. I even have one of those Miracle-Gro attachment doohickeys.”
Mr. Radish Nose scratched his ginormous red nose and then asked, “Are they in direct sunlight?”
“Well, of course they are!” Shirley smiled. “I read the packet the seeds came in.”
“Well, that’s true for out east. But for the climate out here the sun’s just too harsh. And though pretty and hearty, those things fare better in the shade in these parts.”
Shirley made a little humph noise, and then straightened her shoulders. “Makes sense.” She smiled into her rearview mirror at Mr. Radish Nose. “I’m off in two days, so I’ll go ahead and transplant them to the other side of the house. There’s a good shady spot right beneath my kitchen window.”
Mr. Radish Nose nodded his head in agreement.
Lucy smiled and caught Shirley’s bright green eyes looking at her. “Gotta work on your birthday, huh?”
Lucy’s jaw dropped and she shook her head. “How did you...?”
Shirley smiled knowingly as she smoothed her dark red hair back again into the little flip she’d styled it into. “When you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you can just tell. And the look on your face invariably means it’s your birthday, and you have to work.”
“You’re amazing. You should be on TV.”
Shirley gave a honking laugh. “I’d sure as blazes be better at it than that god awful Dr Phil.” She shook her shoulders with a chill. Lucy knew what would come next. “And that Oprah’s gotta know there’s a studio apartment waiting for her in hell for exposing the world to that lunatic.”
Shirley hated Dr. Phil with every ounce of her rather substantial, curvy body.
She pulled the bus over and said, “This is your stop, birthday girl.” And sure enough, as Lucy got out of her seat, waved goodbye to Shirley and then half tripped down the three little steps of the bus, there she stood under the Golden Arches.
She sighed. “Now my birthday is complete.”