Last night, before Angel got out of her car, she looked around the warehouse parking lot. She didn’t want anyone to see her bungy-cording her door shut before going in to her second job stocking inventory. She slid over the front seat and exited out her back car door, then viewed the dark lot again. It’s not that she cared if her car was stolen, but for now, the bungie cord was an easy fix, easier than catching a bus. Stepping out in the drizzle, her pace quickened, and she called her sister.
“Hey, I’m headed into work. Are you home?”
Her sister Keilee, sits alone at a worn kitchen table, picking through her third night of Ramen noodles.
“Yea, I’m here. Did you hear anything back from mom? What’s this pile of clothes in the corner?”
“I know. So, I’ll get those to the laundry before I go to work tomorrow. Just leave ‘em there, they’re all dirty. No, no, nothing from mom,” Angel hesitates then enters the back entrance to work and grabs her punch card. Her shift goes from ten to six, with two twenty-minute breaks for a coke, the restroom, and time for a few texts.
“Don’t worry, she’ll call when she needs something,” then adding, “just don’t answer, and don’t answer the door either ‘til I see you in the morning.”
The young sisters struggle to make ends meet, and cross paths between jobs in their weary apartment at the end of a narrow unpainted hall, where the fire extinguisher has been ripped out from the wall. The metal numbers on their door fell off long ago, and even the outline is unclear. Keilee flips through the third loan bill stamped OVERDUE in red. The college loan money for that one was in the bank before their mom withdrew all of it, left, and went on a partying binge on the Treasure Chest Casino Boat two months ago. Her college prospects died, and now the sisters work to pay off their mom’s selfish weekend.
Today, Angel makes my vanilla latte. I never have to tell her what I want. She is alert, smiling and sprinkles on the right amount of nutmeg every time. She has been blindsided by someone she thought had her back, but she is trying to wear it with a smile.
“I started a second job,” Angel begins again, busy stirring.
“Oh. What are you doing there?”
“I’m stocking groceries,” she adds. “I don’t really sleep. But it’s paying off our loan, so it’s money.”
I venture deeper, “What is it you are paying off, exactly?”
She doesn’t stop the mixer. I can see the corners of her mouth begin to quiver, and she looks down to hide the hurt on her face. “My mom isn’t a very nice person.”
There is a long pause. I wonder if I’m asking too many questions.
“It’s my birthday today,” she says feigning happiness, then turns to hand me my drink.
“Oh really? Happy Birthday!”
I catch her glance but it’s an uneasy one. I know she is holding back the pain of having trusted her mother who stole her tuition from her, and the portal of hope that a college future brings.
“Are you doing anything special?” I ask.
“Not really, just working. Maybe spend a few minutes with my sister before clocking back in.”
“Let me buy you a latte!” I offer.
“No thank you.”
“Oh, come on,” I insist. “How about an oatmeal raisin cookie? Because it’s your birthday!
“No, really, I’m good, really, but thanks.”
I start to joke with her about being a year older and wiser, but she didn’t hear me. She was already on the other side of the counter, on the other side of older and wiser, taking someone else’s drink order. She’s gritting out her birthday today and floating on double shifts that don’t allow for stops and celebrations. It’s only Monday, but she is already tired, pushing buttons on blenders, cleaning up dishes in a sink that is always running, and then mixing in more of tired.
Today is not a birthday to remember. For Angel, it is a day she’ll want to put aside until her memory of this day fades, like the numbers on her apartment door, and new ones appear. Today, she has no candles or cake, just a heavy loan to pay off, and the difficult reminder that life is sometimes painful.
The rejections we get, the ones we didn’t see coming, can hurt us enough that we quiver the next time we put our trust in someone again. I walked away, latte in hand, thinking of a few buried hurts of my own, but behind me I heard a voice come through, Angel’s, that was putting her own suffering away for a while.
“Hey,” she says, “I hope I’m not too late but…well… I think I’ll have that cookie."