Cynthia
Shade
By
Lee James
Cynthia Shade.
That was her.
Past due.
That was also her.
Cynthia pressed her lips
together as she scanned the rest of letter. "Power's gonna be turned
off." She crushed the warning from P&E Electric into her canvas bag.
"You still want your balance?"
The bank teller kept his tone professional but his bland blue eyes didn’t meet
hers. If he'd heard her, he gave no sign.
She nodded, remembering where she was.
"Yes. Please."
He slid the printout
across the counter and she stared at the circled amount.
"Thirty-seven cents? Is that
right?"
He leaned over, just enough to acknowledge
the question. "Must be."
Disdain flickered across
his baby smooth face before he turned his back on her to stare out the window.
"Is that your car?" he asked.
She followed his gaze to the Volkswagen
parked outside, and saw it with a stranger's eyes. Rust lined the bottom edge
of the little purple Beetle. And where the rust ended, the scratches and dents
began. These made it all the way up to the roof, where the chipped paint had
long since lost its luster. A spidery crack spiraled out from the bottom half
of the windshield. From this vantage point, her faithful ride was a homely representation
of personal transportation. Heat flooded her cheeks.
"Yes," she mumbled.
"It's not leaking oil, is it?"
Probably. She shrugged. "I
dunno."
"We just got the parking lot
resurfaced. Wouldn't want to junk it up all ready."
Junk
it up? A teller would have no reason to care about something like that. It was
just another unnecessary insult. Her lips wobbled as she crumpled the printed
bank statement into her canvas bag. It could sit there along with the past-due
gas bill and the latest threatening letter from her landlord. If they got
lonely, they could commiserate with the termination letter from State Farm
telling her she no longer had car insurance.
"If there's nothing else, I need to
be able to help other customers," Tyler said.
Cynthia glanced around
the empty bank lobby. Even the offices of the bank manager and assistant
manager were empty. She cocked an eyebrow, but Tyler averted his eyes as he
busied himself behind the counter.
Taking the hint, she shuffled across the
lobby and pushed the heavy doors open. Hot, liquid sunshine hit her head and
melted between her shoulder blades. Heat from the pavement burned through the
bottom of her flip flops. If she didn't keep moving, the thin plastic would
start to melt. But that was the least of her problems. She dug out her phone
with trembling fingers.
Cynthia took a deep breath. She wasn't
going to cry.
Not this time.
"Swan's Temp Service," a
familiar, husky voice answered on the second ring. Renee's voice cracked under
the weight of a two pack a day habit, punctuated by a cough that could have
doubled for a steamboat's horn.
"Renee?" She swallowed again.
"This is Cynthia Shade." She paused a moment, but the other woman
didn't respond. "I…uh…was just wondering if you had work coming up.
Something that I can do."
"Cynthia? I-No, honey, I don't have
anything for you right now."
Cynthia wasn't surprised. Renee hadn't had
anything for her since "the incident."
Renee sighed. "Cynthia, honey, it's
hard to place you. I mean you're a good worker but I need someone reliable. I
know this is a temp agency, but my clients have a reasonable expectation that
the people I send will at least stay through a work day."
"Please, Renee," she gripped her
bag, the crumpled threats crinkling as she did so. "I need work right
now."
"I don't have anything for you."
Renee sighed again, then bellowed a cough into the phone. She paused a moment.
"Dripping Springs is a small town and you know how people talk. After what
happened at the accountant's office, it's hard to get clients to take you on.
I'm sorry," she said simply. "I just don't have anything right
now."
"I understand." Cynthia wiped
away hot tears, now mingled with sweat, trickling down her face. "Thank
you." She hung up the phone and pulled out her car keys.
Gritting her teeth, she
stuck her key into the driver-side door of the purple VW Beetle. It didn't
budge.
Gritting her teeth harder, she planted her
feet and turned the key again. This time the lock clicked, but she wasn't
fooled. Cynthia jiggled the key a few more times before the lock slide up and
she was able to pull the door open.
She ignored angry slash in the seventeen year old leather as she tossed her
bag onto the passenger seat and half fell behind the wheel. She sat there,
panting in the heat for a moment. The battle was only half won. Since the panel
was missing on the driver's side door, the only thing she had to grip was the
window knob and she didn't want to snap that off as well. Instead, she rolled
down the window, and grabbing the door with both hands, slammed it shut. She didn't
bother rolling the window back up. At ten-thirty in the morning, it was already
ninety-three degrees and the Beetle didn't have air conditioning.
Her phone buzzed on the seat and she
glanced at it, preparing to ignore whoever it was till she caught sight of the
caller id.
Uncle Garrett. Her favorite uncle.
"You ok, Cindy?"
Cynthia glanced around the interior of the
car. No sense in complaining. "I'm good, Uncle. What's going on?"
"Can you come over to the house I got
somethin' to show you."
"Now?"
"Yeah. It'll only take a
minute."
She sighed and gripped the wheel.
"You'll gonna love this. I
promise," he cajoled.
She was hot. She was
tired. But this was Uncle Garrett. The bacon to her eggs. The Abbott to her
Costello. Cynthia nodded even though he couldn't see her.
"I'll be right there."
Cynthia dropped the phone and hesitated
briefly, sending up a silent prayer as she turned the key in the ignition. The
engine barked and sputtered, but after a moment it roared to life. Cynthia
wiped at the sweat pooling on her brow and sighed in relief. Something was
going right!
She caught a glimpse of the gas gauge and
the short burst of relief faded. The gauge was very close to the red E. She
studied it with a practiced eye. If she didn't make any unnecessary stops, she
could get another ten miles out of it, easy. It was going to be ok. Catching a
glimpse of herself in the rearview, her eyes brimmed with tears. She would not cry!
A
smirk, a smile, a twisted sense of humor. A beautiful soul shadowed in
insecurity. I'm not sure when I first met Cynthia. Was it a quick laugh I heard
in the grocery aisle? Or when that food truck I spent my life savings on popped
out of gear and chased me down the street? Yes, that actually happened to me.
Cynthia Shade is a component, a quilt made of many facets of me and others. She
believes in doing the right thing no matter what, and sometimes doing the right
thing actually means being true to yourself.
Comments
Post a Comment