My afternoon went like this:
Fold, fold, fold. “Marissa I need you to help on registers.” Clean out fitting rooms. Restock, restock, restock. “Marissa, this table up front looks like a hurricane hit it. Grab the clipboard.” Fold, fold, fold. Kick out a couple that was making out in the fitting rooms. “Marissa, I can’t leave the store unattended. I need you to go get me a coffee and muffin from the food court.” A wave hello and goodbye to Rob at Freshly Made. Clean out fitting rooms. “Marissa, where is the natural sweetener I asked for. You know, the stevia. I can’t drink this without stevia.” Back to food court to get stevia. Fold, fold, fold.
“Hi!” Zoe had snuck up behind me while I was refolding, for the hundredth time, a stack of pink tank tops.
“Don’t scare me like that. I’m on edge enough with Taylor barking at me every two seconds.”
Right on cue Taylor popped up out of nowhere. “Marissa, the back fitting rooms are a disaster. I need them cleaned out before you leave.” She glared at Zoe, who politely gave her a Cheshire cat grin in return.
“All right, Taylor, but this is still a mess up here, and I only have thirty minutes left, and I never even got my fifteen minute break today.” I was kind of whining, but it had been a long day.
Taylor rolled her eyes. “Just finish this table up and leave at your normal time.” She huffed a little bit and then headed to her dungeon in the back room.
“Gag,” Zoe said. “Well, I’m off. Darren’s meeting me at the food court. Thanks again for the car.” She tossed me my car keys.
“You’re welcome.”
Luckily, the last thirty minutes of my shift flew by, and before I knew it, I was clocking out, much to the chagrin of the cashiers. Saturday night was always mobbed at the mall, and I knew those girls would be toast by the time the store closed at ten o’clock.
I was glad to be going home early. The night before, I had slept horribly, tossing and turning and overall feeling a bit anxious. Yesterday had been my coffee outing with Brandon, and now with it being the weekend, I had more and more time to overanalyze everything that we said to each other. I wondered if he’d be waiting for me again on Monday. I wondered if I’d ever see him again. I wondered if he realized how much he hated me for intruding on his family and their lives. I wondered if I wondered too much.
About ten minutes into my twenty-minute drive home my car starting bucking like a sick bronco. The car was ten years old, but it was a good car. Never any problems, which is why I was completely shocked when it starting jerking as I inched my way down one of the lonely streets on my route home. Then I realized why. It’s hard for a car to run when there’s no gas in it.
“Are you kidding me, Zoe!” I grabbed my purse from the backseat and reached for my phone. Man, was I going to lay into her when I talked to her. As I clicked on the “go” button to take my phone out of sleep mode nothing happened. So I clicked again, and again. That’s when I saw the little red light. Taunting me. The dead battery light was taunting me.
“You have GOT to be kidding me!” I was yelling to no one, in my car that was out of gas, and I was clutching my phone that was out of batteries on a road that was vastly empty.
Silently I sat in my car. The sound of my breathing grew more and more agitated. I remembered the roadside safety kit that sat on the drugstore shelf. The safety kit that I looked at and pondered getting before I made the better decision to get new mascara and the latest Allure magazine. The safety kit that, at this point and time, probably would have had something totally beneficial in it. With my index finger I wiped specks of mascara from my eyes and cursed at my stupidity.
Out of my peripheral vision I saw a car slow down to the left of me. I was afraid to make eye contact. Don’t make eye contact with a stranger. Then, in the rear view mirror I saw the car slowly pull up behind me. Oh, no. A small, maybe middle-aged, woman then slowly made her way over to my driver’s side. She waved, and I rolled down my window.
“Hi, are you okay?” Her voice was so sweet. Just like a mother’s.
“No gas.” I sounded stupid using monosyllabic words. “Dead phone.” I held my phone up to show her.
“Oh dear, that’s not good,” she said, and I nodded my head in agreement that it wasn’t good. She smelled like blueberries.
“Listen, I know this little garage. It’s about twenty minutes from here. See, I live out near Freemont.”
“Oh, I live in Bermont.” Our two little towns were near each other.
“Oh great,” she said. “Let me call them.” With that she walked back to her car. I watched her in my rear view mirror. She talked into her phone, and she was one of those people that seemed to smile while talking on the phone, even though the person on the other end couldn’t see her. She tucked a piece of her dark blond hair behind her ears. I wondered if she felt me staring at her, because she caught my eyes in the mirror and she smiled. To distract myself I began fiddling with my MP3 player that I had dug out from my purse to at least have some music to listen to while I waited, and she walked back up to my window.
“Okay, so they’re on their
