I repeated what I’d said several times, and finally the penny seemed to drop: he got up and moved to another bench, though with extreme reluctance. And just at this moment, out of the corner of my eye, I detected that someone else was approaching. This time it had to be her. I rushed back to my seat, and held my newspaper up in front of my face.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt carried a single paper bag from the bakery. After seating herself on her Exclusively Reserved Seat, which had just this minute been vacated, she opened up the bag and drew out her purchase. The usual cream bun. It’s the kind of thing that is typically the subject of TV street interviews. “What did you buy today?” the interviewer asks, stopping shoppers who are carrying bags with the bakery logo and thrusting the microphone in their faces. The soft white loaf and the cream bun are the most common answers. And my answer too would be “A cream bun!” if anyone were to ask me. The distinctive features? Well, I’d say the custard filling, which has to have just the right degree of stiffness, and the delicately thin surrounding dough. Then there’s the sprinkling of sliced almonds on top. That’s what makes that satisfyingly crisp sound when you take a bite.
M-m-unch. Crunch-crunch-crunch. Some almond pieces fell onto the Woman in the Purple Skirt’s skirt. Pitter-patter through the fingers of the hand she held underneath the bun as she ate. She didn’t notice this. She always looked off in the distance as she ate her cream bun. Proof that she was concentrating. Her eyes and ears were closed to the world. That repeated crunching sound again. Nom-nom. Crunch-crunch. Yum. Delicious.
She finished eating the bun, then balled up the paper bag, and her eye fell on the jobs magazine on the end of the bench. In an unhurried way she picked it up and started flicking through it. After flicking quickly through it once, she went back to the beginning, then flicked through it again, this time more slowly. There was a special feature in this issue, “Best Workplaces for Team Players.” It took up almost half the magazine. But that wasn’t important, no, skip that. “Part-Time Work in the Hospitality Industry,” “Part-Time Work in Clothing and Retail” . . . No, skip those too. The edges of the pages had different colors—blue, red, yellow, green—according to the type of work. The final pages, “Night Work,” were pink edged. For some reason, she perused these pink pages at some length. No, not there. Look at the section preceding that, the one with the green edges. That small box advertisement to the right of “Parcel Sorters.” I’d circled it with a fluorescent marker. It should’ve been obvious.
Had she seen it—had she got the hint? The Woman in the Purple Skirt closed the magazine, rolled it up, got to her feet, and headed toward the garbage can. Oh, not to discard it, surely? The next minute, she switched the magazine to her other hand, tossed the paper bag in the garbage, and left.
A few minutes later, the children came to the park, straight from school.
Oh, wonder where she is? Restlessly, they scanned the park, then just stood there, obviously at a loss. No doubt a park that has just the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan seated in it wasn’t scintillating enough for them. After a while, they started playing rock-paper-scissors, but with none of the usual enthusiasm, and then, bereft of their usual playtime companion, they embarked on a game of safe-if-you’re-high tag.
The next day, the Woman in the Purple Skirt headed out to an interview. It was for a job in a soap-making factory.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt had not got the hint at all.
Judging from past experience, if she passed the interview and got the job, this would mean that the soul-destroying daily grind would immediately begin. Every day she would be doing nothing but going back and forth between her apartment and her workplace. But if she didn’t get the job, then she would once again be loitering around the neighborhood.
For the next week, and the week after that, the Woman in the Purple Skirt continued to hang around the neighborhood. Clearly, she hadn’t got the job.
A few days later, the Woman in the Purple Skirt again headed out for a job interview. This time it was at a factory that made Chinese-style steamed pork buns. More evidence of her complete lack of judgment. Didn’t she know that if you wanted to work in the food industry, the first thing they look at is the condition of your nails and hair? No way is a woman with dry, dull, unkempt hair like a rat’s nest, and nails that are black, going to stand a chance. I knew she was going to fail—and of course that’s exactly what happened.
On the same day as the interview for that job, she also went for another interview, at a different company. This one was for a “stock controller—night shift.” I ask you: Why go for a job like that? I couldn’t help feeling puzzled. Didn’t she realize that on night shifts there are bound to be way more men than women? This is just a guess, but I get the feeling that the Woman in the Purple Skirt has an aversion to men. This is not to say she likes women or anything like that. But if you’re working in an environment where you’re surrounded by men, well, inevitably it takes its toll, doesn’t it? But not to worry, because she didn’t pass that interview either.
In the meantime, what with all this time wasting, the period the Woman in the Purple Skirt had spent out of work had reached a new record. It was now a good two months. Of course, this was only since I started keeping track. Any day now, surely,
