Kristin Rides

CHAPTER ONE

She opened her eyes, then immediately closed them again, hoping sleep would take her again. But it was too late, she could hear John in the kitchen, making coffee and pouring cereal into a ceramic bowl. The clank of the spoon. The rustling of the newspaper. The smell of freshly brewed coffee slowly stole into the room, tempting her out of bed. But she could not. She fiercely kept her eyes closed.

She dozed while John showered, shaved, pulled on his freshly pressed shirt; before he left he crept up to her. She kept still, hoping he would just leave, but she could feel him standing there next to her, hear his breath getting slowly closer to her face. His soft warm lips made contact with her cheek and she longed to pull him back into bed with her, but he would get mad at her for mussing up his clothes. Before she could react he was gone, she heard the front door to their apartment shut, the locks turning over.

She sighed and rolled over, praying sleep would take her again. When it finally did, she dreamt she was falling.

———–

She opened her eyes a few hours later and stared at the ceiling. It looked mostly the same as it did yesterday, the light seemed a bit brighter though. She frowned, thinking that the seasons continued marching forth, with or without her permission. The slight imperfection in the upper left corner of her vision still looked like the face of a surprised man, the crack in the paint in the lower right still looked like the Columbia River. At this point she didn’t have anything to add to the scene, and rolled on her side to stare at the painting on the wall. Much to her chagrin it was entirely white. It actually looked pretty similar to the ceiling, except it cost a few hundred more dollars and had a frame around it, but John’s friend had painted it, how could she say no? She didn’t get it. She wasn’t sure there was anything necessarily to get, but John seemed pretty convinced his friend had infused the thing with some meaning that could only be deciphered by long periods of confused staring and silence.

She had spent many hours over the course of many, many mornings staring at the thing, and came up with nothing. Maybe because it was somewhat dark in the room she couldn’t properly see it. This morning, all she could see was that it slightly askew. She stared at the edges of the black frame, which were agonizingly not parallel to the diploma next to it. The entire painting seemed to be burning a hole in the wall, with its misalignment; it seemed to her that it hated her. It purposely skewed itself, just to annoy her. She fought the urge to get up and fix it. It wanted to draw her out of bed, out of her warm and safe cocoon, it wanted to hasten the day and put her in a bad mood. She narrowed her eyes and settled in for battle.

It didn’t take long for the power of the abstract painting to get to her. It mocked her, laughed at her. Very suddenly she sat straight, tossing her white feather duvet aside and swinging her legs to the side of the bed. It had already ruined her morning, she might as well get up and fix it. She grasp the cold metal frame with both hands and forced it into place. She stepped back to make sure it was straight. She nodded her head and considered crawling back into bed, but the painting would continue to stare at her, so she ventured into the living room and settled in on the couch.

She turned on the TV and stared at the flickering box. In her previous life she had always turned her nose up at Morning Shows. She just didn’t understand why anyone would want to watch such drivel; they were targeted at lowly house wives, the un- and underemployed, and kids sick home from school. But for the past month she was one of them; at first she had been resistant, refusing to indulge in Al Roker and sunny guests cooking roasts in fake kitchens. At first she didn’t even leave the bedroom until John got back from work, it was as though she could deny the layoff if she didn’t face the daylight of the gainfully employed. But after the first week of solitary confinement, she began to make timid steps into the living room. By week four she had become a fully fledged member of the unemployed class, eking out an existence on the couch in front of the TV. She realized it was a much more effective drug then sleeping for forgetting her existence.

Today, Meridith Viera was parading around a cancer survivor’s new make over. What a cheap way to make everyone feel better about themselves, she thought. Besides, that wig looks terrible, she thought, slightly jealous of how easily the fake hair curled around her face. The next segment featured new Spring Fashions for Working Women. Pantsuits and angled jackets, satiny blouses and heeled, but not too high, shoes. She thought of her own unused clothing, hanging sadly in her closet. Every day it watched John’s suits leave the closet, full of purpose, ready to impress. The satiny blouse she wore the day she was laid off still lay crumpled in a heap in the corner, growing duller with every passing minute. John never said a word about it; usually she was impeccably tidy, Every Thing In Its Place, so the fact that this blouse had sat on the floor, very much out of place, signaled something very, very wrong. He tiptoed around the blouse, even going so far as to vacuum around the thing. She appreciated his avoidance of the situation; his continued silence fueled her own and they both pretended it wasn’t there.

———-

Around noon, her stomach once again reminded her that she was human and needed to eat to survive. At this point she was so thoroughly bundled deep inside the cushions and blankets on the couch it took her five minutes to unravel herself to crawl her way into the kitchen. Her usual foraging routine involved opening the refrigerator, seeing a few boxes of ancient leftovers and eight bottles of mustard, and closing the refrigerator. Opening it again, just to make sure there wasn’t anything else in there, then closing it again. Finding bread, deciding toasting seemed like far too much work, and just eating it plain. She felt like a prisoner, so bread and water seemed fitting.

This morning, however, the bread was gone. John must have finished off the remaining crumbs and forgot to buy more. There was about a half a cup of coffee left in the pot; he used to make 2 extra cups for her, but stopped after she was axed. Only working people get coffee. Coffee fuels the economy, and she was no longer contributing, so she left the coffee there, and reopened the fridge for the third time. She went so far as to smell the leftovers. Definitely far passed its edible state. She put it back.

Unfortunately her stomach made it painfully clear she would need something of substance. Water wasn’t going to cut it. She hadn’t put on real clothes and left the safety of the apartment in a month; she was hoping she would somehow hibernate and then one morning wake up transformed and break out of her cocoon and fly away like a butterfly. A butterfly with a well-paying job. Instead, she put on some decently clean jeans, t-shirt and hoodie, dug her purse out of the closet, forced some sneakers onto her feet and left the apartment.

The fresh air felt bizarre to her; like a punch of reality in the face. The people outside had purpose, they had places to go, deadlines and important projects. She lived three blocks from a corner market which seemed like a mile. She pulled her hood over her hair and stared at the cement sidewalk. She felt like a marathoner, running through the finish line when she reached the store’s door, the tinkle of the bells like roaring of an excited crowd.

“Why hello miss, I haven’t seen you in weeks! Where have you been? Sick? It’s going around,” said the store clerk upon her entrance. He was like a friendly grandfather, she had always chatted him up the mornings when she was running late for work, back in her previous life. “I have just the thing for it, here, let me show you, aisle three…”

“No, I haven’t been sick… I was laid off,” she blurted out. There was a long, awkward moment of silence. It was the first time she had said it out loud, she hadn’t even told her own parents yet. It sounded harsh, like a prison sentence or like someone had died. No one likes to hear bad news, although they do love gossip; she could see the momentary conflict of emotions in his face.

“Oh no! Another casualty of the recession,” he replied, shaking his head. At least he could understand, she knew his business was down along with everyone else’s. She shuffled to the bread aisle before he could say anything else, and stared at the wall of choices. She looked for a familiar label, grabbed it and walked back up to the counter.

“That’s it?” he said. She felt pressured to add something, two items seemed better then one, one seemed pathetic, like she had no money. She hastily grabbed a glossy magazine off the rack and threw it down, proving her ability to spend frivolously. He didn’t say anything, just rang up the bread and glossy and handed her back her change. Money felt alien in her hands. She quickly pocketed the change and power walked back to the apartment, hoping not to run into anyone else, but luck was not with her that day. As she was fumbling with the keys, her neighbor came out of her apartment.

She had spoken with her neighbor Sarah a handful of times, mostly in the evening on accident. She kept rather strange hours, often leaving in the middle of the day and returning later in the evening, but nothing seemed very set in stone. She couldn’t quite puzzle out exactly what it was Sarah did for work, but she imagined it might be something related to making clay pots or maybe knitting. She had long wavy brown hair and wore long flowy skirts with long flowy blouses. Pretty much 100% flowy, with lots of bangles and little bells so that she seemed to be a walking wind chime. It was only recently due to being home all the time that she began to wonder about Sarah, as she could hear her front door opening and closing. Before this month, she hadn’t given her a single thought.

“Oh hi there! Home from work? Are you sick? It’s going around….” she said, “I have some herbal teas, they’re really soothing.”

“Hi Sarah….um no I’m not sick…”

“Oh! Well then… vacation?”

“No, not exactly…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, um, well I was laid off.” The words felt like peanut butter in her mouth.

“Ahhh,” she replied, looking her over. She suddenly felt fiercely self conscious; am I being judged by her? She looked down at herself and realized she was wearing unemployed chic. “Well, that’s too bad. Still, those herbal teas will sooth you! I have just the thing. Come by in the next couple of days, I’ll brew you up some tea.”

“Oh, um no thanks, I’m allergic.”

“Allergic? To tea?”

“Uh yeah.”

“Well don’t worry, I have herbal teas, all kinds, so we’ll find something! You poor dear…” she said, moving in for what looked like what might be a hug. She clenched her keys out in front of her like a knife, stopped Sarah in her hugging tracks.

“Well ok then, see you later. I really must get back to work. Well, I mean you know, looking for work,” she said, jamming the keys into the lock awkwardly.

“Yeah…..ok, have a good day! It’s a lovely afternoon!” Sarah was gone in a little jingle of bells.

She shut the door and leaned against it, wondering how she could possibly avoid Sarah for the next week, when she had no predictability whatsoever. Tea? Seriously?

She dropped a few pieces of bread in the toaster and turned on the tap, grabbing a glass. Those were the first two people she had told about her layoff, other then John, of course. She felt like she was going to be sick; they looked at her with such pity, it was sickening. Big tears appeared out of no where and crept down her face. A few sobs later she cried out “What the fuck!?”

She screamed it. “WHAT THE FUCK?” The apartment shrugged its shoulders back at her and gave her a friendly pat on the hand as cold water flowed out of the tap and over the top of the glass. She felt frozen, unable to move, even as burned toast smell tinged the air. Slowly, she turned off the tap. I’m so incapable, I can’t even toast bread.

Abandoning the toast and the water, she burrowed back inside the blankets on the couch and held up the TV remote like a glass of bourbon to forget the day.