Melanie's car purred
down the road, at least, that's how Melanie liked to describe the new
sound her car made. Those that knew Melanie but had yet to see her
car thought she drove some kind of hot rod from the descriptions she
gave of it. In truth, her car was an old clunker that had been on its
last leg for so long now that Carl, her mechanic, had stopped asking
what was wrong and instead asked how much she could afford on
repairs. Melanie didn't care, she liked her car and wouldn't trade it
for anything, or at least, that's what she told her friends who had
seen her car.
The light ahead of
her turned red and Melanie's heart sank. She let off the gas and
allowed the car to slow down on its own as much as she could so she
could postpone putting pressure on the brakes. Melanie prayed the
light would change back to green for her and that she wouldn't have
to use the brakes. She even pulled up a little on the emergency
brake, though Carl had warned her about this the last time he'd seen
her car. The light failed to change back to green for her and Melanie
reluctantly put her foot down on the brake pedal and gritted her
teeth as the loud screech of metal on metal rent the air.
Out of the corner of
her eye, Melanie noticed the driver in the car next to her look her
way as they both reached the crosswalk and waited for the stop light
to change. In her rear view mirror she thought she saw the driver
behind her talking animatedly to his passenger and pointing forward
towards Melanie. Perhaps she was wrong. Either way, this was the last
light she had to pass. At last the light changed and Melanie
accelerated jerkily across the intersection. Another couple of blocks
later and Melanie had expertly parallel parked her car and was
skipping across the street toward her apartment.
The door closed
behind her and Melanie, whistling now that she was home, went to grab
her laptop from her room. She passed her kitchen and living room and
was just beginning to shuffle through her blankets in search of her
laptop when she realized there had been food cooking on the stove and
her TV was on. She stopped whistling. Now that she thought about it,
Melanie didn't remember leaving her room in such a mess before she
left for work that morning. A last, quick search confirmed her fear;
her laptop, the only thing of worth that she owned, was gone.
Melanie grabbed a
baseball bat from beneath her bed and crept back along the hallway
towards the living room. Whoever had come to steal her computer
seemed to have overstayed their visit and Melanie was going to make
sure they learned their lesson. Of course, this being the third time
her apartment had been broken into Melanie thought it would have been
she who would have learned to find a better hiding place for her
laptop than beneath her blankets. The other two times her apartment
had been broken into, the would be thieves failed to find anything
worth taking and had instead satisfied themselves by just breaking
things.
Melanie peeked her
head into the living room. Her couch had been turned into a nest of
blankets surrounded by cast off candy wrappers, soda cans and chip
bags. Melanie tiptoed closer, trying to see over the back of the
couch.
“Your door was
unlocked again,” A voice spoke from behind her, “You should
really stop doing that.”
Melanie spun,
screaming and raising her baseball bat, ready to charge down whoever
had spoken. Joan, standing safely behind the kitchen counter, raised
an eyebrow at Melanie. Melanie lowered her weapon.
“Nice battle cry,
though,” Joan teased and tossed Melanie a candy bar.
Melanie caught it
without hesitation.
“I keep telling
you,” Joan said as she left the safety of the kitchen behind, “With
reflexes like yours you'd make an excellent fighter.”
Melanie blushed,
something she seemed to do at the slightest hint of a compliment, but
didn't smile.
“My baseball bat's
all I need,” Melanie said, “And what are you even doing here, I
thought you started your new job?”
Joan plopped back
down on the couch with her newly acquired bag of chips and tore it
open. Melanie saw what looked like the corner of her laptop sticking
out from under a blanket.
“I did,
yesterday,” Joan said.
Melanie waited but
Joan seemed unlikely to elaborate without prodding.
“And?” Melanie
asked.
“And today they
fired me,” Joan said, again without explaining more than she had
to.
“What? Why? I
thought they liked you there?”
Melanie set the bat
down on the coffee table and sat down beside Joan who, now that
Melanie could look more closely at her, looked like she could use a
good cry. Joan shrugged and stuffed a handful of chips into her
mouth.
“Those are
jalapeno flavored,” Melanie warned Joan too late.
Joan's eyes began to
water and her face turned bright red. Joan flapped her hands at
Melanie for help and hurriedly chewed and swallowed the chips.
At least she's
learned to chew them now, thought Melanie.
“I still can't
believe it,” Melanie laughed as she got up to grab Joan some bread.
“You can burn hot enough to fire my ceramics but you can't take a
little spice.”
Joan whimpered
slightly as she drank some soda before accepting the bread from
Melanie.
“It's not my
fault,” Joan said after the pain subsided.
“What isn't your
fault?” Melanie asked, “Losing your job or not being able to
handle a few chips?”
Joan looked
unimpressed by Melanie's ability to bring the conversation back
around to that unfavorable topic. Melanie, though, really was
concerned for Joan and Joan knew it. Melanie was the only person she
could go to, could talk to, unless she counted that annoying nerd who
kept calling for an interview. Yes, she had given him her number but
the more he called the more she wished she hadn't. He kept asking her
the same questions over and over. But his guess was as good as hers
when it came to where her fire came from and he didn't seem to quite
believe her.
Melanie poked Joan
in the ribs.
“Earth to Joan,”
Melanie said, waving her hand in front of Joan's face. “Come on,
what happened at work, did you burn?”
Joan hung her head
in defeat and nodded.
“On purpose?”
Joan vacillated back
and forth for a moment before answering.
“Yes?” she said.
“Is that an
answer?” Melanie asked, “Because it sounded like a question.”
Joan tossed her head
back against the couch and grunted when her head was met not by
cushion but by the hard wood of the frame where the cushion had been
worn away.
“I burnt on
purpose,” Joan said through gritted teeth as she massaged the back
of her head, “But I only did it so I wouldn't lose control.”
“What were you
upset about?” Melanie asked, being Joan's only real confidant she
knew that, besides the huge explosions Joan went through every twelve
or so days, that was the only other way they knew of that would set
Joan off uncontrollably.
“I wasn't upset,
that's the thing,” Joan moaned, more from this new development than
from the lump on the back of her head. “I'm not supposed to have my
big burn for another two days.”
“Does Judge Dervin
know yet?” Melanie asked.
Joan shook her head.
“They said they'd
put it down that I quit, seeing as this was my third job since being
released and they didn't want to get me into any more trouble.”
“That was nice,”
Melanie said, trying to look on the bright side. “But you are going
to tell him, the Judge I mean?”
Joan looked
doubtful.
“This is the
second time, Joan, you can't deny it. You're losing control more
often.”
Joan nodded and
sighed, shutting her eyes against the fear that had made her come
running to Melanie.
“I don't want to
be locked back up, Mel,” Joan said through a tightening voice.
“What if they don't let me back out?”
No comments:
Post a Comment