Chapter Five
It seemed like Kim was always at the cafe. She smiled when I walked in. "Working on a Saturday, Stock Boy?" she asked.
"Yeah but not as a stock boy today, Waitress," I said because it was more fun to call her that than it was to call her Kim.
She smirked and got my coffee. "So what are you today then? An airline pilot? A supermodel? Secret Agent for the FBI?"
"I'm a secret agent for the FBI posing as a supermodel wearing an airline uniform, actually," I answered. "Make sure it's nonfat cream you're using there, Waitress. I gotta watch my model figure."
She laughed, "You really are a jack of all trades, aren't you?"
"Precisely what I am today," I answered, tossing her three dollar bills. "Keep the change."
If nothing else, I learned a valueable lesson that day. I liked the idea of a bus - something about the word made me feel warm and fuzzy - but the actual bus itself was really uncomfortable. I learned this the hard way, as I lurched and jolted along through Atlanta's downtown area in the bus headed to Marietta, a suburb of the city where the woman who had called me - a woman named Leighanne Littrell - lived.
I had very little personal space and I hated not having personal space. I felt like constructing a six-foot-in-diameter bubble to sit in the center of to keep people away from me. I even tried putting my sweatshirt on the seat beside me and some fat lady holding a bag with a yippy-yappy dog had sat on it and I'd worried that I'd have to use a forklift to move her off it if my stop came before hers did, but mercifully she only sat there for a couple stops before leaving and I was able to pull the sweatshirt back onto my lap before a similar situation arose with a less happy ending. I hugged my warm-from-her-ass-heat sweatshirt to my chest and lurched forward and backward with the bus, vowing to save up for a driving test and a car as a priority, even over a trip to Los Angeles.
When the bus driver announced my stop, I squeezed my way off the bus and into the fresh air, practically ready to kiss the sidewalk in jubilation over having successfully navigated the Atlanta city transit. It felt like a small miracle.
Mrs. Littrell had said that she'd meet me at the bus stop and drive me the rest of the way to her house, even though I'd offered to walk it. "It's a longer walk than you'd think," she'd explained, "Trust me, I did it once in stilettos when I was having car trouble and my husband was away on business. It's not a pleasant experience." I'd assured her that I'd be wearing tennis shoes, not stilettos, but she'd just laughed and promised to pick me up in a blue Volvo.
I looked around for the blue Volvo and almost swallowed my tongue when I saw who was standing in front of it. Wearing a red gingham top with a denim skirt and her hair in two braids like she was a down-home country girl was the woman from the Little Red Hen - the one with the Cheez Its and the Caesar Light salad kit. I made my way over to her and stuck out my hand, trying not to sound like I'd just inhaled too much air too fast. "I'm Ben Spencer," I said.
She squinted at me, "Aren't you the stock boy from the grocery store?" she asked, shaking my hand.
"Yeah," I answered.
Letting go of my hand, she nodded toward the car, then walked in thick wedge heels back to the driver's side and climbed in. I followed, but climbed into the passenger seat, buckling the belt. She backed out and started driving. It didn't take long before I realized she'd been right about the walk being much longer than I would've expected - or wanted to walk for that matter.
"So is this a side job?" she asked.
"What?"
"The odds and ends? Is it a side job?"
"Uh huh."
"Honestly, I expected a high school kid," she admitted.
"I needed extra money," I explained.
After what seemed like forever, she turned her blinker on and pulled down a long, winding driveway through these tall trees that kind of hung over the pavement with droopy branches like willows but not really. I didn't know what kind they were. They were cool, though. The trees gave way after a bit to a circular driveway with a water fountain in the center of a patch of grass and a wide, tan-brick house with huge windows and ivy vines crawling over the awning that stretched over the main entrance's stoop. She drove a part of the way around the circle and parked the car in the shade of a tree. Across the circle was a black and silver trailer with the word Wylee printed in big, sparkley white lettering.
"What's that?" I asked, pointing at it.
"The trailer," she answered. Leighanne cut the engine in the car and opened the door, getting out. I gawked at the trailer a moment longer, wondering what in the hell I was expected to paint on it - it was immaculate. "I just am sick of black and silver and white," she explained. "We're repainting it shades of plum." It was like she'd read my mind. I got out and walked around thr car, too, joining her on the far side of the Volvo. She rooted in her purse a moment, unearthed a strip of paint samples, and handed them to me.
They certainly were purple.
"Wow," I muttered.
"I know, it's bright, but that's the idea. I need people to notice the trailer and stop in to buy stuff."
"What do you sell?" I asked.
"Clothes," she replied.
"Like jeans and stuff?"
"Like scarves and designer purses and stuff. My designs. I design them." Leighanne took the paint samples back and replaced them in her bag. "Anyways, come inside, have a glass of tea, and I'll check on whether Husband's ready to paint yet or not."
"Alright."
I followed Leighanne across the driveway, past a basket ball hoop, up a walkway, under the ivy-covered awning and into the house. The vastness of the foyer nearly floored me. A wide staircase wound up through the center, like that one in the boat in that movie Titanic. Huge marble statues stood at either side of the staircase's mouth.
Leighanne put her keys on a hook at the door and motioned for me to follow her. "Husband," she called as we crossed the foyer, moved along past a dining room and into a short hallway. She pushed open a white door that looked like a giant shutter and I found myself in a spacious dark blue and cherry-wood kitchen with sleek silver appliances. She opened the fridge and pulled out a huge glass pitcher with amber tea and big slices of lemon inside it. "Brian!" she yelled, her voice louder, "Brian!"
I stood awkwardly in the doorway watching her.
The door opened and almost hit me in the back. I jumped out of the way as a short guy walked into the room, wearing an Atlanta Braves t-shirt and a backwards blue baseball cap that had a giant white K on it. "You're home," he said, walking quickly across the kitchen, stepping up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, and kissing her cheek from behind. "Mmm, sweet tea."
"Don't mmm, sweet tea me," she said, raising her eyebrow, "I happen to know for a fact there was more tea in this pitcher before I left, Mr. Littrell."
He fake-gasped. "Are you suggesting I drank some of the forbidden tea that you specifically said not to touch a drop of before you got back?" he asked.
"Brian."
"Okay so I had a cup of it," he rolled his eyes. That's when he spotted me. "Um. Hallo."
"That's Ben," Leighanne said, getting a tall green plastic glass out of the cupboard. "He's gonna help you paint the trailer."
Brian glanced at Leighanne witheringly. "What? Today? Now?" he looked at me, "Hallo Ben. Sorry, I didn't know you were coming."
"Yes, today, now," Leighanne answered. She tapped the counter, "Don't be shy, Ben, c'mon down - you're the next contestant." She pushed the glass of tea across the counter in my general direction. My feet felt slightly less than lead. I picked the glass up and took a sip. I did, in fact, like sweet tea.
Brian studied me. "I hate painting," he commented. He got his own glass from the cupboard and poured himself a cup, his eyes never fully leaving me as he studied my face. He paused. "I feel like I've seen you somewhere before," he confessed.
"I work at the Little Red Hen," I answered.
"Yeah? Thats probably where I saw you then." He took a long sip of tea. "Did she at least tell you we were painting the trailer?" he asked.
"Brian, I didn't tell you because you're a procrastinator and if I want anything done around here I have to set it up and then tell you when it's ready to be started or you'll put it off forever."
"Name one time I did that," he argued, putting his glass on the counter and turning to his wife.
I took a sip of tea to keep from getting involved in this somehow.
"The time the toilet upstairs in Baylee's room wouldn't flush and you took like five weeks to get around to changing the valve thing."
"I told you to call a plumber," he said, "I was on tour."
"Uh huh."
"I was."
"And the garden?"
"Why do you need to grow veggies anyways, it's quicker just to go to the store and buy them." He glanced at me, "And gives this guy a bit of job security, right Brad?"
"It's Ben," I answered.
"Sorry, Ben. It gives Ben job security."
Leighanne sighed, "You're procrastinating now," she pointed out.
"Touche," Brian replied, raising his glass to his wife. He took a sip, then looked at me as he lowered the glass back to the counter. "Women; they are always right. It's amazing."
After Self by Pengi
