Sylvia was supposed to be watching TV like the rest of her
friends, who were too afraid to leave their houses; at least
that’s what her son continually told her. He said this
so he wouldn’t have to worry about her and could pay
her as little mind as possible. He was close to retirement
age himself and Sylvia could see that he would become one
of those people who spend the last of their days in their
living rooms watching daytime television and hoping someone
would visit to break the boredom. That type of life was not
for her.
When her husband had to give up work at the age of seventy-two
due to heart troubles, he chose to stay inside the house.
Even when he was forced to leave for funerals or weddings,
though there were far more deaths than marriages as they grew
older, Kenneth was always in a hurry to get home. He was like
that until the day he died, even refusing to stay in the hospital
when he had his stroke and insisted that a visiting nurse
was good enough. Sylvia, despite the doctor’s cautions,
would not go against her husband’s wishes and arranged
for the nurse to come to the house twice a week. He lasted
three months.
Though his death happened eight years after his retirement,
Sylvia knew that it was his self-imposed incarceration that
killed him. He simply gave up on living, deciding there was
no reason to continue on if society deemed you unworthy of
working. They might as well have filled out his death certificate
on the last day Kenneth left the Prominent Assurance building
with his box of personal items that had littered his office
for nearly forty-five years.
Sylvia was as stuck in that house as her husband was, but
for her it was involuntary. In the mornings while Kenneth
watched the “Today Show” or listened to NPR, she
would sit at her kitchen window, which looked out onto their
street, and watched as their neighbors left for work or to
run errands in their sedans, trucks and SUVs. She wished that
she could join them for a trip to the office, or to the mall,
or to whatever rendezvous Sylvia’s imagination created
for them. She had been a housewife her whole life without
a career of her own as Kenneth would not allow his wife to
work.
Bobby, their son, had decided that Sylvia and Kenneth should
sell their 1986 Lincoln only a couple of years after Kenneth’s
retirement. He sold it to a teenager with a fresh driver’s
license in his wallet. After the sale, Sylvia and Kenneth
were dependent on Bobby to take them to the grocery store
or the post office when it was necessary. To Kenneth, this
arrangement was fine, since he rarely wanted to leave the
house, but for Sylvia it was a hassle she wished she did not
have to deal with. Bobby usually allowed her a once-a-week
trip to the Shop ’n Save, since he frequently reminded
her that he was always short on time. Sylvia tried to be as
efficient as possible in the store, only buying items she
had written down well before Bobby picked her up, but her
son followed her up and down the aisles constantly sighing
and looking at his watch.
After Kenneth’s funeral, Sylvia did not want to be dependent
on her son or anyone else, and surprised Bobby and her few
friends still above ground when she bought a bus pass. They
told her stories of horrible people who ride the buses, unclean
and morally bankrupt. They frequently reminded her of an incident
ten years before when a senior citizen was assaulted while
waiting at a downtown bus stop. But the stories did not faze
Sylvia and she ignored them.
She decided to use her bus pass everyday. She liked to ride
around the small city she had lived in for most of her adult
life, watching the activity of everyday life. She liked to
be around strangers and eavesdropped on their conversations
as much as possible. She was often amazed at what some people
would talk about in public when they were among people they
did not know. One day a young woman holding an infant freely
told her friend she was sitting with that her husband and
her baby’s father were not the same man. Sylvia was
never shocked when listening to these conversations, but she
was greatly amused.
One of the great freedoms of riding the bus daily was getting
away from being trapped inside. She liked the outdoors, even
in the winter. Her friends told her that she was crazy, that
pneumonia would catch her and that would be the end of her,
but Sylvia didn’t listen to their advice. She preferred
to leave the house as much as she could, and since she never
learned how to drive; not to mention having a son who increasingly
refused to drive her anywhere, which meant public transportation
was her only option.
Each morning she would catch the first run of the Green Line
bus at the corner of Livingston and Bentley. She would get
off to go to the supermarket and take an occasional walk in
the park, but she mainly stayed on the bus. The route took
her downtown, then up Congress Street to the various office
buildings, the Mall and finally back around again. She liked
the Green Line the best, but would occasionally transfer to
the Red or Blue lines to see other parts of the city.
She rarely returned home before early evening, preferring
to spend her time in the house while it was dark.
The morning she met the cute Girl Scout was like any other.
She got on the bus where the driver, Gus, greeted her as he
did every morning. He had stopped asking to see her pass some
time ago knowing that she always had it on her. He would comment
on the weather, giving Sylvia the latest forecast. Since she
caught the first bus of the morning, usually before most commuters
were up, the bus was mostly empty and she had her choice of
seats.
She always picked a seat in the middle, which she felt was
a prime location to be among the crowd. She listened in on
conversations between workers and college students, finding
most of their conversations interesting; especially the college
students who occasionally discussed whatever subjects they
were studying. This was how she interacted with others, though
few spoke directly to her.
At the Ludlow stop, a main stop for a new housing development
that was erected shortly after Kenneth’s death, a small
group of five girls, each dressed in the same uniform and
wearing the same beret, climbed on the bus with a woman in
her mid-thirties. The woman was obviously the chaperone, possibly
the mother of one of the girls. As she paid the fare for the
group, each girl found a seat. Because it was a heavy commuting
time, the only open seats were not next to each other, forcing
the girls to separate.
Sylvia noticed that each girl held a cardboard box that clearly
contained smaller boxes of cookies as she recognized the named
of the cookie varieties. Every year one of the neighborhood
girls would knock on Sylvia’s door with a cookie order
sheet, and every year Sylvia would buy a box of shortbread
cookies to eat with her tea.
One of the girl scouts sat next to Sylvia. The girl had freckles
that spotted her face and red hair that she wore in braided
pigtails. Sylvia could see by the girl’s outfit that
she was a well-decorated scout from the number of badges sewn
onto the girl’s sash. From a quick glance at the sashes
of the rest of the troop, Sylvia deduced that this girl was
clearly the most successful scout.
“Hello,” Sylvia said.
“Hi,” the girl said shyly.
“Are you girls selling cookies?” Sylvia asked.
“Yes, ma’am. A smile broke across the girl’s
face, as she seemed to realize that she had a potential sale. “We’re
heading to the supermarket to sell cookies outside. Mrs. Abignale
said we should each be able to sell a whole box worth from
the shoppers coming out of the store.” She pointed to
the woman who had accompanied the children onto the bus. The
woman was talking sternly to the girl sitting next to her,
who Sylvia thought must be her daughter.
“That’s Mrs. Abignale?” Sylvia asked.
“Yup.”
“And that must be her daughter.”
“Yeah, that’s Sally. Mrs. Abignale always says
that she can’t take Sally anywhere because she always
has to look after her. She said that if Sally didn’t
behave this time, she would be out of scouts.”
“Well, some children need more looking after than others,” Sylvia
said and looked at the girl with a smile on her face. “I
bet you’re not that way, are you dear?”
“No way,” the girl said. “My mommy and daddy
say that I’m their perfect little angel. And I always
do what they tell me.”
“And grades? I bet you receive excellent grades in school.”
“Teacher says I’m one of the best students.”
‘That’s good,” Sylvia said and touched the
cardboard box on the girl’s lap. “Your cookies,
dear, how much are they?”
“They are three dollars a box,” the girl said. “Would
you like one?”
“What kind do you have?”
“Mine are peanut butter, but my friends have other kinds,” the
girl said, offering Sylvia the option of other cookies in
a defeated tone, like Sylvia wouldn’t want peanut butter
and would rather have any kind than the one she had. She ever
looked at Sylvia with a frown on her face.
“Oh, peanut butter is my favorite,” Sylvia said
as she opened her purse to get her wallet. The little girl’s
expression changed instantly. She rocked slightly in her seat
and bobbed her head in excitement. Sylvia half expected a
squeal to escape the child’s mouth, but it never came.
“Oh, good because I get the points if you buy from me.
We get a gift certificate if we sell enough,” the girl
said as she took out a box of cookies and a manila envelope
containing
money. “Right now, I have the most.”
“Well, honey you had better give me three boxes then,” Sylvia
said with a wide grin. “We wouldn’t want you to
get behind on earning those points.”
“Okay,” the girl said and opened the manila envelope
to look inside. “Oh, I forgot, all I have are bigger
dollar bills for change. Do you have smaller ones?”
“I’ll look dear,” Sylvia said as she surveyed
the contents of her wallet. There were two fives, six ones
and
a twenty. “I’m sorry, all I have is this twenty,” she
said as she pulled out the bill with Andrew Jackson’s
face on it. “Can you get change?”
“I’ll go ask,” the girl said as she took
the bill and went to Mrs. Abignale. She left the open manila
envelope
on the seat.
Sylvia looked up to see if anyone was watching her, then reached
into the envelope and took out two twenties. She quickly put
them in her pocketbook. No one saw.
“Here is your change,” the girl said when she
returned, handing the eleven dollars to Sylvia.
“Thank you, dear.”
Sylvia took the three boxes of cookies and opened one immediately.
“Would you like one, dear?” Sylvia asked, offering
a cookie to the girl.
“No thank you, we’re getting off at this stop
here at the store.”
The bus came to a halt at the corner of Harrington and Coven.
“Thank you for buying some cookies. This will help me
get points,” the
girl said before she joined the rest of her group exiting
the bus.
“You’re welcome, dear.”
Sylvia watched as the girl stepped off the bus and walked
with the group along the sidewalk toward the Shop ‘n
Save. As the bus pulled away, the girl looked up to see Sylvia
and waved.
Sylvia waved back, smiled and took a bite out of the cookie.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen Allan lives in Maine where he is currently working on a crime
novel. He has an MFA degree from the University of Southern Maine.
Steve blogs at www.noirwriter.blogspot.com.
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