Tinted Glass

I recently submitted the following story to the NPR 3 Minute Fiction contest. Check out some of the other stories, they are quite good.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105660765

Jemma was just leaving the thrift store with a sack of clothes for her and the kids. She didn’t have to rush since her ex had agreed to keep the kids and take them to school the next day. So she wasn’t rushing as she passed the café window. She looked in through the tinted glass and noticed the empty table with a stack of papers, waiting for someone to return. The slate gray of the clouds loomed in the glass behind her and reminded Jemma of the stormy cold days when she had chosen working in a café over working at home. In fact, she had been in a café the day she got the call, over a year ago now.

Normally, they ask you into an office to give you the news but Jemma’s boss was over 500 miles away, so she got a call. Yes, ten years with the company, not a lifetime by any means but not exactly a drop in the bucket. Of course that was true for so many now. Jemma could practically see herself that day, sitting at the table, with her tea and bagel, hanging up, putting her cell phone in her purse, shutting her laptop, and pensively sipping the rest of her tea. The bagel never got eaten.

Jemma continued going to the café after the call, looking for jobs online until she decided she shouldn’t spend so much on tea and pastries every day. The jobs were scarce and the money began slipping away. There were a few health expenses, nothing major, thank God, but the doctors were feeling the pinch too, so they said, and couldn’t subsidize everyone. After a while she just stopped going.

Jemma stood in front of that café, the bags getting heavier, the drops of rain beginning to patter on the sidewalk next to her. She wanted to go in and sit down at that table, order an Earl Gray with lemon and a chocolate muffin. But she couldn’t break the abstinence. It was her only control over the situation.

She smiled to herself to think of how she was saving on everything, using sugar instead of honey in her tea, walking the mile and a half to the thrift store instead of driving, forgoing the movies and the gym. Even the dog got only dry food, canned was for when times were flush.

Her features stared back at her in the window, no makeup, no jewelry, no hope, it seemed. It had been a year and her ex couldn’t help with the mortgage any longer. She knew she would have to call a realtor next week, not knowing if she would be able to sell the house with the mold problem.

She rubbed her wrist but her watch was no longer there. Fortunately, the price of gold had been strong during the last year. Even the kids had helped to dig through the drawers for cuff links her ex had left behind or an earring that she had been meaning to get repaired. The cash hadn’t been much but it paid for the groceries for a few weeks.

Jemma felt the chill creep through her bones even though the rain drops had ceased. She pulled the green chenille sweater closer around her, remembering how an old co-worker who she had run into the previous week, had asked her about it. “It is an Ann Taylor, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Oh yes, it is.” Jemma had replied. Who would have thought that you could find Ann Taylor at the thrift store?