Goodbye To All That by Judith Arnold

Author:Judith Arnold [Arnold, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: BelleBooks, Inc.
Published: 2012-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The morning air was gray and clammy as Ruth waited for the traffic light to change so she could cross the street. Francine had yet again asked her to do the pre-opening set up. All this meant was setting her alarm clock a half-hour earlier than usual. Not a big deal; she lived just across the street, so getting to the store earlier was easy. And Francine was so prickly—Ruth still wasn’t sure Francine believed that she’d started work the day she was supposed to—that Ruth didn’t like to say no to her.

She turned up the collar of her jacket and shoved her hands into the pockets. The cars speeding down the street left cold, swirling gusts in their wakes, and she turned her face away from the wind as she waited for the light to change. When it did, she hesitated before stepping into the crosswalk, just in case some jerk chose to run the red light. The street was too busy, especially at rush hour.

But Ruth felt a kinship with the drivers. They were all commuters traveling to work, after all. I’m a commuter, she thought. The novelty hadn’t worn off yet.

The first time Francine had asked her to do the pre-opening set-up, she’d been excited. Making sure the shelves were neat and well stocked, the cash registers humming, all the lights turned on and functioning had seemed like a huge responsibility. Now, her fourth time, the task was routine. Open the staff room, hit the light switches, ascertain that the public trash cans had been emptied overnight, position the portable displays correctly, make sure the end-caps were neat, and generally spruce up the store before Francine arrived and unlocked the front door for customers. Arriving early meant Ruth had to enter through the rear of the building, where either Frank or Carlo would already be hard at work, supervising deliveries. God knew when they had to arrive to do this, but whichever one handled the morning deliveries got to leave by three in the afternoon, so Ruth didn’t feel sorry for them.

An impatient driver revved his engine as she crossed in front of it. It was like an automotive leer, the car lurching aggressively into the crosswalk, stopping just inches from her leg. She turned and glared. Part of being a member of the family of commuters meant being allowed to glare at jerks. Even flip them the bird, if Ruth felt particularly daring.

After arriving safely on the strip-mall side of the street, she walked around the parking lot to the rear of the building. An eighteen-wheeler, its sides adorned with the fluffy-teddy-bear logo of a toilet paper company, was being unloaded by a driver as Carlo watched. Ruth waved, then turned toward the back door and noticed the young man leaning against the cement wall. She immediately recognized his lanky build, the woolly hair tumbling around his face, the red apron extending below the edge of his battered leather jacket and the glint of silver at the outer corner of his left eyebrow.

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