dwindled, Laurel grew anxious. Nothing seemed right. Finally she settled on a navy skirt, pumps and her lavender cashmere twin-set.
She poked her head into the den to tell Wes she was leaving. He waved at her without looking away from the TV.
Following Dixie’s directions, Laurel drove to a barren industrial complex on the outskirts of town, an area she had always bypassed on her way to other destinations. She passed rows of steel warehouses and low-slung concrete buildings until she found Dixie’s address and pulled into a parking lot full of dusty pick-up trucks. Identical glass doors punctuated the tan stucco walls at regular intervals. The only distinguishing marks were address numbers painted on the glass. Dixie’s was the last door on her left. The room was gray with concrete floors and stainless steel counters along one wall. In the center was a steel worktable. In the glare of the fluorescent lights, the room looked more appropriate for performing autopsies than preparing food.
Dixie was a large woman with a broad face, her graying hair worn in a utilitarian cropped style. She wore black work pants, heavy boots, and a blue denim shirt rolled up to show her impressive biceps. The hand she proffered to Laurel was large and warm. She indicated Laurel should sit on one of the two metal stools that constituted the only furniture in the room. She sat on the other as she proceeded to describe the job.
Dixie drove her catering truck to auto body shops and construction sites, selling lunches and snacks to the workers. She bought her food from a warehouse market: bread, lunch meats, sliced cheese, potato, macaroni and three-bean salads, cole slaw, brownies and muffins. Laurel’s job would be to make sandwiches, scoop salads from bulk containers into Styrofoam cups and package muffins and brownies in plastic wrap. They’d stock the truck with the food and drinks before Dixie left on her rounds. The pay was minimum wage. Laurel’s spirits sank; this was not meal preparation as she knew it.
“What do you think?” Dixie asked.
“Well,” Laurel stammered, looking for a diplomatic way out.
“I’m in a real bind,” Dixie said. “ Try it for a week and see how it works out.”
One week. How bad could that be? It was easier to say yes than no. “Okay,” she said, reluctantly. “I’ll try.”
“Good. You can start tomorrow. By the way,” Dixie said, “dress casual.”
Heavy clouds blanketed the moon, and the bedroom was black as tar when the alarm rang at four o’clock. Laurel turned it off mid-ring and slipped out of bed. Wes opened his eyes, glanced at Laurel, then rolled on his side and pulled the pillow over his head. Laurel dressed in the dark, having laid out her new jeans and flannel shirt she’d bought after her interview the day before. There was no point leaving a note. Wes would probably still be asleep when she returned.
Justin had to be at school early for football practice and was usually out of the house before she got up. He wouldn’t even notice she was gone. By the time football season ended, her job would be long over.
Dawn was just beginning to break through the dark when Laurel reported for work. Except for Dixie’s catering van, the parking lot was empty. The only lights in the building came from Dixie’s workspace.
Dixie was already at work, making coffee and packing paper cups and plastic spoons into cardboard boxes. She stopped long enough to help Laurel gather her ingredients and set up an assembly line to make sandwiches. Laurel tied on the flowered apron she’d brought to protect her new clothes.
Laurel unwrapped a loaf of white bread, spread its slices out in a neat row, slathered them with mayonnaise, topped half with sliced lunch meat and a damp lettuce leaf and slapped another slice on top. Artificially pink bologna, fat-speckled salami, square ham and water-logged turkey. This was food? She reflexively wrinkled her nose. When the sandwiches were wrapped and labeled she helped Dixie scoop salads into the Styrofoam cups. As they worked, Dixie told her how she’d started the business.
Dixie had been a construction worker until she was injured on a job and could no longer do heavy work. She had used her disability compensation to purchase the catering truck and rent this kitchen space. She’d handled the business alone for the past year, but demand was growing to the point where she needed help. Laurel was just what she was looking for. “You’re doing fine,” Dixie said. By the time eight o’clock rolled around, Laurel could barely walk. She’d have to find better shoes for standing on concrete. Not work boots like Dixie’s, but something more than her thin-soled flats. Laurel did a quick calculation in her head. Her work ‘uniform’ would cost more than her first week’s wages. She had to work two weeks just to break even.
But two weeks was all she’d do. Justin’s football practices would be over by then, and she’d be hard pressed to sneak out without his noticing her absence. If he asked her where she had been, what would she say? She didn’t want to burden him with keeping her secret, and she didn’t want to lie.
She drove home quickly, hoping Wes would still be asleep. He’d go ballistic if he knew she had taken a job.
The house was quiet. Laurel put on a pot of coffee and tiptoed into the bedroom. Wes was snoring softly. Good, she thought. She’d have time to rest before she had to fix his breakfast. She showered and changed in the bathroom. When she came out, Wes was propped up on his elbows. “You’re up early,” he said.
“It’s nearly nine.”
He swung his feet onto the floor. “What’s for breakfast?”
Laurel wasn’t the only one looking for work. Charlie didn’t know how long she could hold Craig off. He wouldn’t give up. At least she would give him a run for his money.
Realistically, though, Charlie knew she had to prepare for the inevitable. With only half of the money from the sale of this house and less support, her future looked dim if she didn’t do something about it. She’d need a place of her own. She couldn’t rent. What landlord would accept her menagerie? She’d never qualify for a mortgage, even if Craig didn’t cut her alimony. And a cut was a definite possibility.
So a week after Thanksgiving, Charlie sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, the telephone, and the classified section of the paper. There weren’t as many ads as she remembered from previous attempts. She’d heard that most jobs were advertised on-line now, but she didn’t even own a computer.
She felt lucky, though, when she saw a job listed that was made for her, a pet groomer at PetAgree. Perfect. She dialed with great expectations only to be told the job had been filled. She inked a big X over the ad. She called an insurance agency looking for a receptionist with good telephone skills. They were looking for someone with recent experience. Another X. How hard was it to answer a phone?
There were ads for people with accounting degrees, sales experience, computer skills. There were jobs for auto mechanics, busboys, registered nurses and managers of IT, whatever that was. None that advertised for a fifty-something woman with no recent work record. In the 1970's and 80's, there was a push to get women like her -- ‘displaced homemakers’ they were called - into the workplace. But it never occurred to her then that she would become one. And now that she was in her fifties, the trend was over; apparently all the former homemakers had now been ‘placed’. Now every employer seemed to be looking for someone under thirty with twenty years
worth of experience. Fair Grounds, the home of the multi-studded server, needed a counter person. Grace didn’t think she fit their image.
By the time she finished her coffee, the paper was covered with large black Xs. She folded it and tossed it into
