Here is my latest short story. I hope you enjoy it!
A Few Steps Away
by Alisha Adkins, copyright 2012
Violet
hadn't had time to change after her job interview, so she was still wearing a
tight-fitting tailored grey skirt suit, cream-colored blouse, and uncomfortable
strappy heals. The suit jacket was wool,
too warm for this time of year, and itchy.
She really wished that she had had time to change.
She had been up most of the night nervously
preparing for her interview and had planned to go home afterwards, shed these
uncomfortable business clothes, and take a well-deserved nap. Unfortunately, just before she was called in
to speak with her potential employer, she had received a frantic call from her
mother. Her grandmother had had a stroke
and was in critical condition in the hospital.
Violet had gotten through the
interview, but she didn't really remember any of it. She had been hopelessly scattered. Her only possible hope of getting the job now
lay in the possibility that her interviewer might have mistaken her apparent
indifferent and distracted demeanor for haughty confidence in her own
abilities. This did not seem likely,
however.
Rushing to the Greyhound station as
quickly as she could, Violet had bought a ticket on the first available bus,
and was soon en route toward her grandmother, who had recently moved to a town
several hours away. Her mother was
already there and would meet her at the station.
As soon as the bus was in motion,
Violet began to struggle to fight off the temptation to doze. Her
eyelids kept drooping, fluttering closed, and then, with monumental effort,
Violet would force them to snap open again.
But what could a nap really hurt?
There were several stops before hers, and she was sure she would wake up
whenever the bus came to a halt.
"Last stop! Everybody off!"
Disoriented, Violet shook her head,
trying to clear away the cobwebs of slumber.
"End of the line, Miss."
the bus driver said, looking at her pointedly.
What? What the hell was going on? Violet was utterly bewildered. She couldn't have slept for more than a few
minutes, and now this man was telling her that they had reached the last
stop. Had she really missed her stop?
Glancing around, she saw that she was
the only one still on the bus.
"Time to go, little lady."
the driver said impatiently, walking toward Violet's seat in the rear of the
bus. He clearly intended to expedite her
departure.
The more Violet thought about it,
this man didn't even look like the same bus driver that had been driving when
she got on the bus. Could the drivers
have changed shifts? No, it just wasn't
possible. Besides, it was still light
out. She had gotten on the bus a little
before noon. She wasn't due to arrive in
her grandmother's town until well after dark.
As the driver loomed over her,
Violet anxiously collected her jacket and purse and began to make her way up
the aisle to the front door of the bus.
Glancing surreptitiously at her
watch, she saw that the time was 5:45.
This just didn't make sense. An
uneasy feeling settling in her stomach, she asked the driver, "What day is
this?"
He sighed, clearly annoyed by her inane
question.
"Thursday. Now, are you going to get off on your own, or
do I need to carry you out? I've got to
get this bus to the depot before I can punch out, and you're holding me
up." He glowered at her.
"I'm sorry... I..." Violet
said as she exited to the curb.
He abruptly pulled the doors shut
and pulled out into traffic.
Traffic. There sure was a lot of traffic.
Staring after the bus, Violet's mind
raced. She had gotten on the bus
Wednesday morning. It couldn't be
Thursday evening now. The bus driver had
to have been teasing her.
All
of her attention had been focused upon the bus that had just inexplicably
deposited her here, but now Violet began to look around to determine where
"here" actually was.
"What the...?" Violet
thought.
She was in an urban area. It might have been New York City, although she
couldn't say for sure. She had never
before been more than fifty miles outside of her own rural hometown. But here she was. The sidewalks were crowded with thousands of
people walking hurriedly in every direction.
Tall buildings and neon signs loomed overhead. And the traffic was bustling, bumper to
bumper, full of people honking and leaning out of their windows yelling at one
another. Everything was moving at a
frenetic pace; there was so much noise and movement that taking it all in made
Violet feel a bit dizzy.
"I have to get out of
here." Violet thought to herself.
She began to rummage in her purse for her cell phone.
A sense of panic began to rise in
her chest as she frantically turned the contents of her purse over and over in
her hands. Her wallet. Her house keys. A pack of gum. A small bottle of aspirin. No cell phone.
She needed to call someone.
"Excuse me, could I
use..." she asked a woman as she passed.
The woman looked away and kept walking.
"Excuse me, sir, I'm sorry to
bother you, but..."
"Get a job." the man said
gruffly, walking quickly away.
In total, Violet attempted to ask a
dozen pedestrians if she could borrow their cell phone to make a call. Only one of them let her get the whole
request out before flatly denying it.
Exasperated, she gave up on asking a
stranger and began to look for another strategy.
She was standing directly outside of
a large music store. Maybe they would
let her use the store phone?
Entering, Violet saw rows upon rows
of CD's, multiple listening stations, and throngs of customers milling about
the store. As she stood near the
entrance taking in her surroundings, a constant stream of people walked around
her, frequently brushing against her or bumping into her as they passed.
Seeking an empty space where she
could stop for a moment undisturbed, Violet weaved her way through the aisles
and finally came to rest in a section labeled "Easy Listening
Favorites."
She set her purse down on the rack
of CD's and made one final effort to find her phone. It was fruitless, of course. The phone was gone. It must have fallen out in the bus.
Without much hope of success, Violet
asked a few passing customers if she could use their phones. Her requests were met with mean looks or
simply ignored.
Sighing, she walked to the front
counter to ask the clerk, a girl with spiky jet black hair, who had small silver loop earrings in her
eyebrow, lip, nose, and in large quantities in both ears. Violet
blinked at her for a moment, momentarily mesmerized by the girl's appearance,
especially the tattoos that covered the girl's arms. She was unaccustomed to seeing someone who
looked like this back home.
"Yes?" the girl asked
impatiently.
"Umm, I was wondering if I
could use your phone? I'm lost
and..."
"Phone is for paying customers
only." the clerk said curtly.
"Please..."
"Buy something if you want to
use it. Next!" she said, ushering
over a customer that had wandered up behind Violet.
Violet waited until the transaction
was complete, and then reengaged the girl.
"You'll have to buy
something." the clerk said slowly, speaking as though she believed that Violet
might have a learning impediment.
"Yes, I understand. That's fine.
Do you have Marsha Fenright's new album?"
"No."
"Really? Are you sure?
Because..."
The clerk sighed exasperatedly. She punched a few keys on her computer
terminal.
"We don't have it. But it is in stock at our satellite
store."
Violet frowned. "I'm on foot."
"It's just across the
street."
Violet could feel the blisters on
her heels throbbing.
" I don't want to traipse all
over just so I can use the phone."
"It's literally just across the street." the girl said, pointing in
the direction of the other store. Then she
turned around and pretended to sort through some CD's that were sitting behind
the counter while she waited for Violet to go away.
As she returned to the street,
Violet reached up to brush her wavy brown hair from her shoulder and noticed
that her hair was a disheveled mess. It
seemed to be sticking out at odd angles in some places and peculiarly flat in
others, no doubt due to having slept with her head pressed against the window
of the bus. She tried to even out her
tousled hair without drawing attention to herself as she walked down the street
in the direction that the clerk had indicated.
As she reached the corner of the
block, Violet saw that, just as the girl had said, there was a similar music
store right across the street.
Violet was mystified as to why there
would be a need for two multi-story music stores within a block of one
another. Shrugging to herself, she
entered the store. Its interior was very
similar to the one she had just left, although at least some of the featured
displays appeared to be different.
She approached the counter and
addressed another apathetic-looking female clerk behind the counter.
"I need to buy Marsha
Fenright's new CD and to use your phone." she said, speaking as clearly
and assertively as she could.
Expressionless, the girl responded
"The CD is over there," gesturing vaguely in the direction of a
display rack.
Violet went over, retrieved it, and
returned to the counter. She reached for
her purse and suddenly panicked as it dawned on her that she was missing
something. She didn't have her purse.
"Oh, my purse. I don't have my purse! I must have left it at the other
store..."
The clerk did not seem particularly
interested.
Violet ran back to the other
store. Her shoes bit into the blisters
on her heels as she ran.
She knew that she must have left it
on the rack when she set it down to make a final search for her cell phone. But it was gone.
"My purse -- it was right
here! I left it right here..."
Violet lamented.
A store employee walked up behind
her and said, "You can't just expect to put something down, walk away, and
have it still be there later."
"Yes, I know. I realize that. I didn't mean to..." Violet trailed
off. She was flustered and on the verge
of tears. She had no phone, no money or
credit cards, no way to get in touch with anyone she knew, and she had nowhere
to go.
A soft voice behind her asked,
"Are you OK?"
This small vestige of kindness took
Violet by surprise. She turned to
address its owner. She was a petite
woman in her mid-twenties with short hair dyed vibrant red and was wearing a
faded t-shirt, leopard skin jacket, and ripped up jeans. She was also wearing black leather wristbands
and a lot of silver rings, and something about the way she carried herself gave
Violet the impression that the girl might be gay. Not that there was anything wrong with that.
Trying to keep her voice steady,
Violet began to explain her predicament.
"Calm down -- it'll be
OK." the woman told her. "It's
going to get dark soon, and you shouldn't be out on the streets by
yourself. You can stay with me
tonight. I was lost once, and someone
took me in. That person saved me; I
don't mind doing the same for you."
It struck Violet that this woman had
a strange manner of speaking. She was
unsure if she should take her offer.
"It's OK, really. No need to feel uncomfortable. We all wind up in a bind sometimes. I'm Ursula.
Come on, we'll go to my place."
Confused, Violet began to follow
her. She hated to rely so completely
upon the kindness of a stranger, but it didn't seem like she had much
choice. And there wasn't a whole lot of
kindness being offered right now, so she figured that she better act upon it
while it was available.
Worrying that Ursula might be
expecting something in return, she said awkwardly, "I'm not gay."
"That doesn't matter."
Ursula said.
"I'm sorry for bringing it up. I do really appreciate this. I just didn't want to misconstrue..."
"It's really OK. Just relax."
Ursula's voice was low, smooth, and
had an earthy quality. It produced a
calming effect upon Violet. She nodded
and continued to follow Ursula.
Another thought occurred to
Violet. "Do you have a girlfriend
though? Will I be in the way?"
"She's out of town. Nothing to worry about."
After walking what must have been a
couple of miles, they reached Ursula's apartment. It was nearly dark now, and the streets were
looking increasingly ominous to Violet.
The apartment was a small efficiency
with cloth-draped walls and a Bohemian feel.
Almost as soon as she entered, the
enormity of her situation finally hit Violet.
Confronted with a moment in which she could pause and breathe, Violet felt
suddenly overwhelmed. She closed her
eyes to fight back tears.
Taking a deep breath, she let the
moment pass.
"Do you have a phone?"
Violet thought to ask.
"No." Ursula answered
succinctly.
They stood in silence for a few
minutes. Then Ursula said "You're
tired. It's getting late. You're safe here. Let's just turn in" She dug in a drawer, pulled out a worn and
faded cotton nightgown, and offered it to Violet.
Violet took it and changed in the
tiny bathroom. When she came out, Ursula
was in pajamas.
A simple twin-size bed sat in the
middle of the one-room apartment. Violet
got under the covers, trying very hard to take up as little space as
possible. Ursula lay down beside her, facing
her back, and put her arm around her.
Although she had no idea where she
would go or what she would do in the morning, Violet found being spooned by
this strange woman oddly comforting. And
despite having apparently slept for an exorbitant amount of time on the bus, she
felt exhausted. She shivered for a
minute, but then quickly slipped off into sleep.
An angry woman with a rigid face and
sharp features hovered over her.
"I come home and find this in my bed?" she growled.
It occurred to Violet that this
woman might be preparing to hit her, and she shrank away from her, trying to
cover her face with a blanket.
Ursula was up, standing next to the
belligerent, stern-faced woman, trying to put her hands on her shoulders and
calm her. "She just needed a place
to stay." she said.
"Well, this spot's taken. She needs to go." she snarled, grabbing
the bedding and tossing it on the floor.
Violet hurriedly got out of the
bed. She looked around for her clothes,
but found herself being pushed to the door before she could gather them.
"Sorry, you'll have to
go." she heard Ursula say. And then
she was on the outside and the door slammed behind her.
She stood for some time, in her bare
feet and a ratty, tattered nightgown, staring at the door. She was alone, penniless, and confused. She had never felt so completely disconnected
from her world, from everything familiar and safe.
Without a cell phone, credit card, or
even presentable clothing, she had nothing -- no clout, no control, no
identity.
"How ironic." she thought
wistfully. This morning, her future had
seemed to hold so much promise. But success
is never more than a few steps away from failure, she told herself. A charmed life is merely a few steps away
from catastrophe. And her bright future
was turning out to be only a few steps away from her own doom.
She had been on the verge new
prosperity in her life, but then her grandmother had suffered a stroke, and
that one event had set off this chain of reactions. Her good fortune had been separated by only
event from her ruin.
She wondered how her grandmother was
doing. She might never know now. It seemed pessimistic, but she doubted that
she would see any of her family ever again.
Her life, her friends, her day to day routines -- everything that had
made up her unquestioned reality only a day ago -- now all seemed very far away,
as if it had belonged to some other person.
Violet stood for a full ten minutes
just staring at the shut door, blinking.
Then she turned and looked up and down the dark, deserted street. Gazing up at the foreboding night sky, she
mused sadly, "A few steps away from coming unhinged. A few steps away from being irreparably
lost."
Violet took the only course of
action available to her. She sat down on
the curb and waited for something to happen.
Eventually, something happened.
A band of ghostly figures emerged
from a nearby alley. They surrounded
Violet, wrapping their arms around her small body, swallowing her up. Then they began to pull at her, dragging her toward
the shadows, forcefully delivering an invitation to her to become one of them,
to join the ranks of the city's lost.
Violet chose not to struggle; she resigned
herself to this new path, the only path now available to her since she had
veered a few footfalls off of her designated trail. She accepted her fate, and took a few steps
away from salvation -- a few steps into the shadows.
The figures ceased to tug at her; she
went willingly, turning her back to everything she had ever known and following
the denizens of the lost without so much as a single farewell glimpse over her
shoulder. She knew that she would be
transformed, unrecognizable to those who had known her in her previous life,
including herself.
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