Hearts In Respite

Noelle knew the exact moment Brian Keely saw her. He corrected his steering just in time to avoid a row of mailboxes. He swerved again and missed Josiah Pickett and his five leashed mini yappers.

Brian made a clean get-away as he exited the driveway despite the logging truck that hurtled in his path. The driver of the truck sounded his horn, causing the dogs to join in a cacophony of barks as they wrapped their leashes around Josiah’s legs in excitement.

Great, just great, she thought, tomorrow is going to be one hell of a day. She had not missed his expression as he passed, a mixture of surprise and embarrassment.

She pedaled her bike to the trailer where she leaned it against the corroded aluminum skirt that failed to hide the underpinnings. The car sat where she had left it that morning, after she discovered it was out of gas. Her mother took it to the doctor yesterday, burning through a tank of gas, for a trip fifteen miles away. Noelle did not look forward to yet another fight but geared up for it anyway.

After removing her safety helmet, she unzipped the bright pink wind jacket she wore as she climbed the three metal steps to the door. She was hit by the heated aroma of cigarettes, booze, and sex as soon as she walked inside.

A woman in an open cotton robe stood in the kitchen. She emptied a coffee cup filled with cigarette butts into a trash can.

“You are home early,” she put the empty cup in the sink, closed the robe which hid her nakedness then tied it in place with a sash. Her voice had the huskiness of a long term, heavy smoker. She insisted it added to her allure.

Noelle dropped her small shoulder bag and jacket on the counter, then got a plastic cup out of the cabinet. She drank a full cup of water then turned to speak, “It’s five-forty-five momma, and I just saw the manager of Haynes Grocery on his way out. We shop there; I work a double shift there tomorrow.”

“I know that. He also pays for full service, which is technically free grocery money,” Angie tittered as she bounced off the bar that separated the kitchen from the small living area. The grocery store was next door to the liquor store. Brian Keeley must have brought alcohol as a gift or partial payment.

“I don’t want free groceries, momma. I don’t want to have to think of him going home to his wife, or that I will have to face him tomorrow at work,” Noelle tried without much success to keep her voice calm. Yelling never resolved things with her mother. “You told me you were done turning tricks. You told me you’d stop drinking and smoking. You promised, momma. You’ve only been out of the hospital a few weeks.”

She went to the coffee table where she picked up their shared cell phone with the intent to call her best friend Daria. She hoped Daria would let her crash on her parents’ couch for the night again as she didn’t want to be at home.

“It’s out of minutes,” Angie was short, with thickly lashed brown eyes, an hourglass figure, and an olive complexion. She wore her dark hair, short and styled in a spiky flip. It was dyed as soon as a glint of silver appeared in the strands.

At forty-nine, her life choices were starting to take a toll on her beauty. She hid some of the passage of time with well applied makeup. Noelle almost never saw her without it.

“Out of minutes? I just had it filled last week,” Noelle put her fingers to her temples in a vain attempt to stave off a headache, “who are you talking to? Are you doing the phone sex thing again?”

The phone sex gig was the reason they had the cell phone. It was a job that had lasted three months before Angie gave up on it.

“Of course not. People do all that on computers these days,” Angie staggered back to the couch where she picked up the remote to turn on the television, “a friend got me a job selling supplements. I’ll start making serious money at it soon enough; then we can move anywhere you want, maybe to Denver. In fact, you could...”

“No,” Noelle interrupted as she refilled her cup with water. The day had been very hot, normal for mid-August, which made her commute home throat-parching. She was past ready for a shower. “I want nothing to do with one of your get-rich schemes. They are scams, and you never make enough to pay for your supplies.”

Noelle was three inches taller than Angie with softer curves and a complexion she called beached whale but was better described as Nordic pale. She had long platinum, wavy blonde hair, and cornflower blue eyes. She and the sun had agreed to only meet for short intervals. She wore a hat, and long sleeves when outside. She had learned when they first moved to North Florida, six years ago, that she was prone to severe sunburn.

“Noelle, honey, I need you to go to the store and pick up some...Hey!” Angie cried when Noelle snatched a cigarette from her mouth then threw it into a half-filled glass of soda on the coffee table, “that was my last one.”

“Good. Now, you can quit,” Noelle snapped back. She gathered up the glasses and other debris from the table. “Momma, we can’t afford these, or that cell phone you just had to have or using all the gas in the car or for you to go back to hospital. I’ll be paying for those bills until I’m ninety. You will end up back there or worse in a grave if you don’t quit these and the booze.”

“I scaled back long before I got sick. My clientele is now small and exclusive. The supplement job is going to make me much more money anyway, and I won’t have to refill the fishbowl as often.” Angie gestured in the direction of a fishbowl sitting on the counter, half-filled with condoms.

Noelle snatched the bowl off the counter and shoved it into a cabinet. She saw Angie’s pillbox. When she picked it up, she noticed that there were still pills in the slot for that morning.

The doctor at the hospital recommended that Angie take baby aspirin and multivitamins along with blood pressure medicine. “You forgot your medicine again. Here, take your evening ones now. Have you eaten?”

“I could go on one of those gambling cruises again to help pay the hospital bills. I made a couple grand last time,” Angie began to search their living room for signs of an unsmoked cigarette.

The room was large enough for a bedraggled couch, an end table and a tray table holding a small TV. The TV aired a game show with the volume too loud. Angie loved game shows, fantasizing about winning a new car or a trip. She wouldn’t watch any other type of television show.

“Momma that was ten years ago,” the lingering smoke, the too warm room and the argument that had been a constant for years caused Noelle’s pain to bloom into a full-fledged headache.

Angie had turned the AC off again. On the way to the unit, she put the pills and a cup of water onto the coffee table, then turned the AC on. It shuddered hard enough to shake the walls of the trailer before kicking in.

Angie purchased their Civic with the money from the trip. It had been used then, now it was just ancient. Noelle found out when she got her driver’s license for the first time that the car was in her name and using an expired tag registered to someone else. She had to pay a fine to get the correct tag.

“True. Competition would be tougher, and the broker’s cut last time was ridiculous. I am a bit older now, but I can still wear the same size I did when you were a baby. I’ve also got what those young bitches don’t have, experience and a varied menu,” Angie grinned in triumph when she found a half-smoked cigarette between the couch cushions, “Even better, you should go.”

Noelle wanted to scream in frustration. The argument always ended up at this point. Angie was certain that Noelle could make them a fortune in the sex trade, even offering to act as a broker. Noelle had grown up seeing the worst of what that occupation could do to those in the trade and what it had done to her mother.

Angie complained about people she knew who made good money working in film, sex chats and porn websites and one who owned a strip club. That she was jealous of their success was clear. It didn’t make sense to Noelle why her mother hadn’t tried something more stable and safer. It was a guaranteed fight any time the subject was brought up.

The need to be anywhere else prompted Noelle to pick up the full trash can and go outside to throw the trash into the dumpster at the end of their row of dilapidated trailers. She got the can unloaded while her nose wrinkled at the fetid smell that emanated from the dumpster then went to lean against a dead tree just upwind of the dumpster.

As she did at least once a week, Noelle considered moving out and leaving her mother to own devices, but she knew that Angie was incapable of taking care of herself for long. She saved every dime she could from the odd tip she got, her second job and working extra shifts.

It wasn’t enough. It was never enough because something would happen, and Noelle would have to spend that money. The last time was for tires. Noelle couldn’t afford new ones but could afford used ones from a local junkyard from the money she had saved.

She refused to touch what her mother earned. These days it was just enough to keep the woman in hair dye, cosmetics, cigarettes, and alcohol. It had never been enough for them to live in anything but poverty.

Noelle’s income as a housekeeper in a local motel paid the bills with almost nothing left over. The second job was an attempt to rebuild her savings, and to stay away from home. She worked every shift she could.

Mosquitos soon found her and swarmed in for a feast. I wonder if Mrs. Ramirez will let me use her phone, she thought. She was halfway back to her trailer when she saw a silver sedan park perpendicular to the Civic.

Noelle walked faster when she saw a man and a woman get out. Both wore suits, which was unusual, but assumed they were from a local church. Pastors, politicians, and lawyers were the only ones who wore suits this time of year.