SCRAMBLED
By
Kathryn
Jones
Eating Out
Six months later a
thought occurred to her that the fat man had been the catalyst; her last straw,
her wake up call.
“Are you open?” the man had asked. His voice had been deep and yawning like
the Grand Canyon.
“Of course.” She looked up. The man was fat—even more endowed than her
own husband who’d gained a mere seventy pounds since their wedding day 20 years
ago. Fat oozed like soft butter from his
great waistline. His black and white checkered
shirt, though buttoned, gaped to his belly, revealing a matted mass of
hair. She tried not to stare at it. The word “pig,” came to mind.
“Did
you find everything all right?” she asked.
“Just
ring me up,” he growled, scratching his unshaven face. “I have an appointment.”
If
someone had said, ‘Make a wish, Susan,” she would have wished for freedom in
that moment—freedom from the customer, and all those to follow; freedom from
her horrible job and marriage, freedom from unavailable friends and broken down
cars. She would work a bit somewhere
else, and then travel to some exotic location.
Perhaps Paris or Hawaii …
“Miss!”
Susan
felt the crisp dollar bill in her hand.
“Sorry, sir,” she said, handing the disgruntled customer his
change. She watched his back-end leave
the store. Blubber, bump. Blubber, bump. Blubber, bump…
It
was the fat man who had finally given her the courage to take care of herself
for the first time. Perhaps it was not a
conscious choice, but it was definitely a choice. She left work that day never to return, got
on a bus, leaving her rotten car in the parking lot—her fat husband wondering
where she’d gone. She hadn’t looked
back.
Occasionally,
like today, when the hotel lights burned deeply into her skull, and her eyes
felt heavy from the tasks of serving, she would remember. The terrible times when she tried to get
pregnant. His anger about her job, or
the way she folded his underwear. She would think about the way he spoke to
her; hardly, and then, harshly, as if the words he had meant to say to her long
ago needed to come out now in one heated rush.
Also, the short
moments of tenderness—her broken-down heap of a car that had still managed to
get her to work, the doughnuts and candy bars that always made it into the
kitchen cupboards and then quite naturally were fed by him into her open
mouth—because he always shared what he bought for himself. All those moments that made her life one with
him. And now she was left with an aloneness she couldn’t begin to understand.
“Jenny?” The pounding on Susan’s front door made her
blink. She would never get used to her
new name even if she lived to be a hundred years old. She stood, walked to the solid piece of wood
called her door, and peered wearily out the keyhole even though she didn’t need
to.
“What
is it this time, John?” Tonight, John
seemed to be wearing some sort of pullover sweater and blue jeans. His short, red hair was combed down the
middle, and splayed to either side like the opening entrails of a fish. She might have laughed if she hadn’t cared
for him. He was the dorkiest man she’d
ever met, albeit the nicest.
“Cup
of sugar?” She could see the white cup
held eagerly in his left hand. He pushed
it forward to the keyhole.
“I’m
tired tonight.”
She
removed her eye from the keyhole, wondering if he blushed. He always turned red whenever she spoke of
anything having to do with sleep, or darkness, or her new down comforter. She wasn’t sure why unless certain words
created in him a desire for something he would never get from her. Was it her
imagination, or could she feel him going red beyond the door? And he was probably grinning too, now that
he’d managed to breathe a little more evenly.
“Come
on Jenny.”
“Oh, all
right.”
The dead bolt
cracked heavily, the double set of chains flicked to the sides of the heavy
door, and she turned the knob of her upstairs room. The Hotel Camaro, once a manor in Walnut Hill, had
plenty of solid wood even where it didn’t seem needed—above her bed, on one of
the walls in the living room, even above her head on the carved cornices seen
throughout the building. Everything
reeked of oldness and renovation—though change would probably not happen in her
lifetime—if ever. The owner, Carter
Childs, held his money like a tight fisted kid with his only penny; except
Carter had many pennies though he told everyone otherwise. The tramps who lived at the hotel were
a continuous reflection of the future of the hotel and its’ lower than life
standards.
John smiled. His slightly yellow teeth reminded Susan of
the eggs she had boiling on the stove.
“You don’t mind
getting the sugar yourself?”
“No problem. But are you sure you want eggs?” She could hear his large feet clunking to the
pantry as she stirred the boiling eggs with a spoon.
Yes, the egg bomb
incident. How could she forget? What had she been doing? Oh, yes.
Carter wanted to see her, an overflowing toilet in room 10, he’d
said—John’s room. And she’d left the
boiling eggs on the stove. When the eggs
exploded an hour later she was finishing with the water overflow mishap and had
just re-entered the hallway. Carter was
beyond angry when he heard. Her hotel
room smelled like rotten eggs for days and she’d spent weeks walking outside
and breathing in the musty city of Southern Philadelphia before permanently returning to
her room.
“You do look
tired.”
John had the sugar
in his white bowl, but like always, he was not returning to the door. “What can I do?”
“I just need some
sleep.”
John blushed. “Okay,” he said, looking for a place to sit
on the old brown couch—her only couch in the very sparse room.
“You’d better go.”
“Maybe I can
help.”
“You promised.”
John rolled his
large blue eyes. “I know,” he said, “but
you need someone.”
It had taken Susan
six long months to trust John with a few facts about her life; others she had
made up to cover her identity. Her real
name was one of them. That she’d never
been married was another—a sure fire mistake she would later see more
clearly. Perhaps John would have been
less interested in her if he knew she had simply run away from her
husband. She wondered what he would
think of her if he knew of her shallow thoughts of him that had created this
mess in the first place. She wondered if
he’d understand that all of her thoughts weren’t shallow, that there was
something else she never spoke of with anyone, the surest reason for her
departure. Was he searching for
her? Would she turn on the television one
day only to discover her face on the small screen? Or would he be grateful? Was he pleased that she had left him? Would he want to find her simply to file the
divorce papers? She wondered how long it
had taken before he’d discovered she was missing. She was glad they had no children, but only
for this reason; no family that would be missing her.
Except her mother
of course; her father was dead, and her sister in Virginia .
Kate would have a fit, perhaps even look for her for awhile, and then
she’d get caught up once more in the corporate life and forget all about
her. Just like when they were kids and
the doll collection was replaced by fake dollar bills and glittering coins
purchased as a set from the grocery store.
Kate would later become a teller, and then she would work her way up the
company from Payroll Manager to Director of Human Resources. In addition to bossing all the bossing people
around, she would get her degree in management, leaving Susan behind to take on
the menial jobs.
Susan would never
attend college, would marry the first man who even took a look at her—her
husband, Bob, and they would try to have children—without success of
course. In the end, they would sit
together, watch T.V. and he would eat and feed her what he’d bought.
Nothing stuck on
her bones. But with him, it was almost
like, by getting fat, he was getting pregnant instead of her. At first she’d joked about it. And then the joking made him watch television
alone in the basement, sneak food at odd hours, and make excuses for his sorry
life.
Susan turned to
look at John. He had been silent for an
unreasonable amount of time. “Sorry,”
she started and then realized he was gone.... -Book one of the Susan Cramer Mystery Series
"Susan Cramer was desperately in need of a vacation, but not at the expense of another dead man."
A leisurely vacation turns deadly when an old man falls dead at Susan's feet on the cruise ship Aloha.
Was she some sort of death magnet?
Maybe so. Maybe not.
One thing was for sure. Through the lies, secrets, and surprises to be discovered on board and off, Susan will learn at least one important thing, and this thing called "love" will be something she wished had never followed her out to the high seas.
-Book Two of the Susan Cramer Series
