Between Then & Now || Currently Editing for Wattys 2022

11.

My first stop is in Arizona, though not because I planned it. Given the five hour drive, the van is almost out of gas. And I have to pee. But, when I pull into the small, rickety gas station, the air slightly dusty from the desert air, sunlight beating onto my skin under the visor I had pulled down, I smile.

Somehow, I manage to not hit the poles next to the gas station pumps. I really, really should have actually made sure I knew how to drive a van before just buying it.

When I open the door, hopping down from the driver's seat, the heat hits me like a wall. It's not uncomfortable, though. I almost welcome it after sitting in an air-conditioned vehicle for 5 hours.

I swiftly fill the tank, paying with my card at the pump before heading inside. The handle on the front door of the small gas station is sticky when I grab it, the residue sticking to my hand as the door swings closed behind me. I wrinkle my nose and wipe my hand on my jean shorts.

Okay, maybe I've been romanticizing the gas station just a little bit.

The suctioning sound of my shoes unsticking themselves from the floor echoes around the otherwise empty convenience store. The only other person in the room is a middle-aged woman behind the register. I glance up at her over the shelf of candy and chips from in the aisle. Her face is a little greasy and weathered. There's one thin braid down the right side of her middle-parted hair, speckles of silver in the black-brown. As I watch, she continues to read her book then lifts her black-framed glasses off her nose, a bump near the top of the bridge. One of her hands pushes them onto the top of her head, pinning some of her hair back as she continues to read. I glance away, examining the assortment of fruit-flavored sweets in front of me.

I wonder what she's reading. Maybe a romance?

I glance up at her again, fingers stopping on a bag of cherry sours. Her eyebrows are furrowed and there are no stars in her eyes. No. Definitely not.

Maybe a mystery? Or... historical fiction?

My hand grabs the bag of cherry sours from the hook on the shelf and I go to the back of the gas station to grab a tea and head up to the register. As I approach, she looks up at me with nearly no change in expression and lowers her glass back down onto her nose. She sets her book to the left, face-down to preserve the page she was on.

"This all for ya today?" There's a tinge of an accent in her voice. When her cracked, weathered hand reaches forward to grab the bag of candy, I notice a turquoise ring on her finger.

"Yes, thank you," I smile at her, pulling my credit card out of the slot on the back of my phone case as she rings up the tea. My eyes try to read the title of her book upside-down and when I look up, she catches my eye, a small smile beginning to form on her lips.

"A Room of One's Own." My eyes meet her dark-brown ones as the words leave her mouth. Wrinkles mirroring my mother's form at the corners of them. "Virginia Woolf. You a fan?"

I shake my head, inserting my card into the cheap reader. "I haven't read any, yet, but my professor just gifted me a copy. What's, uh, what's it about?"

She chuckles a bit. "A young woman like you might get some good outta reading her works." She clicks a few buttons on her side of the screen and looks back at me, tilting her head. "What, with the way our world is evolvin' today." She looks back up at me. "It's about the struggles o' women–professionally, creatively, personally."

I look back down at the book, the spine partially cracked from being read so many times. The familiar cover is an abstract design, a green background with gray flowers or something on the front, the title big and white. My hand reaches forward to grab my items from off the counter as I look back at her, the receipt printing

As she takes the receipt from the printer, her eyes meet mine again and for a second it feels like I'm falling into them. Taking a second to glance out at my van still by the pump, a vision of a mixture between my mom and Dr. Walker flashes across my eyes. 

She hands me the receipt and then looks over at the book on the counter. Her other hand, also clad with another two turquoise rings reaches over and picks the book up. "I would tell ya more, but it's honestly one o' those things ya have to read yourself." She peers at me, lowering her glasses upon the bridge of her nose again. "By the looks of ya, your professor hadda good reason behind givin' ya her copy."

"Well, thank you." I look at her, confirming everything was paid for one last time.

"'Course." She picks the book up and shifts, relaxing and opening the cover. After a second, she glances back up, peering at me through the tops of her glasses. For a second, I freeze awkwardly before giving her a short nod and walking toward the exit, my converse still sticking to the floor with each step.

As I walk to the van, the Arizona sun beating down on my skin, the colors seem a little brighter. I open the door to the van, reaching in to set the book and my snacks into the passenger seat and grabbing garbage from the center console. Still a little stunned, I walk around to the side of the gas station to the dumpster, the only garbage in sight, in order to throw my trash away. There's a thud as the Powerade bottles hit the bottom.

Suddenly, a whimpering comes from beside the dumpster in between the metal box and the brick exterior wall of the convenience store, and I freeze. For a second, nothing. Then, another one and I back away for a moment.

Is someone... in there?

After a moment, I take a step forward. Then, another one. I almost want to cover my eyes as I approach the corner of the dumpster. Or take my keys out just in case I need to defend myself. But I just slightly raise my fist, as if the 4 cubic inch glob of frail bones and skin will do absolutely anything against someone who actually wants to hurt me.

One step. Then, another. My eyes crawl over the wall next to the dumpster as I get closer to the corner.

Then, I see it.