The Aftermath Of You

Chapter Six

Toni decided to spend the following hour cocooned in her couch with her matted hair covered by an enchantingly mad pilot's hat. The pink highlighted her cheeks which were ruddy red from crying.

She was thinking about Jack. Or 'Jack Off' as Danny had called him when he'd first made his acquaintance. Jack had spent four hours telling Danny about how he'd survived on $1,557 dollars for a whole year, and with all of his wages he'd bought his brand new car with cash. "I saved so much money," Jack had told Danny passionately. "If I'd bought this baby with a loan I'd be paying my back teeth in interest, probably twice the cost. Hire Purchase is a fool's paradise."

At the first chance possible Danny had taken Toni aside and whispered heartily, "Do you realize that Jack can quite easily bore the average man to tears in less than two hours? I didn't want to tell you this, but I've had the song 'Hit the road, Jack' repeating in my head since I first shook his hand. Really, Toe! Who says words like accrue?"

Toni had laughed. "He works at the bank, Danny, that's his vocab. He has an analytical mind."

"And there I was thinking he had an anally retentive mind."

"Danny!" Toni had admonished him. "Would you like it if I started saying such awful things about your new girlfriend? He's just really shy. He's a very sweet man, and he wouldn't harm a hair on my head."

Well, hadn't she been wrong. It turned out that Jack had no qualms about hurting hairs on Toni's head at all. Jack's face had been burned into Toni's memory like she'd just seen him - an impressive feat considering she hadn't seen his face for over three years. Jack smiled down at her, laughing about the way she had dressed. She remembered how he whispered to her that he loved her, that she was the most important thing in the world to him. But he never meant it ... because he abandoned her. And he didn't even tell her why.

Come on, are we going through this again? We all know why he left. He didn't need to leave a memo or give you a call, for lord's sake ... he didn't need to state the obvious, you know better than anyone why he left.

Toni clutched her head, taking deep breaths to stop the tears from pouring down her cheeks unchecked.

"Yoooo Hooooo." A voice broke the silence.

Toni shot to her feet. Running to the fridge, she strapped a green, Zorro-like mask around her eyes, and rushed to open the door. There on the doorstep stood her grandmother - Gloria Smith, or Granny Smith as they liked to call her. In her arms was a large box full of veggies topped with two perfect little white paper bags. Toni peered inside the bags. Cream doughnuts!

Granny Smith had wispy, naturally-black hair clipped to the side with a trusty bobby pin. She had a beady look about her bright blue eyes that saw things that other people didn't, like her next door neighbor's late night visitor, and her hairdresser's son's hip flask (hidden neatly in his pocket).

Granny Smith stood in her usual garb, a plain pink skirt and a white t-shirt as if she was just off to the Tenpin Bowling league, which was quite unlike all of the other women her age who'd taken to wearing floral designs with wild gusto. Toni's grandmother stood like a military sergeant. "Hel-lo!" she sang out. "I just popped in to give you some veggies."

"Thanks, Gran."

Granny Smith examined the mask strapped to Toni's face. "What on earth is that?"

"Oh this old thing," Toni said awkwardly. "It gets rid of bags under my eyes."

"Oh," Granny Smith said with interest.

"They're all the rage," Toni told her boldly.

Granny Smith loved anything to do with creams and lotions. The last time Toni counted Granny Smith had seven different containers of shampoo, nine different conditioners and countless tubes of body lotions all vying for space under her bathroom sink. If a saleswoman pointed to it, Granny Smith felt obliged to buy it. If the product read, "For ageless skin" then Granny Smith believed it would putty up her wrinkles overnight.