NANOWRIMO 2020

11.22 Two Dollars and Some Change

It was weird seeing kids she went to school with nowadays.

They didn't come to her shop. Of course they didn't go to Jane's shop. It was small and tucked away between a Vietnamese laundromat and a Chinese tea shop. Her discount goods and miscellaneous groceries wouldn't be the talk of the town even if she had a drug bust in the back and was televised on the 9 'o clock news.

It was a small, family run shop in the town that they all grew up in, on the street they always ran by but never stopped on. All the kids she grew up with had big dreams, too big for this little midwestern town, not enough space for all of them to flourish.

Jane sat behind the register, back aching. Maybe she'd close up early tonight and go home to her chicken lasagna dinner and catch some reruns of Friends. Not like anybody came to the shop this late, might as well enjoy what was left of her Saturday.

She glanced around the store. Chips neatly lined up. Condom racks full. Cookies, coolers, croutons all stacked up to max capacity.

She had an hour to kill before closing so she locked the front door and changed the CCTV to a normal broadcasting channel. Nobody would be coming in this late. And if they did, they could knock.

No self respecting person would be this deep in the middle of town on a Saturday night, alone.

Jane lit a cigarette and drew a deep breath, letting the smoke fizzle at the tips of her fingers before blowing it all out in a gray cloud. She imagined a skull baring its teeth at her and twirling in on itself before dissipating into the ceiling.

The news was the same old same old. Robberies, murders, embezzlement.

Boring stuff that small towns like hers thrived on and glorified with a cult-like zeal. Jane found it all disgusting, the news channels replacing the overwhelming desire for reality TV that the Kardashians just couldn't keep up with.

The news showed Little Timmy from down the street as a crackhead who knocked up three separate women. The news gave them Pastor Henry and his one too many affairs that the church couldn't justify anymore. The news showed them the inside of Old Man Larry's mansion once his body was found and the burglars had the sense to call the cops for him.

This shit town fed on the unhappiness of its inhabitants, and Jane was waiting for the day that her name would finally make the big screen, notifying the five people who religiously watched it that she had in fact been murdered in her family run shop and that there were no leads whatsoever. Another urban legend to feed this backwards town while her shop was bulldozed to the ground and some corporate moneybags sprinkled his coppers on the ground she died on.

That was the hope at least.

That would be an interesting death, something worthwhile.

She flipped through the channels and stopped cold. There, in the static and lined visual of her shitty monitor, was Lennice.

Lennice looked good. Suave even. His receding hairline was more prominent as was his thick cleft chin and buck teeth, but he looked...good. His suit was darkly tight fitting and he had his signature crooked smile aimed directly at the camera.

Jane's cigarette sputtered out while she stared at his image, open-mouthed.

She had gone to high school with Lennice. He was set on escaping this town and making it big. How, she never knew. But he was adamant on leaving and he did, and he succeeded in every way that he said he would.

Jane lit another cigarette.

He was talking about how he was from a small town in Illinois and Jane snorted. Their town was so small, he mentioned the larger suburb that overshadowed theirs and that more people would know of instead of their buttfucknowhere town.

Several celebrities congratulated him and he shook hands with people in a social class Jane couldn't even fathom seeing walking down the street.

Just great. Of all people. Lennice.

Not that Jane hated him or anything. They were frequent fuckbuddies throughout high school and then some in college, but him moving away left her with nothing more to do and not really a care. To her, he was another loser in town who was going to stay a loser, no matter where he went.

But there he was. On cable. Smiling with the bigshots and being congratulated on who knows what, out in who knows where.

Jane put her cigarette out on a pack of Sour Patch Kids and scowled.

Good for him. Congratulations to Lennice for what he accomplished. It really was amazing seeing his name on the screen, knowing full well that most everyone else she grew up with was still deteriorating in this town and doing fucked up things with their fucked up selves.

He made it out.

He did something with himself.

Jane looked down at her growing midsection and sagging tits. She couldn't even feel disgust at what she had accomplished. By this point it was acceptance.

Working at her family run shop. Making minimum wage. Hoping to close early on a Saturday night.

They had the same amount of time, but Lennice...Lennice had done something for himself.

The years were unkind and unforgiving. They had batted Jane down and told her she couldn't do anything with herself. Her dreams of owning her own nail salon. Of becoming an actress. Of leaving this shit town.

It didn't matter.

But Lennice.

How did Lennice do it?

What did he do? Who did he meet?

Why was he so lucky, when Jane had almost the same dreams to leave, but was stuck in Illinois with the rest of their class that didn't graduate?

Jane lit another cigarette and took a drag, knocking the ash off onto the counter and staring at Lennice's face.

Where did it all go wrong?