Page 12 of Lightning in a Mason Jar
“Thank you, Kinsley,” Bailey Rae said, waiting for the girl to leave before turning back. “Martin Perez is escorting her and her daughter to a women’s shelter. He’s going to text me once they’re settled.”
Thea frowned. “Not the police?”
“The woman was nervous about the authorities.” Bailey Rae squeezed a lemon slice into the glass before sliding in the straw and stirring through the ice. “And regardless, they were otherwise occupied with fallout from the wild pig incident.”
“Hmmm,” Thea said. “Good, good. So, how did you do on your sales today?”
“The inventory sold better than I’d hoped, but still a ways from my goal. I’ll get there, though, thanks to all your help sorting. Before you know it, there will be nothing left keeping me in Bent Oak.”
Bailey Rae leaned to sip her tea, the cool drink washing away grit, if not the tension. The tea wasn’t as good as Aunt Winnie’s and it wasn’t in a Mason jar, but it made Bailey Rae think of her all the same—conversation and wisdom shared over a scarred table.
What would her aunt have done this morning to help Gia Abernathy and her daughter? Would Winnie have understood what the woman meant about the cookbook?
As Bailey Rae looked at two of her aunt’s best friends across the table, she wished she could ask them and trust that they would give her an honest answer. But sure as she was sitting here sipping sweet tea through a soggy paper straw, Bailey Rae knew they were hiding something.
And no one could make either of these two women say or do something unless they chose. Best to let them keep their secrets and focus on tidying up the remains of her life in Bent Oak.
Her phone buzzed from inside her backpack with an incoming text. She abandoned her tea and snatched up her bag. “That must be Officer Perez with an update.”
Thea quirked a perfectly penciled eyebrow. “Nothing at all holding you in Bent Oak, eh?”
Chapter Four
1971
I’d attended private schools and an elite liberal arts college as Eloise.
Those elocution and etiquette classes, the art history and chemistry of glassblowing courses—well, they sure hadn’t prepared me for scrubbing toilets and mopping concrete floors for eight to ten hours a day. But that was my world now as Winnie, working in janitorial services at the paper mill.
For the first time in my life, I was paying my own bills, tougher than I’d been led to believe in Home Economics. I consoled myself with reassurances things would improve.
Surely, they would?
Standing in the abandoned break room in my ugly brown uniform, I peeled off my yellow rubber gloves, wincing at the sting to my cracked fingertips. During my first week, I’d bypassed using the gloves. Out of ignorance? Or an overloaded brain? I wasn’t certain, but the error had been self-critiquing.
And another thing I’d learned? Lotion made my raw skin sting worse. Worse than even the burns I’d suffered during my career with glassblowing ... Although could it be called a career when I gave away most of my work as gifts to friends and for charity auctions?
I threw the gloves into the murky water, where they filled before gurgling to the bottom. When Annette told me I would have a job inthe paper mill, I’d envisioned mastering a machine with a massive roll of freshly pressed vellum. Or a device that created pulp from the tree, scents filling the air with the earthy promise of the stories those sheets would hold. Perhaps I could even sketch on scraps to express my art instead of via glass.
Not my lucky day.
Gripping the wooden mop handle that gave me splinters, I pushed the bucket across the cracked linoleum.
Libby lounged in the open door to the break room, a strand of limp brown hair escaping her bun. “You’ve never been poor before, have you.”
“Pardon me?” Then, understanding, I held up my hands. “Oh. Because I should have worn the rubber gloves?”
“In part.” Libby leaned toward the bucket, pointing. “Here’s the wringer. You don’t have to shove your hands into the solution.”
“That makes sense.” My parents had bragged about my talent, even my intelligence. Clearly, they’d been delusional.
Libby edged in front of me and demonstrated the handle system for squeezing excess water from the mop. “That doesn’t make this easy. But it helps.”
Nodding, I gathered up two dirty napkins and a half-full Styrofoam cup of coffee off the table and pitched them into the corner trash can. Then grabbed the bottled cleaner and spritzed down a tabletop before swiping a rag over the remaining evidence of the second-shift crowd. A splatter of ketchup. A thin pickle that had calcified to the Formica.
As a child, I’d prided myself on always saying thank you and cleaning up after myself. Like I was doing others some kind of favor rather than just pulling my own weight. Stepping into the bright glare of enlightenment burned as much as that cleanser that I’d grown to dread.
I didn’t want to go back to my old life. Yet as far as making a plan to move beyond my current state? I couldn’t envision more than the beauty of my lumpy mattress at the end of the day. “Any other tips?”
