Authors: Bryant Delafosse
Albert made eye contact with the child and asked, “Do you know where all that trash goes?”
The child shook his head and turned to Albert, his full attention on the wise friendly grown-up.
“It goes down to the basement where a dragon the size of a jumbo jet eats and eats and eats day and night.”
The little boy studied Albert with slowly widening eyes.
“And sometimes if a little boy like you leans a bit too close, the dragon’s powerful lungs suck him right down the tube and swallows him whole… if he’s lucky,” Albert told him, articulating every word as clearly as he was able.
“If you’re not so lucky, the dragon might chew on you for a while like a piece of beef jerky,
then
swallow you.”
The child’s eyes moved from the painted smiley-face on the receptacle to the remaining ball of wadded napkins in his hand.
Tossing it to the floor, the boy raced away.
With a grunt of amusement, Albert turned hungrily back to his book. Glancing at his watch, he realized he was a few minutes over his break.
“I know it’s late, but I need a room for the night, please.”
Her watch read a quarter to ten.
They had wasted nearly two hours in the E-Bot store and in that time after coming up and discarding more ideas than she could remember, she had come up with a sort of plan Z.
The attendant at the front desk of the luxurious Clearlake Regent barely glanced at her as he called up the logon screen at his computer terminal.
“We take reservations all night as long as there’s availability.
How many, ma’am?”
“I have two children,” Lara tried to keep the anxiety out of her voice, as she studied the young attendant.
He was dark-haired, in his mid-twenties with an indifferent sort of delivery that concerned her.
She would rather have dealt with the older female attendant that she had seen earlier when she first stepped into the lobby.
Unfortunately, as Lara had started up to the desk, the woman had said a few words to the male attendant and disappeared.
Bathroom break
probably.
The male attendant who Lara saw from the nametag pinned to his breast was named “Henry,” cocked an eye at her for the first time.
He glanced past her and saw no children because she had strategically told them to stay put just outside.
“Ages?” he asked, bored exhaustion in his voice.
“Five and ten.”
He inputted some numbers and glanced up at her again.
This time, his lips curled slightly as he recognized something that he hadn’t before.
“No bags?”
“Our stuff is in the car,” Lara answered, making deliberate eye-contact with the young man.
“I’ll bring it around once I know where the parking garage is.”
“May I have your credit card, please ma’am?”
Lara started into her pre-rehearsed performance.
“Here’s the thing.
I had a family emergency and had to leave the house suddenly.
My husband is out of town and took the credit cards.
All I have is cash.”
She paused to glance back at the children with just the right amount of concern in her face.
“I sure hope it’s enough, or I don’t know what I’ll do.”
Henry had her full attention now.
He had abandoned the keyboard altogether.
“Ma’am, the most reasonable room we offer is two hundred a night.”
Lara sighed and placed the full amount of cash she had at her disposal (minus ten dollars) on the desk before Henry.
“I have twenty-six dollars cash.”
Henry stepped back in front of the computer’s keyboard, almost defensively.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“I know that it’s a far cry from two hundred, but I’m sure you have some sort of bereavement or traveler discount or something.”
“Even at the discounted rate, you’re still looking at one eighty.”
Lara paused, both hands palm down on the edge of the front counter.
This part wouldn’t be performance.
She looked down at the worn, dried skin of her hands and found the ring.
Her wedding ring.
The only thing of value she still held in her possession.
Henry followed her eyes and caught the gist.
His eyes widened briefly before the inevitable embarrassment. He shook his head and murmured, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but
I
…”
“Listen Henry,” Lara said, finding the other’s shifting eyes and holding them firmly.
“I’m the mother of two small children with no place else left to go.
My paycheck of eight hundred dollars will be deposited into my checking first thing Monday morning.
The first thing I’ll do when that money hits my account is pay you a big tip for going out of your way for me.
Now to show you how trustworthy I am, I’m going to give you my wedding ring.”
And her hand reached for it, she prayed that it would come off.
She hadn’t taken it off for any length of time since that day a month before his death, when on a lark she’d had it polished just before their ten year anniversary.
How radiant that humble little stone had been on the day of his funeral!
Oh, how it had shined when they lowered him into the ground!
Henry broke eye contact as the older female attendant stepped back behind the desk. Supervisor, his posture said.
And just like that, the spell she had briefly held him under was instantly broken.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said in a louder tone than the one he’d previously used with her, pushing the cash on the counter back toward her.
“I wish I could help you, but we have a very strict policy on this.”
His eyes fluttered up and found her briefly, apologetically before fleeing again.
Lara lowered her head, reaching out and taking the money.
The female supervisor glanced over with marked curiosity then stepped a respectful distance away, cocking an ear in their direction.
Henry leaned forward as Lara started to turn away.
“Y’know, I’ve spent many a long night theater hopping at Cine-Verse.”
Lara glanced up at the attendant in shock.
“They have a pretty relaxed policy over there after hours.”
But Lara was already
retreating,
Henry’s hallow words falling short of their target.
What exactly was this pompous little asshole suggesting?
Did he actually expect her and the children to camp-out in a movie theater like common vagrants?
That was scarcely better than sleeping in your own car!
How dare he compare me to..?
Lara’s shoulders slumped as she stepped out of the lobby of the Clearlake Regent and into the Mall, where Owen and Cora were—oh, wonders of wonders—fighting again.
Her instinct to leave them outside was right on the money, not that it would have made much of difference anyway had they made a display inside the lobby.
Owen had taken a tiny troll doll that Cora had brought with her and was rushing around like a maniac playing keep away, while Cora chased after him, bordering on tears.
Misery has a hierarchy, too, Lara thought, stepping forcefully up behind Owen, grabbed him by the arm, and gave him a single hard shake.
“Ow!
Goddammit!”
Lara yanked him forward until her face was scarcely an inch from his.
“Say that again!”
Owen quivered in the harsh spotlight of his mother’s livid eyes.
The troll doll slipped unconsciously out of his fingers.
Cora snatched it up, and backing slowly away, pressed it to her tiny breast without a moment’s hesitation, like a smaller dog seizing the spoils of two larger ones embroiled in battle.
“Do not swear again,” Lara growled.
Owen stared frozen, seemingly incapable of even blinking.
Suddenly, his vision cleared and he muttered, “You do.”
She would not be distracted.
“Do you understand me?”
Owen moved his head down and up and Lara started forward, dragging Owen by his arm behind her.
He yanked her hand away and fell behind a few steps, something Lara felt obliged to allow.
“I hate you,” Owen growled.
“C’mon, Cora.”
Ignoring him, she snapped her fingers and the five-year old dutifully scampered forward, but when Lara held out her hand for her, she shrank back, casting a glance back at her brother.
Lara’s FAC (or Food Allotment Card) still showed a balance of fifty dollars.
The problem with the card was that it was all but useless in a place where your choices were limited to prepared food.
After all, the Mall had been designed for those with disposable income, not those on public support.
Welfare, she scoffed.
Her father would have been mortified if he’d still been alive.
She’d never thought that she would be in the position of having to raid Uncle Sam’s pockets like this.
Her parents had raised her to be self-sufficient and had condescended to those on welfare.
Even during the lean times, her proud hard-headed father had never stooped so low as to apply for unemployment.
God will provide, she could remember her mother saying with that devil-may-care smirk and a look of barely masqueraded doubt just behind her deep-set brown eyes.
Mom had always been able to put on that mask of hope for Lara’s benefit no matter how dark it had seemed.
Not that they had ever had to deal with a situation approaching the one she was faced with now.
No, this was new territory.
Their family had never gone hungry.
Lara had never had to go to bed on an empty stomach.
Her father had always made a good living as an electrical engineer for NASA in Clearlake, while her mother had stayed home to raise Lara.
That was at least until cancer had killed them both.
Now here she was.
Hunger knows no shame, she thought, staring down at the plastic card in her hands.
Eat or die.
It was as simple as that.
After several attempts swiping the card at several different automated vendors in the food court, Lara gave up and started back to the parking garage where she had parked the Toyota SUV.
There she knew they could at least have the remains of the cold cuts and cheese that were still in the cooler in the trunk.
“Where are we going?” Cora wanted to know.
“Back to the car.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s getting late and we need to find a place to stay.”
Lara hoped that she could at least find a hotel cheap enough for a single night’s stay with the sparse cash she had left.
There was no waiting for the tram and it was almost empty.
After ten, the pulse of the Mall was starting to slow.
The consumers (its lifeblood) were returning to their respective shelters with their new found spoils, to sleep in their comfy beds and eat their midnight snacks.