Excerpt for Epiphany

Excerpt for Epiphany

It was cold.

Chloe pulled the layers of blankets high over her head and shuddered in the small bed. The heat is out again, she thought. She was tired of waking up cold. It was the third time this month, and the umpteenth time this winter. Maybe it was time for Joanna and her to move, as if either of them had the money for such a thing. She cuddled into the warm cave of covers and drifted into a dream of being able to afford to move. Behind her heavy eyelids, her mind painted the wonderful images of a dream apartment complex; with central heat and air, windows that opened and closed, and a toilet that worked on the first flush…

Chloe woke only moments later to the angry cry of her clock.

“Okay, okay! I’m awake. Geesh,” she mumbled as she slapped the alarm off.

She drew a deep, chilly breath and pulled herself out of the warm arms of her cozy bed and away from the comfort of her threadbare teddy bear, Humphrey. Shuddering, she stomped out of her room, tromped to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. She stripped as the shower warmed up, and threw a quick glance into the full length mirror that hung on the back of the bathroom door.

“I don’t feel any older,” she said to her reflection.

Her reflection shrugged with her. But Chloe Bright, and her reflection, had indeed turned older, becoming a ripe twenty-nine that very morning. It was a special number for the women of the Bright clan. It was the last year she could proudly, and truthfully, say she was in her twenties It was the last year before the dreaded thirties set in, which of course was just a downward ramp to the unspeakable forties. She supposed she felt fine, but as she stared at her reflection she got the feeling that ‘pushing thirty’ was written all over her. She stared at her naked reflection and harrumphed under her breath.

Her dark auburn hair tumbled over each shoulder in a tangled, early morning web. Her brown eyes were puffy and crusted with sleep. Her breasts, although still slightly firm and ever so large, had long since said good-bye to the idea of perky and had begun the quest to become matching bookends for her belly button. Her tummy was a swell of fish belly flesh, only matched in jiggliness by her thighs and ass. No wonder I can’t seem to keep a boyfriend, she thought. If I woke up next to this body the morning after, I’d leave too. She whimpered at her reflection, and then did what every sane woman in the free world does when faced with the prospect of their own, inevitable push toward old age.

She turned away from the mirror and got on with her morning.

One very warm and refreshing shower later, she stepped free from the steamy bathroom, returning once again to the chill of the apartment. She stood quietly in the tiny kitchenette, staring at the phone and watching her breath curl around her face with every exhale. Should I call him now, she thought, or wait til after lunch, when he will actually be awake? Oh well, I might as well get this over with. She jerked the phone from its cradle and gathered her righteous anger before she dared to dial.

“Hello?” a tired voice answered.

“Hello, Mr. Hanna. This is Chloe Bright. In seventeen?”

A pause followed by an exaggerated sigh was her only answer.

“Look I know it’s early, but the heat is out. Again,” she said.

“It’s six in the morning, Miss Bright,” Mr. Hanna groaned into the line.

“I know, but it’s got to be forty degrees in here. Can’t you ask Buford to look at it today?”

Another exaggerated sigh hissed across the line.

“Please?” she begged.

“Why should I? Your rent is two months late. Again,” the manager answered.

Oh no, she thought, Joanna hasn’t paid the rent? Chloe closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She should have guessed as much, but to have it broadcasted by this asshole was almost too much. “I didn’t know we were late again, sir.”

“I was going to say something sooner, but I figured I’d look like an asshole asking for money at Christmas time. Even if you did owe it to me. But now it’s a week into January and still no rent.”

“I really appreciate your patience,” Chloe said, although she thought Hanna naturally looked like an asshole, no matter what he was doing. “I can have most of the rent in by the end of the month. But we need heat today.”

A long pause stretched out, and then finally the manager muttered, “I’ll mention it to Buford, but it will have to wait until he finishes his regular rounds. But don’t expect him any time soon, because I plan to have a lot of work for him today.” There was another pause, and then the man added, almost begrudgingly, “Whatever he does on his own time is up to him.” Then the line made a soft click before it went silent.

Despite her seething hatred for the manager, Chloe smiled. They both knew that once Buford T. Buford caught wind of apartment seventeen’s plight, he would rush right over to repair the heat. The kindly maintenance man had been almost like a grandfather to Chloe ever since she moved into the small apartment a few years ago. She was nervous about living alone in the city, even if Summerset was small for a city, but Buford took her under his wing on the very first day. He always watched out for her, like he was protecting her. When her key snapped off in the front door, Buford showed up within five minutes of Chloe calling Mr. Hanna. Last year, when her stove gave up the ghost, the manager told her to expect to live on microwave food for at least a month. But instead she came home from the library that night to a brand new stove in its place, courtesy of Buford. Even when the perpetually irresponsible Joanna moved in last year, the first thing she noticed was the way the old handyman always seemed to know exactly what Chloe needed.

“I think it’s creepy the way he stalks you. Secretly. Like a secret stalker,” Joanna had said.

Chloe grimaced at the memory.

Joanna.

Chloe remembered personally handing Joanna the money for rent over a week ago. The envelope she trusted the young artist with contained both of their shares of the back rent, in cash, which was probably Chloe’s first mistake. No, she thought, trusting Joe to begin with was my first mistake. Once again Joe had ‘forgotten’ to slip the envelope under Mr. Hanna’s door. Chloe’s mind added the telltale curls around Joanna’s lie. Chloe was going to have to ‘talk’ to Joanna again. Another speech. Another pleading session. Another twenty minutes of the young artist making empty promises to do better and be more responsible. Sometimes she felt like Joe’s mother, not her best friend and roommate. It was her fondest wish that some lucky guy would come and sweep Joe off of her feet, and out of Chloe’s wallet.

“Joanna, wake up!” Chloe shouted through her roommate’s thin bedroom door.

Silence.

“Joe! It’s Monday, and some of us work! We need to talk before I leave. Get up,” Chloe begged.

Silence.

Chloe wiggled the handle, which was usually bolted tight, and to her surprise it was unlocked. The door swung gently inward and Chloe narrowed her eyes to the dark room beyond. This wasn’t right. Joanna always locked the door, as though she feared her roommate barging in on her. And that was exactly what Chloe was planning on doing.

“Joe, I know this is rude, but,” Chloe said. She flicked on the lights and nearly choked on surprise as she looked around the empty room. And the room was empty. Not just devoid of one slacker roommate, but of everything. The furniture was gone. The clothes were gone. Even the shades and curtains were gone. But most of all, Joanna Scott was gone.

And the bitch had taken the last two months rent with her.

“Happy birthday to me,” Chloe muttered under her breath.

* * * *


“Oh poor Chloe,” Mary whispered.

Chloe peered across the counter through red rimmed eyes at the elderly matron. “I know. I can’t believe I was foolish enough to actually give her all of that money. In cash! What was I thinking?” Chloe lowered her head to the desk and fought back the burning tears. She wasn’t going to cry, not over someone like Joanna.

Mary patted Chloe on the back. “I’m sure… ummm… Joanna you said it was? Well, I’m sure she will show up in a few days with a good explanation.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad if Michael would answer my phone calls. But he’s been avoiding me ever since…” Chloe let the muffled words trail off. Her less than stellar sex life was not something Chloe was prepared to talk to Ms. Lemming about, no matter how understanding the old lady was. “I’m sorry Ms. Lemming,” Chloe said as she sat up again. The old woman’s eyes seemed to twinkle with understanding. “I know you just wanted to check out a few books, not listen to my life story. I’m such a whiny loser.”

“Nonsense, girl,” Mary said. “You talk all you want. After all what good are the old ears if they can’t take a little whining?”

“Thanks again, Ms. Lemming. These are due back by the end of the month. Don’t forget now. I don’t know how many more times I can wave your late fees without Mr. Salls finding out,” Chloe said. Considering the budget crunch the library was facing lately, if her boss discovered that she was waving anyone’s late fees he would come down hard on her. If she was lucky maybe he would come down hard again, and again, and again…

Mary’s voice drifted over Chloe’s fantasy. “Thanks again, Chloe dear.”

Chloe snapped back to reality to see the elderly woman trying to push the heavy door open. “Ms. Lemming? Do you need me to carry your-”

“No!” the old woman snapped. “I mean, I have it dear. Have a good birthday!”

Chloe cursed herself under her breath. It wasn’t like her to daydream, especially at work. But the morning had been so frantic, not to mention cold. She still had no idea what she was going to do about the missing, as well as overdue, rent money. She didn’t even want to think about it. She also didn’t want to think about going home to that icebox. She was just now thawing out.

“Chloe, line one,” Rhonda’s stern voice chirped across the desk intercom.

Uh oh, Chloe thought. That tone of voice meant only one thing. That Chloe was receiving a personal phone call. At work. It was an infraction of the highest degree in the court of Rhonda, the switchboard queen. Chloe picked up the receiver and pressed the flashing button.

“Hello?”

“Chloe? That you, hun?” a thick, southern drawl asked.

“Buford?” Chloe asked. It was the voice of her maintenance man.

“The same,” Buford answered. “Looky, I know you’re all tied up at that job of yours so I won’t be a tick. I just called to say I got your heat back up.”

“Aww, thanks so much.” Chloe smiled as Buford’s accent rolled over her. It reminded her of her own grandfather, and her family visits to the beautiful hills of North Carolina.

“Tweren’t nothing, missy. Just a little dust on the contacts in your thermostat, is all.”

“Still I really appreciate you looking at it for me. I hope you didn’t get yourself in trouble with Mr. Hanna.”

“Steve? Oh he can like it or lump it for all I care. He knows I’m the only danged fool who will work this danged job so danged cheap.”

“You’re danged right about that!”

The two shared a laugh over the line.

“Before I let you get back to work, I wanted to ask…” Buford started, but paused as though he was unsure what to say.

“Yes, Buford?” Chloe encouraged.

“Well, I know it’s none of my business and all. But I saw Miss Scott’s room was empty. You two didn’t have a falling out. Did ya?”

Chloe sighed. “Not exactly, but I don’t think she’ll be back.”

“I’m real sorry about that, hun. But if you don’t mind me saying so, you’ll be better off without her.”

“It’s okay, but I really do have to go. Thanks again, Buford.”

“My pleasure,” Buford said. And whether she believed him or not, it really was.

Chloe hung the phone up and looked out at the rows of books beyond her counter. Her personal life might be screwed up, but she loved her job. It was always such a comfort to come to this place, to know she was here to help people connect with just the right book or passage of information. She always went home with a feeling of accomplishment. Everyday. It was satisfying.

She loved the library.

Her eyes wandered over the rows of books and shelves of magazines, until they rested on the handsome face of the library’s chief coordinator, Derek Salls, just leaving his office. She loved everything about that face; his thick black hair, his emerald eyes, his flashing smile, even the little brush of freckles across his cheeks. The ones you had to really stare at really hard to really see. Not that she spent time staring at him. Not a lot. She loved his broad shoulders, his narrow waist, the unmistakable bulge in his jeans…

Chloe snapped her attention back to his face before anyone could catch her staring at his crotch. Again. When his eyes found hers, he smiled softly. Her stomach lurched to her knees. He was smiling! At her! Take that, Michael, she thought. Chloe wondered what her last boyfriend would think if he knew she had fantasized about Derek their first, and last, night together.

“Good morning, Chloe,” Derek said.

Derek’s thick accent washed over Chloe as he passed her desk and disappeared into the meeting room. She melted into a puddle of lusty goo. All things considered, his voice was the best thing about the man. Sure he was nearly fifteen years her senior, but he was British, and that accent of his made him ‘mature’ instead of just older than her. Whenever he was around Chloe considered herself a rabid Anglophile. I don’t care if he’s old enough to be my dad, she thought. I’d do anything for him if he just talked to me the whole time. Anything.

As if to defy her good mood, the light on the intercom suddenly flashed again. “All staff is to report to the meeting room, pronto,” Rhonda’s tiny voice barked out.

Chloe could do nothing but comply.

* * * *


Derek tried his best to keep up with his smile. He was about to ruin ten dedicated employees’ lives, and he planned to smile while doing it. As part of any administrative machine in this kind of crisis, it was his job to smile, nod and reassure the workers that what was happening wasn’t as bad as it sounded, when in fact it was exactly as bad as it sounded, maybe even worse.

“Good morning, everyone,” he said. No one seemed to pay him any attention. Except for that Bright girl, who looked a bit woozy.

“Can I have your attention, please?” Derek asked.

The thin murmur of the meeting room fell quiet as all eyes turned to him. The smile slipped when he saw the Bright woman was already paying him way more attention than he felt was appropriate at work. Derek smiled again, and the young woman smiled widely in return.

“As you are all well aware,” he continued, “the funding for public libraries across the state has suffered drastically over the years. Even our own little collection of books has been in peril for some time now. As your coordinator for the last three years it’s been my dubious duty to struggle with the city council, trying my best to keep us afloat from year to year. I was hoping to start this year right, but I’m afraid after an emergency meeting with the executive council this morning, that the news is grim.”

The room held its collective breath.

“Our library is slated to close at the end of the month,” he finished. Gasps and hushed cries of no fluttered around the room. Muttered concerns and mumbled objections rose slowly, but Derek was ready for them. He came from a long line of administrators, and he commanded the kind of respect from his staff that only a Salls could expect. He drew a deep breath, smiled, and held up his hands. The staff fell quiet again. It was time to do what he did best. “Please, I’m asking you to think of it as a time of transition, not one of loss. I’ll hold a one-on-one review session for each staff member all this week. During that time I’ll answer any questions and concerns you have, as well as crafting your personalized recommendations and exit packages.”

“What about our jobs?” Grace asked. She twisted the edge of her crocheted vest between her shaking hands in nervous knots. “I’ve been here for nearly twenty years. What am I going to-”

“How am I supposed to support my family?” Roger cut in. “I’ve worked here fifteen years! Books are all I know. How am I-”

The staff degraded into various similar complaints, with everyone speaking at the same time. Derek held his nose with his thumb and forefinger and sighed deeply. This was going to be harder than he thought.

“Please!” he finally shouted over the uproar. The staff fell quiet again, but this time an unmistakable whisper was left in the air. That background electricity that every boss hated to feel the shock of. It was the feel of mutiny. The situation could turn volatile at any moment, so it was time for Derek to turn on the full Salls charm. “Please, I am asking, no I am begging you, not as your supervisor but as your friend. Please do not panic. If we all pull together we can make this transition as smooth as possible. For all of us.”

“Yeah,” Roger snarled, “the transition from working to jobless.”

A grumble rolled over the staff. Derek returned to his smile and nod. “Now enough with the bad news. Let’s see what else we have to discuss today? Oh! I’m also happy to report that the city is in the process of preparing a healthy severance package for each of you. Based, of course, on your years of service. Some of you oldies but goodies might even qualify for a pension.” Smiles slowly popped up across the room as his words sunk in, joined by several reassuring nods.

Grace’s anxiety had been replaced by wide-eyed wonder, and Roger’s angry frown had turned into a grin. Each of the longstanding employees smiled at the idea of the severance package.

“I thought that might get some smiles,” Derek added softly.

A titter came from a few of the women. As usual he had the staff practically eating from his hand.

“So again, I ask you to bear with us,” Derek added. “The next three weeks won’t be easy, but we will get by if we work together.”

“What about the library itself?” Chloe cut in.

Derek furrowed his brow at the young woman. “It will close. I thought that part was pretty clear.” Titters rose again, and the manager smiled.

Chloe crossed her arms. “I hate to be such a downer on everyone’s windfall, but what about the kids?”

“Kids?” Derek repeated. Deep down he knew what she was asking. He had wondered the same thing.

“Yeah, kids? You know. The little people who come here to check out books and do their homework and other stuff?” Chloe’s lower lip started to quiver as she continued. “And what about the adults? This is the only way lots of people have to read, or even get on the Internet. What will they do when this place closes?” Chloe’s lip continued to quiver as she stared hard at him.

Derek recognized that lip quiver. She has ideals, he thought. I use to have ideals.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Bright,” he said. “I really did my best to save this place, but it just isn’t in the city’s budget. The price of living keeps going up and book costs are through the roof, even with the few volumes donated to us. The computers are out of date before we even get them online. We continue to operate in the red year after year, but the final straw came when we ran roughly fifty thousand dollars over last year’s budget. The library must go.”

“What about a fund raiser?” she asked.

Derek shook his head. Morals, he thought again. What I wouldn’t give to have to morals again, just for one day. “You’re free to try, by all means. But I think you’ll find that although the citizens of the city want to have a public library, they don’t want to pay for a public library. It’s a hard pill to swallow I know, but there it is.”

Chloe fell quiet, but Derek knew they were both right. The library was a money pit, and the ones who would suffer from its closing were the people who couldn’t afford to help fund it in the first place. Sure there was another library in the next city, over thirty miles away. But how would they reach it when most of them walked to their library? The thought of the locals who would have to live without a library made his heart ache.

But business was business. And the failing library was just bad business.

* * * *


“Chloe, your father and I have something very important to tell you, honey,” her mother said.

“Mom,” Chloe groaned and lowered her head to the table, “this is supposed to be my birthday dinner. Can’t the drama wait?” The very important something was probably just another surgery her mother was having in the effort to stay as young looking as her daughter. Three facials and a tummy tuck had her mom looking less like a mother and more like Chloe’s sister. Her older sister.

But her mother continued, clearly unmoved by Chloe’s plea. “Not everything your poor mother shares with you is drama. Anyway you shouldn’t talk to me like that. It’s ugly. Now sit up like a lady.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Chloe whispered begrudgingly as she sat up. She had just spent the last hour and a half trying to explain her horrible day to the two people in the world who should care the most. But they had seemed distracted all night. That was okay because Chloe was distracted herself from trying to gather the nerve to ask her parents for help. But what could she say? I lost my roommate, my apartment, and my job. I can’t even manage to hang onto a boyfriend, despite the fact that I let him get to home base. Eventually. I really need to move back in with you because I’m a complete loser.

“Do you want to tell her, Frank?” her mother asked.

Her dad shook his head. “No, I think you will do it better, Francine,” he said.

“Oh but it was your side of the family that brought her to us,” her mother said as she grabbed Chloe’s dad’s strong hand.

“Yes, but you’re the wonderful woman who accepted her as your own,” her dad said as he leaned closer to her mother.

“Just stop it!” Chloe barked and rubbed her rumbling belly. “All of this lovey dovey crap is giving me indigestion.”

Her parents smiled wistfully at each other.

“Now just tell me-” she started.

“You’re adopted,” her father blurted out.

“Frank!” her mother shouted.

“See, Francine, I told you I couldn’t do it right,” her father said. “I’m so sorry, Chloe.”

“Chloe, what your father is trying to say-” her mother began.

“I’m adopted?” Chloe asked softly.

“Yes, but that’s not what’s important. You see-”

“I’m adopted,” Chloe repeated. She looked across the table at the people she had called mom and dad for the last twenty-nine years of her life. They were complete strangers.

“Yes, honey,” her father confessed, “but your mother is trying to explain-”

“That I’m adopted? What’s there to explain?” Chloe shouted. Anger from the day’s events boiled over into her mood. “Oh happy birthday, Chloe, and by the way we’ve lied to you for the last twenty-nine years of your life!” Confused faces of the other diners turned toward the noise of her shouts. Let them stare, thought Chloe. Let them enjoy the show, because I sure as hell ain’t.

“Chloe,” her non-mother pleaded, “calm down, dear.”

“Yes, honey,” her non-father begged, “there’s so much you need to know.”

“Need to know?” Chloe shouted, even louder. “Need to know? What is there to know? That you’re not my parents? That I’m not your daughter? That you’re a pair of two face liars? What else is there to know!” She leapt from her seat and stood over them.

The wooden chair fell backward under her sudden rise and hit the floor with a flat slap. Now every ear in the restaurant was tuned to her. Every face was watching her. And once again she was overreacting. She could feel herself overreacting. She heard herself overreacting. But her mouth and temper were like an out of control train. She couldn’t stop it if she wanted to, and after the bombs dropped on her today she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

“Honey bunny, sit down now. You’re causing a scene,” just-Francine-and-not-her-mother whispered.

Chloe sucked a sharp breath through her teeth at hearing the ancient epithet invoked. “Don’t call me honey bunny you…you…” Stranger! Liar! Fake! Fraud! Old Goat! “I’m not your honey bunny!” she finally yelled and stomped away from the table.

* * * *


Chloe trudged to bed that night with a heavy heart. Humphrey sat propped against the headboard of the messy bed, staring at her with his lifeless eyes. Sometimes she felt like he was her only real friend in the world.

“I can’t believe I talked to Mom and Dad like that,” she said to Humphrey. “They might not be my real parents, but they did give me a home. And a family. And love. They took me in when my real parents didn’t want me.” Chloe shivered despite the warmth of the room. “My real parents didn’t want me,” she said aloud. The words turned sour in her mouth.

Did I imagine calling Mom an old goat, or did I actually do it? Chloe groaned and belly flopped onto her bed. Oh God, I hope I didn’t really call her an old goat. She buried her wet face in the layers of blankets and sobbed.

“I’m such a worm, Humphrey!” she cried. She raised her head to face the worn teddy bear. “No, you know what? I’m lower than a worm. I’m an amoeba. I’m that scum in the pond that eventually evolves into a worm. A whiny, pathetic, unemployed fleck of loser scum that still talks to a teddy bear at twenty-nine.”

“What about the fact that you own a teddy bear at twenty-nine?” Chloe imagined Humphrey would ask.

“Just you hush,” she answered as she shoved him under the blankets.

She tried to push the memory of the day’s events from her mind, but it only brought on more groans and moans. Normally she would call her mother and whine for an hour or two. “But you burned that bridge, didn’t you Chloe?” she imagined Humphrey would say. “She’ll never talk to you again after that tantrum. What were you thinking?”

Chloe rolled her tired body around the bed until she was under the covers. She clicked her bedside lamp off and reached for the clock. I’m half tempted, she thought, just to be late for work tomorrow. Or miss the day entirely. What are they gonna do? Fire me? She giggled at the idea as she set the alarm. I wonder when I’ll get my exit meeting with Derek? What I would do to him if I could get him alone for even five minutes. Yum!

She looked down at Humphrey and frowned. “Who am I kidding, right? What would he want with a loser like me?”

The bear didn’t argue.

“Well, Humphrey. I suppose it’s all out of my hands anyway. I shall just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings. After all, as all good southern women know,” she paused and held the back of her hand to her forehead while finishing in a ridiculously fake southern drawl, “tamarraw is anotha day.”

Humphrey wasn’t impressed.

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