Hale

Sprawled bluejay-style and belly-surfing slept Ms. Hale Larck. New to town, she nonetheless snoozed straight on through the unfamiliar rumbling of the secretly smiling garbage-persons, and afterwards she kept right on sleeping. About the time that breakfast had ended for most of the townsfolk and they all readied for that next morning step from the driveway to the broken-in-by-decades Fords and Chevy sweating-nightscares of the adorable Green party, Hale sat up. Glancing at the shiny old light on the brand new wall, she half-heartedly cursed her internal joke of a clock and unconsciously shuddered at the unusual quiet that had lulled her to sleep and then some--nothing like the constant percussive music of her newly abandoned N.Y. By now she imagined that her stomping grounds of the last three years would be like a jaded lover, not-at-all surprised to finally see her go. Thinking this, Hale felt a pained guilt like a tiny dagger colored the ice-blue/deep/shallow-slate of her eyes, and allowed herself to miss New York for a full forty-five seconds before she shook off the feeling and got the fuck out of bed.

Feeling like a stalking lion(ess) she slammed each foot down taking the steps across the room and reached the itsy-bitsy excuse of a closet, settled in by the viewless window which opened to the north. Swinging wide the singing door that creaked miserably to the stress of use, Hale tried her best not to notice the sinking-heart horror at the crystal ball future she looked into, seeing there stacked all haphazardly before her, boxes of stupid crap that seemed to puke the peaking colors of too many clothes spilling gently from lids left askew. Instead, in the pure(st) name of self-denial Hale grabbed hold of what seemed to be the navy blue arm of a t-shirt and pulled with all the might necessary to ignore the inevitable. Slamming the door with (accidental/pointless) flair she pulled her consolation prize over her head and forgot entirely about searching out a bra to go with it. Returning to the bed, she hunted around for just a moment before discovering yesterday's jeans tucked half-beneach the nightstand. These she pulled on, blowing off the effort too of finding a pair of underwear/panties, probably for consistency's sake. She reminded herself to dig out her alarm clock as soon as possible as she exited the soon-to-be-painted-over bright(ness) of the godforsaken/head-ache-inspiring/(thought) provoking yellow bedroom. She took the wooden stairs two at a time in her descent to the communal kitchen.

Entering with besocked feet that slid on the ancient tile (floor), Hale took in and swallowed up her surroundings. A sense like the pretense of vertigo swept over her when the sink turned out to be on her left rather than straight before her as she had remembered. Seeing the texture and shade of the dark sepia cabinetry likewise deceiving her expectations, she ignored the small group of people as yet unacknowledged and sitting at the corner of her eye. For a moment longer she let them await her inevitable attention and slowly slid her way to the center of the room to peer carefully around once more, for only the second time in the space of three months.

Yes, single sink on the left of the hallway entrance, uncolored stainless steel. And the cabinetry she now realized seemed too dark (only) because the room stayed dim this time of the year. Autumn. The visible changing of the light as the year progressed would be hard to get used to, she thought, so accustomed as she was to strictly artificial light. The rest of the kitchen turned out to be equally unrecognizable to her, though this time no shredded and useless memories desperately attached themselves to her mind's eye so that she could rediscover the interior as if for the first time. Plain, was the overall conclusion/result of her interpretation/study.

Turning around again definitely/pointedly, Hale at last paid homage to the housemates of hers who were evidently fellow bums, drinking coffee with bleary eyes at half past noon. (Really!?) The table enclosed by the hunched and hulking forms of the three present persons was of questionable quality/origin to be fair. It could quite possibly have once passed for a respectably good impression of wood, but those glory days of threaded grain were long past gone, and in their place was coat after coat of pale paint, probably/likely bright pink in a former life, something like sadly reminiscent of a fadingly too-vibrant bottle-assisted blonde man of maybe ninety-two. Hale glanced up (and away) instead, blushing awfully.

And at last her eyes alighted on the companionable bunch sitting above the false-jovial/joyous tabletop. The figures were Indie Parks and Mitch Beckham, the picturesque couple made up of her oldest friend and that chick's beau; Jane Levlin, her buddy-buddy, quietly budding landlord; and a younger woman than the rest of the small group--a girl Hale had previously seen only in a photograph--Jane's birth-deaf, lovely (grand?)-daughter. For the past few weeks prior to finally moving herself & stuff officially in, Hale had been waning curious about the girl and the rumors that came attached to her name/person. Seeing her now for the very first time in the flesh, her ebbing interest once more flowed and Hale's glance lingered into a gaze that was fully met by the mute(d) young person.

As ever reliable, Indie piped up upon Hale's entrance when no one else had yet thought to speak, including Hale, the bra-less intruder herself. "Hey there, sleepy-head! Come to join the land of the living, did we? How'd ya sleep? (How goeth the slumbering?)

Half ignoring the crazy girl, Hale addressed the whole lot of 'em: "Morning everybody." She removed her eyes from the girl in order to skirt them across the rest of the faces. They paused on their landlord before they returned once again upon their original curious subject. "How's it going these days, Jane? Can I guess that this is the (grand)daughter you mentioned, Ciarra?" Hale thought to position herself full frontal for the girl so that her lips might be read without much strain of effort.

Immediately the silent figure still looking with interest back at Hale stepped forward at this inquiry and stuck out her ridiculously tiny hand, as Hale noticed with her acceptance of it, presumably to be shaken not stirred, thought Hale's strange bartending mind.