I watched her without focus, bent sideways in the foyer, washing the windows as high as she could reach, her diminutive form working quickly in the cold February night air. The blue-green fluid took longer to dry than usual, fixing into streaky swirls as it decided whether or not to freeze. I sat alone in an empty bay room at a nearby round table, hunched over my Whopper with both hands, worshipping it and the comfort it gave me, adding to nirvana with the occasional fresh hot crunchy and salty fry, no ketchup tonight. My timing had been perfect, late night, few customers, everything made to order. It had been a long day of travel and I was still about half an hour from home.
I could only see her from behind as she worked the inside door windows, up on tippy toes. The rest stop's bright lights illuminated her. Her hair, short cropped bleached blond with a couple odd tails bound by rubber bands sneaking out from under her black Burger King ball cap. It was dry and thick, and might be a wig, but I doubted it. Her outline struck a contrast with the late night void that filled the clear cloudless parking lot sky just beyond the doors, her khaki colored shirt splitting the black field of her clean black jeans, the doors, her cap, and the night that threatened to swallow her as she moved to the outside door windows. I watched her, spray, spray, spray, spray, wipe, wipe, wipe, wipe, the pattern broken only by the random customer visibly stymied by the polite way to pass through her handiwork without engaging her as she spread across all eight doors.
She stepped inside, turning, and as she walked in, I was captured by how old she was, likely in her late 60's to early 70's, with the patina of a life that had not been easily lived and a hint of scandal. A photograph of her fixed in my mind, clean, tucked in, but a face with too much rouge and blue eye shadow that spoke of an edge of madness, and a broad thick band of breasts in the middle of her body where her waist should be, that had weighed her down and bent her, so out of proportion with her small frame and held in a poorly fitting bra, adding to the caricature she was. She was dulled with age and history, but not by infirmity, and she moved with a grace and strength that had allowed me to think her much younger than she was on first seeing her.
She finished her work and I continued to watch her, reaching the bottom of my diet Coke but trying to find that last pocket as she walked past me, casting a simple glance towards me and my gurgling childishness as she pulled off her rubber gloves, and disappeared into the storage room next to the Starbucks. I smiled at her as she passed, but I had the feeling she didn't see me anymore than a piece of the moving furniture that made up her otherwise constant tableau.
I sat for a moment shaking the ice in my cup, driving the straw deeper and wondered about her story. When she was younger, had she any idea that one day she would be here, in the autumn of her days, washing windows in an Atlantic City Expressway rest stop in a Burger King uniform? How does one get a job in such an isolated place anyway, and for that matter, how did she get to work? Was she afraid all the time, on the brink of despair, without healthcare, barely in a home? Was she lonely, or loved? Was she safe, warm and happy, and was my growing sadness for her a narrative written only in my own mind? Somehow I felt my story of hovering destitution struck closer to the truth, and my sadness for her deepened. I had become fond of her, for her perseverance, her struggle to live with some dignity, and I wondered if I had somehow failed her.
I gathered my holy tray and buried the bones of my meal with reverence into the bin, one last struggle to sip another drop before tossing the cup in after. I walked through the doors, careful to keep my fingers off the glass, out to my car in the nearly empty lot, the few cars sitting together as if for warmth. The chill was reaching for me, and I moved quickly. As I drove back onto the expressway and left her behind, I decided that I would choose a good story for her, and that it became truth for my thinking it. It made me feel better, though I was sure I had somehow failed her...
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