Stained Glass Souls (Wattys 2014, Collector's Dream Award Winner)

Charliegh: Time Changes Things

"Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you." ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

***

(Charliegh)

The week dragged by without Price, without some small, hopeful reminder of his father, of the possibility that Earnest had returned as the man they had all known.

No one could – would – understand that even though he was an adulterer, even though he ran away from his problems, he was a coward, he had been a father. He was Charliegh’s father when McGowan Markets took over family life. She had spent so many years telling him how grateful she was for a mentor, and even though he threw it in her face, she was trying to understand.

Lord, what are you trying to teach me? Sometimes she cried, because between That Day and the Faith/Asher coefficient, she was overflowing in the Bad Terrible Days Department. Are you trying to grow my fledgling faith?

And then, the most common: Did you have to use such drastic measures to remake me?

***

   Packaging pastries was a lot harder than it looked. Charliegh had frosting all over her hands, and the tips of her fingers where stained a combination of blue and fuchsia. The baking department of McGowan Markets had a weekend stacked with orders – a birthday party being first priority. Apparently, was Disney-Spaceman (which explained the blue/fuchsia combination). Joanna, the bakery’s supervisor, was moving around the kitchen like a whirlwind, churning out batch after batch of vanilla cupcakes. The air was flooded with the aroma of sugar and vanilla extract, an initially sweet smell that had soon become sickening.

Charliegh moaned as she shoved yet another plastic tiara into the top of a cupcake. She had an overwhelming amount of glittery, neon pink tiaras, glass slippers, and wands left to disperse, sitting in the plastic bucket by her elbow.

“Feeling like cake anytime soon?” Joanna appeared at her side, smiling like a maniac. She was short and stocky, her grey-shot hair piled into a topknot. She always smelled like smoke – courtesy of her hourly cigarette breaks – and her teeth were yellow and decaying. Her attitude, however, was the best on staff, and she baked beautiful wondering fabulous chocolate cupcakes. Sometimes Charliegh dared compare them to Alice in Wonderland: which was more magical?

“Never.” Charliegh picked up the tray of finished cupcakes and slid down the stainless steel counter to Kennedy, who was taking cupcakes out of previous trays and packaging them into square white boxes. “Never, ever, ever. I never want to see a cupcake again.”

Joanna laughed. “Cashier is a little easier, yeah?”

“Yes.” Charliegh replied fervently. She straightened, cracking her back. “Who missed work today?”

The bakery was short-staffed, which was the reason she was currently whipping through cupcake decorations like crazy. Normally she floated from Cashier to Shelf-Stocker, or wherever the managers needed her. The best part about working in a place her dad owned was that she never got fired – the worst was that she really couldn’t quit.

“We’ve been short-staffed for a while. Today was bad because we had all these orders…” Joanna looked at her shoes. What she didn’t say was: we’ve been short-staffed ever since Viv left with Earnest.

But Charliegh still heard it, echoing in the back of her brain. She felt a short, sharp surge of guilt. Earnest and Viv met here – leaning over the display case, hands in their pockets, secrets in their eyes. Deceit when there was silence, pain when there was nothing left. This was the reason she could see Price right now, striding through the store in his vivid orange vest. Guilt. She watched until he turned the corner, listened for his departure through the swinging exit doors. Carts began to rattle.