| Chapter One |
Diana's knees ached as she bent over the wooden crate, balanced precariously on the balls of her feet with both hands wrapped around the steel handle of a kitchen knife. The lid of the crate was being particularly stubborn, and even with the knife's tip wedged deep under its side, it refused to pop open.
She leaned forward in frustration, a tiny droplet of sweat trickling down her left temple. The blade of the knife began to bend beneath her weight, but the crate's lid remained sealed to the box. Twenty pickle jars clinked together inside the crate as Diana wedged the knife deeper and pushed down again.
"Shit-fuck!"
The knife slipped as the lid finally gave way, jerking upwards with a satisfying pop just as the blade dug into the skin of Diana's palm.
She fell backwards onto the concrete flooring, spitting out a colorful string of curses and clutching her left hand with her right. The kitchen knife had slipped out of her grip, and Diana kicked it with the heel of her sneaker out of fury, so it spun away and clattered against the bottommost crates in the stack along the cellar wall.
Diana held her left hand up to her face, slowly peeling back her fingers to peek at the damage. Her palm was washed with red, a diagonal slice along the tendon of her thumb down to the heel of her hand. The sight made her swear again, loudly.
The wooden stairs behind her creaked loudly as a pair of footsteps rumbled down them. "What happened this time?"
It was her Dad. Diana was flat on her back, holding her damaged hand to her chest, and she tilted her head back to look at the upside-down image of her father hurrying over to her. In a calm voice, she explained, "The knife slipped. I cut my hand off."
"Good one," he mused – he knew her well enough not to take something so dramatic seriously. "Let me see."
Diana lifted up her hand and spread her fingers open, wincing only a little from the movement. Her Dad was crouched by her head, the edge of his apron – so dirty it hadn't looked white for years – tickling her forehead as he took her hand and gently inspected it. Her palm burned as the cool basement air swept over it, from a draft that leaked through the square window just above the stacks of wooden crates.
"I need stitches," Diana announced. "Ten, probably. That's only if they let me keep the hand."
"You need a Band-Aid and some Neosporin, Miss Soap Opera."
He helped her to her feet, and Diana stared down at the open crate of pickle jars with a glare full of loathing. That bastard. If her Dad hadn't been standing beside her, she would have said it out loud. And probably given the box a nice kick.
"Get upstairs and clean out your hand," he told her, patting her shoulder as though that was going to make her feel better. "Then take over the register. Your mom wants to eat lunch."
Sourly, Diana cradled the hand against her chest and watched as her Dad bent to pick up the open crate. The jars rattled together as he hefted it upwards. He gave her a reproving look as he turned for the stairs, nodding to the knife that she'd kicked halfway across the room. "And pick up that knife, too. I think you hurt its feelings."
"It hurt my feelings," Diana protested, but her Dad was already halfway up the stairs, the wooden steps creaking loudly beneath his boots. She rolled her eyes once he had disappeared from the cellar, still bitter about the lack of concern over her sliced hand. If she'd lost a finger, maybe he would have agreed to stitches (and a break from working), but only maybe. Her Mom was the same way: Diana was only allowed to miss school if she was bed-ridden with the flu and a 103°F fever. It was infuriating.
YOU ARE READING
Pickled
RomanceHigh school is hard. It's even worse when you have to balance a job at the same time - let alone help run your family's business between classes and homework. Diana works at her family's pickle company (What's the Dill?) every day after school and o...