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"Will this be all for you?"
The store clerk resembled an old hag. Almost like Canela's mother but with a lot less of a gleam in her eye. She looked hard and weary, matching with her dry roots leaping out of the gloaming of that dead gray mane of hers. Her lips reminded Canela of the bill of a Curlew bird, thin and ready to take off at any moment. The way it curled inquired for her discontent. She and apparently several others didn't necessarily appreciate women like Canela in their businesses.
Was it because she was black? Or was it because she kept her nails freshly painted and shaped every week either pink, white, or baby blue. Gosh golly no. It was because she walked in an establishment just like anyone else would. She wore clothes that some of these women hadn't even heard of but it didn't mean as much to her as it meant to them. She was a negro. But she didn't look the part. And the fresh adornment on her face showed nothing but remorse for making these kind people feel uncomfortable. Maybe if she was sent with a list she could barely read and a bonnet on her head with a few naughty white children behind her, the clerk might have offered a nice young man to bring the expensive box she'd just purchased to the car.
"Uh, yes. Yes ma'am." Canela stuttered, awkwardly hauling the hefty piece of furniture towards the exit.
The midsections of her arms were about to give in the longer it took for her to get to where she was going. Boy was she happy to slam that son of a gun in the back of the car. Who knew television sets were so heavy? For what- to see the same pictures she could see in real time without a television.
"This thing better be a magic." She thought to herself.
The streets of Los Cabasas were just beginning, quite literally actually. There were road workers just starting to paint the outline of some of the roads. Otherwise, it was all dirt.
Her mother lived in the nice part of town. Although she sometimes resented her, she was rather grateful for some of the choices she's made.
She lived on a tiny little hill in somewhat of a large white house- all right in the midst of the booming civilization that was to come shortly after she died.
Boy, was mother upset about that when the factories starting setting up out here.
Anyway, the house. Somehow it was big enough for the two of them but even bigger for turning into a hotel of some sort. Before her mother died, she figured she ought to put her mothers fortune to use by adding to it. So she gave Canela the house, not that she had anyone else to inherit it from her.
Canela took it, gladly.
She waved at the body shop owner a few meters ahead of her expecting nothing in return. Not even a helping hand with the television.
