“That is typically how people work, Miss Danforth.”
Well she didn’t have to be a bitch about it.
So I exaggerated my ability with spreadsheets? That didn’t mean I couldn’t learn about them. The requirements for some of these jobs in this pathetic town were astounding. They wanted to pay me twenty thousand dollars a damn year, yet wanted me to be an expert in all things? Were they serious? What about training someone? What ever happened to training someone to do a damn job? Why did they always want experts for a temporary position?
But still, the woman at the temp agency looked unimpressed with my experience in, well, pretty much anything. I wasn’t being hired for a job through the temp agency. I wanted to be hired to work for them. They had to take pity on me, right? They had do. None of the jobs they were hiring for fit me at all. Not the ones requiring skills or work experience or anything. But I needed something. I needed any job that came my way so I could put some money away and get the hell back out of this damn town.
“Well, thank you for your time, Miss Danforth. We’ll be sure to contact you once we’ve made our decision.”
But I knew
what their decision was.
A big fat ‘no.’
“Thank you so much for your time,” I said with a smile.
A big, fake, plastered-on smile.
As I walked out of the building, I slung my purse over my shoulder. How the hell had I ended up in this place again? Stillsville offered me nothing. There was absolutely nothing for a budding woman like myself. Oh, yes. I remembered. My fucking boyfriend was the reason I was in this pathetic town. I’d followed him here thinking we’d spend the rest of our days in this quiet, quaint little place.
Then he expected me to foot all the bills while he strummed his electric guitar and ‘booked gigs’.
Fucking pathetic.
“Asshole,” I said to myself.
I found myself walking up the sidewalk towards the small apartment I shared with Andy. There had been no promise of keeping my resume on file. No suggestion of another interview. Nothing. And the ‘apartment’ we lived in? It was really a duplex, and honestly it wasn’t even that. It was a ranch-style home clumsily divided by a pathetic wall into two measly apartments. It hardly met the definition of ‘duplex’.
But it was all Andy and I could afford on the money from his occasional ‘gigs’ and whatever I could bring in doing odd jobs.
Walking by the dilapidated businesses with windows busted out by bullshit kids wielding rocks and baseballs I was annoyed. No one in this damn place had a care in the world for the things around them. They used and abused, drained the sources, then bitched when the well dried up. Well, if they took care of their stuff, it wouldn’t fucking dry up. And even though I hated our current living situation, it was still a roof over our heads, and things could always be worse in a place like Stillsville. We could’ve been homeless, or living in one of those abandoned structures like some people were.
Things could always be worse, Michelle.
It was a mantra I chanted to myself every morning. Things could be worse. I did have a roof over my head. I did have food to eat. I did wake up next to a man that told me he loved me at least. That was something. And he was playing gigs and did bring money in sometimes. But for the past month, he hadn’t played anywhere. Hadn’t done anything. And after Mr. Anton’s death, I had no money coming in either.
Hence my humiliating visit to the temp agency.
Shaking my head, I tried to clear it of all my negative thoughts. If there was anything I believed in, it was the power of the human mind. It had the strength to change perceptions and morph surroundings. It had the ability to change emotional states and lift the wool from eyes. I needed to keep my inner thoughts positive and focused on the good I had in my life instead of the bad.
What I also needed was to find another damn job.
And soon.
Frequently, I found myself wishing Mr. Anton was still alive. He’d been kind, and decent, and had paid me a living wage to keep his house clean and keep his yard mowed. And I tried to keep up his house like it was my own. I trimmed the trees and added flowers that I kept watered. I pulled weeds from his gardens in the backyard. They didn’t grow anything. Not since he went to live in the nursing home. But I still grew some vegetables every now and again, just to make him smile.
He was sweet to me, and it ached that he was gone.
I just missed him. I missed that thick Russian accent and his kind smile. I missed those beady eyes that were intimidating to most, but comforting to me. I missed his pep talks and his speeches. He sure did know how to throw a lesson at someone. There were times when he’d even let me stay at his big house on the hill when after Andy had kicked me out during our fights.
Just last month, he let me stay for a week and a half.
I walked up our front steps and heard Andy wailing away on his electric guitar. In fact, most people heard it, all the way from the damn street. The wrong chords and the riffs that made no sense. It was painful to listen to sometimes. Closing my eyes, I stood at the front door, debating on whether or not to go in. Even though Anton had passed, I knew that his front door would be open and I could crash on that bed he always let me sleep on. I could finish off the food in his kitchen and then keep it nice and clean until someone came to settle his estate.
Who was settling his estate?
Did he have family?