$2.17

by Karen Burton

She plowed through the daily list.  Always, there were thinning clothes to mend, dust to displace.  Always.  Brenda no longer moved with agility, but she pushed through arthritis to arrive each night knowing that chores were done, and her small apartment was ready to face the morning.

This morning presented to Brenda with a promise.  She straightened and laid each dollar bill against the white Formica and counted.  She hummed as she laid the coins in their proper order.  Quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.  She counted.  Eight dollars and seventy-one cents.  She placed the money back into her coin purse, carefully closing the zipper that was pulling away from one edge.  Monday was the best day; today was Monday.

She climbed the bus steps deliberately.  Once, she had mistepped and fallen onto the sidewalk, spraining an ankle. 

“Careful there,” Frank said, “don’t want you fallin’ backwards again.”  He always said that.

“I’m watchin’ my feet, “ she said. 

“Goin’ to 5th and Main?” he asked. 

“Yup,” she said.  She always went to 5th and Main.

Brenda flicked the specks from her bus seat without inspection.  She gazed out the window at boarded windows and falling signs.  She remembered the names and faces of each person who had vacated the neighborhood.  She closed her eyes against the emptiness, and allowed the bus to gently rock her to sleep.

“Brenda,” Frank said, “wake up.”

She stood and smiled, “Guess I dozed off there.  See ya in a bit.”

“Careful there,” Frank said as she stepped onto the sidewalk. She smiled at him and wondered when the wrinkles had carved so deeply into his face. He closed the doors and pulled away. 

The towering glass beckoned her, tickling her old bones. Was it excitement?  She couldn’t say, for she had ceased to consider such things.  Instead, she stepped into the world of cast-offs and tax breaks that had become her playground. She began to wander through racks of sweaters and shirts, pants and skirts.  She glanced at purses that had attended the theater, at dresses that had waltzed at weddings.  She made her way down the center aisle to the shelves standing between the scratched coffee tables and the mismatched dishes. 

For here, standing on display, were items that had been donated over the weekend, waiting to be sorted.  She scanned the chipped paint, the worn threads.  Gently, she touched the fine cracks in cast off china. Finally, her eyes came to rest upon a stuffed kitten, gray striped and yellow-eyed.  She picked it up and stroked its fake fur to be rewarded with a battery-induced purr.  She closed her eyes and thought of Buttons, the tabby who had slept on her childhood pillow. 

Brenda walked to the register.

“Find something new today, Miss Brenda?” Heather asked.  She always asked that. "That's $2.17."

Brenda pulled out her coin purse.  She laid two dollar bills on the counter, two pennies, one dime, one nickel. “I did," she said, "it’s a good day.”