Copyright (c) 2001 by Caitlin Corrigan
Goucher College Fiction Workshop
All Rights Reserved
A Matter of Time
by
Caitlin E. Corrigan
Bailey eyed the clock. It was ten minutes to seven on Thursday night; they were due any second now.
They arrived almost late every week, Sandy speed-walking down the hall in a gray wool coat, and the unnamed heavyset man strolling behind her in jeans and a quilted plaid jacket. Breathless as usual, she would force a tight smile as she placed her worn winter boots on the counter. Bailey would shuffle towards the corner of the narrow room he stood in, and place the boots gingerly on a wooden shelf, then turn back to her with a pair of lady’s figure skates, the blades usually dull from use, tucked under his arm. She’d already be rifling through a faded silk change-purse when he returned with the skates, and sometimes she’d be a little short of the three dollars they charged for rentals.
That’s when she’d turn to the man in the plaid jacket, and ask in a strained singsong if he had thirty-five cents, or fifty cents, or maybe just a dime. He’d look at her with wide doe eyes and blink like he hadn’t heard her, then shove a meaty hand in his pocket, making keys and change jingle about, and pull out a linty handful, searching for the right coins. She’d throw her hands up after only a second and make a frustrated “tsk!” sound, which was Bailey’s cue to silently take her money and nod away the difference. Her smile would be gone by that point and she’d mutter a low “thank you” before hurrying off down the hallway towards the rink. She’d call out behind her shoulder that he needed to pick her up in a half an hour, no later, her voice echoing on the cold cement walls. “I love you too, Sandy!” he’d call back bitterly, then turn to Bailey to count out the rest of the money.
Bailey sighed. The rental room smelled terrible, nothing like the rink, which at least had the sharpness of the cold air to stun the nose out of smelling the curious stink of wet rubber mats. Here, sweat, feet, stale water and cigarette smoke combined to create a stench that made Bailey think of a mildewing refrigerator filled with soggy butts. He rested his lined chin in the palm of one pale hand and bent his head slightly forward, trying to inhale the smell of the pipe tobacco in his pocket instead. Time seemed to be passing quickly tonight; he would be off work in less than two hours. The prospect of evening loomed ahead of him as it always did; a sprawling empty space he was obliged to fill before his body wound down to sleep. He folded his arms tight against his torso, feeling the weakness of his muscles beneath the smooth fabric of his red flannel shirt.
A few smirking pre-teen girls came up to the counter to get skates, barely looking at Bailey as they paid, cracking their gum and twirling strands of permed hair. He saw them every week, like he saw everyone who took skating lessons at Creekside Community Rink, and he could probably count the number of times they made eye contact on one hand. Walking to the bus stop after the rink had closed, he would see them boldly sharing a cigarette and talking with the high school hockey players while they waited for their mothers to pick them up in station wagons and mini-vans. He always felt strange walking past them, as if he should put out their cigarettes and button the top buttons of their too-tight blouses. He felt them watching as he passed, noticing the choppiness of his arthritic gait and snickering softly, in their ignorance. He was old enough to be their grandfather, and for some reason—maybe it was because he had never been anyone’s grandfather—the thought was particularly unsettling.
Bailey rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. He could smell the old leather of the skates and the earthy dampness of the dollar bills that passed through his hands as he brought his fingers to his face to rub the shallow hollows beneath his eyes. He was starting to get headaches more often. Dull, throbbing facial headaches that started in his nose, spread to his eyes and cheeks, and made his whole head feel like a rock resting heavy on his shoulders. The last time his headaches had been this bad, he had given in and gotten a pair of five dollar reading glasses at the grocery store, and wore them while he poured over his jigsaw puzzle pieces each night. Bailey had completed all twenty-seven of his 1,000 piece puzzles and done several of his thirteen 500 piece puzzles twice or even three times. He got them at garage sales on the weekends and had amassed a pretty impressive collection, all of which now sat in a neat, but dusty pile in a corner of his apartment. But he hadn’t done puzzles for at least a year now; it hurt his eyes too much, even with the cheap glasses, and he knew he couldn’t afford a good pair with prescription lenses.
The mechanical click of the clock hands on the wall brought Bailey back into the present, and he squinted up at the bold numbers. 7:56. The warm-ups for the eight o’clock lesson were already beginning. Maybe Sandy was running late, or maybe they weren’t coming at all. It was strange how he looked forward to his little brushes with the lives of strangers, he knew that. For him it was fascinating in a sense, like real life soap operas played out every week, always different, always the same. Sandy and the nameless man were his favorites. They made him sad, like the parts in movies where two people who need to meet miss each other by seconds. He waited every Thursday for Sandy to give the man a real smile and a goodbye kiss before heading down the rubber-matted hall, but it never happened. He half hoped that the man would talk to him after she left, just lean on the counter and tell Bailey all about their life together and their problems and his love for her. Instead, the man would always just give him a knowing look, and sometimes a comment like, “Huh! Women!” and be on his way.
Bailey shifted a little on the rickety wooden stool he sat on. Some college kid who had worked here a few years ago had painted it in lively shades of green and blue. It was cheap paint on a cheap stool however, and it was beginning to flake off little by little, leaving Bailey with crumbs of technicolor paint on his black wool pants. He picked up the creased newspaper that sat on a red milk crate underneath the counter and used it to brush some of the paint off his thighs. Someone from the earlier shift had left the paper folded open to the advice section. He scanned the columns without actually reading them, then turned the paper over to the next page.
There was a letter to the editor featured along with the opinions and political cartoons and he skimmed it briefly, mildly surprised to read it was about his neighborhood. The three big apartment buildings overlooking the park had become overrun with young twenty-something kids, forcing out the respectable, working families of years past, lamented the author. Bailey managed a wry smile and nodded in agreement. She was right, he lived in one of those buildings. The sounds of smashing bottles and loud music were a staple in his life, but he barely heard them anymore and the kids let him be. He was never concerned for his safety; they were all too young and too drunk on the idea of independence to bother him. He just made his way quietly up the stairs each night, top floor, left side, number six.
Bailey turned the paper over once again to fold it correctly, but a picture in the upper left hand corner caught his eye. He peered closely at a grainy snapshot of a smiling man with a large, caring face. It was the man in the plaid jacket. Bailey squinted harder, and pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose to read the paragraph of small type beneath the picture. “James Leary, 44, passed suddenly in his home Monday evening of an apparent heart attack. He is survived by his mother, three siblings, and his wife, Sandra Leary.” The paragraph went on to note the funeral home and the hours of open visitation: 7-9, Thursday night. Bailey frowned, and without really knowing why he was doing it, carefully tore the announcement out of the newspaper. He repeated the name of the funeral home in his head, and then out loud, before recognizing it as the one he passed daily while walking from the bus stop to the rink, some two blocks away.
Bailey’s eyes darted up to the clock on the wall once more. Now it was a few minutes past eight. Lessons would be over in less than a half an hour, followed by the rush of skate returns, and then he’d be off. There wasn’t much to clean up, since he usually counted the money in the register during the lesson, and he could probably make it out of there by twenty to nine. Plenty of time to stop in for the last five minutes and offer condolences, he thought. Bailey put the newspaper back on the crate and began to count the money.
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