Book 1 Chapter 2 Story Continued

Work

Tessa worked at one of the many governmental buildings that covered about foursquare blocks in the business district. These were large gray square two and three-story buildings. As Tessa walked through the revolving glass door of the engineering department building where she worked a gust of cool air greeted her. The air conditioning alone made going to work worth her while. The lobby to the building mirrored her own studio apartment, in one word it was stark, white walls, black and white checked linoleum floors, couches and chairs with beige colored plastic coverings. There were two sets of stairs one that went up to offices occupied by engineers and one going down into the basement, that’s where she worked. A white faced clock with black numbers told Tessa she had fifteen minutes to put on her uniform and punch in at the time clock.
Her manger Betty was a white haired grandmotherly type, who always greeted her with a smile. They nodded at each other as Tessa walked by her office. She took her beige time card out of its metal pocket and slipped it into the clock and punched in. In the locker room she put on her white polyester one-piece dress uniform. It fit snuggly on her rounded hips and waist. She walked out to the cafeteria where steam tables were sending up aromas of ham, roast beef, fish, potatoes, green beans, and winter squash. She was on the cooked vegetable end today. Men in white shirts came through her line and pointed to what they wanted and she obliged by dipping her scoop in and gently plopping onto any available square of their tray what they wanted. Today, her work took on a kind of mindless rhythm until she heard whistling and the familiar scuff of shoes. Oh God! She didn’t want to look up to see the blue rheumy eyes of the dinosaur. She felt her stomach muscles tighten involuntarily. She looked up to see him towering there, his lips puckered as he whistled. She had never seen him here! What was he doing here!
“What would you like sir?” she asked him in a voice that cracked.
“Why, those mashed potatoes sure do look good”
She noticed a black dot thinly veiled in the whipped whiteness. Usually she would scoop it out for the trash receptacle near her feet but today she hurriedly scooped it up and plopped it on his tray. She hoped it was some hapless spider or fly and not just a black potato eye. He smiled at her and puckered his lips in a whistle as he moved on down the line. Faceless men in white shirts kept sliding past her, pointing at green beans, or squash as she clenched her jaw.
Long white tables ran the length of the room facing away from the steam tables. This was communal dining at its most sterile. She knew he had chosen a spot to watch her. When the line had died down, she looked up and out over the cafeteria. Sure enough, there he was and he was looking right at her. Betty came and tapped her on the shoulder. “Honey, it’s your break time.” She felt the knot loosen in her stomach as she took a tray and served herself lunch. As she put a few slices of turkey on her tray, she heard shoes scuffing along the floor. She looked up and there he was…the six foot plus old toad, she wanted to fling something at him, so that he would shuffle away from her, leave her alone, instead she looked up at him and said, “I’m on my break if you need something, I’ll call someone.” “Oh, no I don’t need anything, except for you to come out and sit with me.” She looked down at her plate, silenced, digging for a quick excuse, “I’m meeting a co-worker in the back,” she struggled to say.
“Well, maybe another time” he smiled down at her.
She didn’t know what to say and so she quickly left.
“I’ll see you on the bus, then” he called after her.

The Long Walk Home

As she heard the click of her time card being punched, she decided that if he was driving the bus, she was going to walk the five miles home. At the bus stop she waited five minutes and sure enough there he sat like a king on his throne. She walked out of the line of people and towards the intersection. There was the quiet whir of the electric car motors, footfalls of other pedestrians and the wet sound of chewing gum in her mouth pulling her forward. As she walked along she thought about the pictures she had seen of wooden houses; these were long gone except for the few historical houses spread out in different districts. She thought about the soft knock that her shoes made on the wooden stairs and the feel of the smooth wood of the handrails. She further imagined what it would have been like to live in one of these houses, the soft feel of the wooden cabinet doors, letting your toes sink into soft plush carpeting on a cold winter’s day, taking a long hot baths in a claw footed bath tub, oh, to live in those times!
She was outside of the business district now and walking through residential areas. In these areas stood two and three-story apartment buildings that looked like gray cement boxes. These were the living quarters for everyone except for those few, who were in favored positions, like her foe the bus driver. The sun was an orange ball on the rim of the horizon as she saw the three-story building that she lived in. The lawn was short and neat. Yellow, white and pink rose bushes lined up against the gray of the side of the building. She had seen pictures of apartment buildings during the pre-war era; these were structures of differing sizes and shapes, not these gray uniform buildings. She heard the low hum of the security camera as she walked up to the front door of her building. She held her id bracelet up to the scanner. An audible click and the door opened into a linoleum-lined hallway with doors on both sides and a metal stairway that lead upstairs. Her studio apartment was on the second floor. Again the low hum and whiz as the motion detector activated the security cameras. A remembrance of the peppy song, “smile your on candid camera” brought a brief smile to her face. The red light of the laser read her bracelet id and for a moment she imaged herself at the wooden door of an apartment that used a key in a hole in the doorknob and maybe another above it to get in. There was heavy sounding click, before her door opened and she smelled familiar odors of cooking and soap. The soft glow of white lights greeted her. The door closed heavily behind her and as she put down her day bag, she picked up the remote and turned the TV monitor on to a music channel. She sat on her bed, closed her eyes and let herself be absorbed by sweet sounding violin music. Dinner! In her bag, she had a shiny aluminum tray full of cafeteria food.