Chapter 4
Bartholomew
He
didn’t know how long he’d been daydreaming before excited murmurs drew
him back to the line he was standing in and his assigned errand. So
distracted by his childhood memories, he hadn’t even noticed the egg
girl arriving and fitting her bin into the table space the bread lady
had cleared. But he did watch as the bread lady hugged the egg lady and
though he could see her only from behind, he could tell the egg girl was
much younger. A scuffle in the line drew his attention to two women in
front of him, one shouldering ahead of another for the “best selection
of the special eggs.”
The
dustup died down when the bread lady huddled up to referee. The egg
girl was prancing away looking like she had the world on a leash, like
he used to feel every day. Imagine feeling like that in such dire times.
He watched those ahead of him gently place eggs in their baskets, only
permitted to select twelve at most. None of them picked up eggs and
weighed them in their palm. Choosing in the hopes of winning a double
yolk was apparently only the desire of Mrs. Tillman and as he inched
closer to his turn he was growing more self-conscious about what he had
been commissioned to do.
When
it was his turn he followed his orders, picking up each egg, closing
his eyes and feeling the weight or whatever in his palm before either
placing the egg back in the box and selecting another or putting it into
the basket.
When
he’d gotten to egg number six the woman behind him pinched the back of
his arm. Not that it hurt through layers of clothing, but it startled
him. “What?”
“What
is right, all right. Think I got all day and night to wait for you to
court each egg like it’s the princess you’re taking to the Christmas
ball?”
He
flinched and stared at the woman. Sooty cheeks and raw hands gave her
station in life away. And her treatment of him caused him to lose any
chance of responding. How dare she?
“Cat got your tongue, fancy pants? Let’s go or I’ll butt right in front of you.”
“Yeah, get the lead out,” another voice came from farther down the line.
“Ain’t got all day, sailor,” a third heckler joined in.
He lifted his basket. “I’ve been issued specific instructions for—”
A snowball smacked into his back, shutting him up. He spun around and scanned the crowd for who’d thrown it.
“See, even people not in line with us are tired of your mouth. Move it.” The woman behind him held his gaze.
He’d
never felt so… he didn’t even know how to describe how this treatment
made him feel. He tried to stop himself from rattling off the specifics
of his resume and instead went with the general query of, “Don’t you
know who I am?”
Another snowball thwapped his back.
“A regular jackass,” someone said from down the line.
He
turned again to see who’d hit him with the snowball and the woman
behind him used the opening to slide in front. He turned back and stuck
his hand into the box, blocking her out. “I’ll hurry. Just let me get
the other six.”
She
crossed her arms, the baskets resting in the crook of each bent elbow.
“Six seconds for six eggs. Get on with it, moneybags.”
“Thank you,” he said. He reached for an egg and lifted it in his palm as he had the others.
The
woman started counting one, two, three and the rest of the line joined
in. They were serious about him moving quicker. Mrs. Tillman would just
have to understand. He didn’t doubt they’d toss him out of line if he
didn’t just pluck eggs from the box and move on. And so he did. The last
thing he wanted was to break eggs and have to shovel coal or something
to make up for it when he got back to Mrs. Tillman’s.
“I have things to do, too, you know,” Bartholomew said. “You folks aren’t the only ones with obligations and—”
“Yeah,
whada you have to do today, change into other pairs of fancy pants
another three times before burrowing into a bed laid with golden goose
feathers?” the woman who’d pinched him asked.
His tongue tied, but he didn’t stop himself from responding. “Uh…”
“Uh?
Smoke a pipe of the finest tobacco? Yeah, what else? Sit all day with
the paper while someone shines your shoes?” another voice from down the
line said.
He
straightened, face burning hot, blindly plucking eggs from the pile and
placing them into his sack. All of those things would have been fairly
close to his daily life before. Before it all crashed around
him. “No. Newspapers, yes, but for the market reports and…” Suddenly his
studying the news of the day seemed like a luxury instead of the work
it was when pronouncing the task to the particular crew waiting in line.
Suddenly, he had no words at all. “Forget it.” It was as though none of
them knew he was a nice guy. It was as though they assumed he’d done
something awful—that it was written across his forehead. He hesitated
before moving to pay, considering whether to give them an education in
all his achievements and good works. But the woman muscling past him
sapped the last bit of energy he had that morning.
He paid and stalked away having been saturated with enough degradation to last the day, to last a century.
– Excerpted from Cinder Bella by Kathleen Shoop, Independent, 2021. Reprinted with permission.
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