The Third ~ Miranda

Sunlight dancing in the kitchen windows lit up the motes of dust languidly floating about, reducing a few square feet of the house in to golden triangular snow globes.
As Miranda turned the page to the newspaper, the motes swirled away in a frenzy, seeking to escape the sudden air current she distractedly created.
Her knee bounced incessantly and the pen in her hand alternated between tapping on the table in a fast staccato and visiting her mouth where she chewed on it. Once in a very long while she took a break from those to use it to circle an ad in the paper.
It had already occurred to her how ancient the act of circling want ads was in the digital age, but for some reason it was the first thing her brain came up with to do pre-coffee. Now mid-coffee, she felt silly, as if her mind had faltered and rebooted back to her teenage years, the last time she performed such an act for the last time she had such a need.
"Any luck?" her mother asked, walking past with a basket of laundry on her hip.
Miranda sighed and let the pen fall to the table with a clack, turning to talk to her mother's back as she entered the washroom off the kitchen, "Mostly third shift work, or if I had my CDL, I could be a truck driver."
"Abby could go along with you for that, you know. Do short hauls," her mother said over her shoulder as she tossed items in to the washer.
"No short haul drivers currently needed and I don't want to be away from Abby when she starts preschool. Assuming I can afford preschool," she sighed.
"It's good that you even considered it, though. You're not turning your nose up at anything, that's the attitude you need right now," a decisive close of the washer door punctuated her mother's reply. "But there's something else you could be trying."
"Internet. I know. I just can't find my laptop, it isn't in the bag I thought I put it in," she sighed, rolling the pen back and forth under her firmly pressed fingertip. The majority of her belongings now festooned the floor and all available flat surfaces up in her old bedroom, making it look akin to the attic.
"No, not the internet. Good old fashioned footwork. Go in to town and talk with people. Hell, talk with the people you've worked with before. If they don't have jobs, they might know who does."
Miranda rested her chin on her arms and stared at the pen she now had pressed in to the table with great bored strength. It was, of course, an excellent idea. She'd had many good jobs in town, but it was the whole idea of...
"Going in to town. Right. Has to happen some time, I guess," she sighed.
Heavy footfalls began their way down the upstairs hallway, then down the stairs, headed for the kitchen.
"You could take Abigail with you. Show her around town. Take her to the park with the new slides."
"No." Miranda sat up straight as her daughter entered the kitchen, grabbed a muffin from the counter, and banged out through the screen door. Watching her go, she shook her head, "Not yet... I just.... it's okay if they see me. But not her. Not yet... I...."
"You're protecting her," her mother nodded, "I get it. You don't want to let them in to your personal life in one fell swoop. That's fine. She's got enough trees to climb and frogs to chase out there for now." A smile touched her lips as she cast a glance out the window to see her sitting down to braid clover chains at the edge of the drive way.
"Yeah. That's it exactly," she nodded, then folded up the paper, deciding she wasn't going to take the next hour on the phone as she'd originally planned. "Can you keep an eye on her while I roll in to Go'Tree and see what I can dig up?"
"Of course. You didn't even have to ask."
Miranda grabbed her coat despite the fact it was going to be closer to 90 than 70 today and claimed her car keys from the familiar bowl by the back door. She stopped to smile at her mom. "Thanks. It's all crazy in my head and hard to keep stuff orderly. It means a lot, you just picking up on this stuff intuitively. I can't explain half of why or what I want."
"I know. I'm your Mom. It's my job," she smiled back and waved toward the door, shooing her out in to the world.
"Abby! Mind Grandma while I'm out for a bit!" she hollered at her daughter's back out in the field. A nodding head was her only response that she was heard. She was okay with it, Abigail was incredibly good at staying near by. Even in the middle of nowhere, Stranger Danger was firmly ingrained.
Car door shut, ignition on. Bumpy road under the vehicle as she pulled out and drove back towards the main road. She was forcing herself to go fast so she didn't dwell.
Unfortunately, she still had a 10 minute ride in to town even breaking the speed limit, and it didn't seem like a good start to things to have a ticket the first week she was home. So she sat at 35 and mulled.
Jeans? Too clean. Too neat, too new looking. Even though the knees had the start of white fade to them from being worn often, they weren't splattered with paint, or truly worn. They would see that.
Shoes? Sneakers. Three years old, too, but still looking rather clean. She had preferred to wear basic flats during the day. The sneakers for when they would be somewhere with dirt or mud. Even then, they hadn't visited any of the sort very often, dirt and mud being sharply contained by concrete dividers and pavement as it was. The flats she had donated, the "otherness" of their style heavily on her mind. People didn't wear that kind of thing on their feet where she'd been headed. Sneakers. Or boots. Or sandals if it was really hot.
And her shirt.... oh god, the colors of the plaid... the sleeve length...
Doing this would accomplish nothing, she realized, as it was the clothes she wore to try and look like everybody else while not being able to accomplish it.
Okay, then be done with it, she thought. Freakin' birds that moved to other places adapted to their new locations and look different from the old birds. That's nature, right? Screw people if they can't handle that I look different.
She held that confidence for a full minute until the sign loomed up ahead: One Good Tree - 2 miles
Then everything fell to pieces and she began to pick herself apart again. Perhaps so that she could beat others to it and not be moved.
She'd been so worried about the reunion she'd ridden the entire way in silence. With 30 seconds left she clicked on the radio in the car and listened as the greatest hits of the 90's spilled in to the space with her. As she cruised past the ancient Allaway Drug Store (your community pharmacists since 1923), her favorite band began to play.
"Well don't get lonely now... and dry your whining eyes..." she sang along softly, then chuckled. Were she still religious, the synchronicity of Green Day in that moment would have struck her sharply. Even so, the irony made her laugh and broke the tension she'd been carrying across her shoulders.
It struck her she had no clue where to start now that she was there. Would any of the people she'd worked for still be there?
As the yawning windows of empty storefronts passed by her car, she also wondered if anybody actually did work there, period.
The answer to her dilemma loomed up on her left in the form of static block letters on a yellowing plastic sign, erected in the 60's by citizens proud to have their second supermarket in the county. The Southern Belle Market and Butcher was the only thing that appeared to have human beings involved with it. A solid 5 cars were in the parking lot.
She parked, laughed at herself as she locked the doors out of habit, then shoved her keys in to her pocket before approaching the squeaking sliding glass doors at the front. They rolled out of her way with the tiredness of decades, narrow enough that she had to stand aside for an exiting shopper with her cart to pass before she could go inside.
It was precisely as remembered, right down to the linoleum block at the entrance peeled up to reveal black dried tar below it.
As she scuffed her too-new sneakers at it and allowed herself a smile, a familiar voice rumbled at her.
"As I live and breathe... Miss Miranda Wells, tell me I am not seeing things," it intoned.
As she looked up, an old man, only slightly bent in the shoulders but with less hair and more crook to his nose than before, was making his way to her. She blinked. Sherman Alvin Delacourt was coming towards her, MANAGER tag on his shirt. She'd thought he would be dead or retired by now, for sure.
"General!" she grinned, trying not to let the shock creep in to her voice too much.
"Pfff, nobody calls me that now," he laughed, holding one arm out, "Give an old man a hug. Gentle hug, though."
She sidled up to him, gave him a fierce -yet gentle- hug, then stepped back, smile dipping a bit. "Not Wells now. Mori, actually."
"Someone made an honest woman out of you?" he grinned.
"Well.... I got married, anyway."
His laugh was dry, then he motioned for her to follow him. "C'mon with me and let's talk. You obviously came here for a reason, let's see if I can help you out."
They walked past the four checkout lanes (only one currently open and manned by a very bored looking 20-something girl) and past the bulk feed bins towards Sherman Alvin Delacourt's office.
Miranda couldn't figure out why butterflies suddenly felt the need to appear right then.