Pie in the Sky – Rosalia Scalia

Last night’s date neglected to ask her a single question about herself, talked nonstop about his gaming achievements, and referred to video characters like they were real people. She ended the date before midnight, using the early call with Rudy as an excuse. 

Rudy unlocked the first gym’s vending machine’s front door and reached for the overflow coin hopper and handed it to her. She dumped the coins into the purple Crown Royal bag before returning it to him. They left the upper coin hopper alone so that the machine could make change for a five-dollar bill. He passed her the cash hopper. She emptied and returned it, inserting the cash into a white envelope labeled with the machine’s number. They kept small envelopes numbered for the cash from each machine in the Crown Royal bag. They worked in silence: Alice handed Rudy the snacks, which he placed in their designated spots before checking the trays and machine’s innards to make sure everything worked. He shut and locked the machine door and moved to the second.

“Not like there’s a cat shortage anywhere,” he said, breaking the silence. “Animal shelters have a boatload of cats.” He unlocked and opened the second machine’s door and repeated the process. “Why stop at one? Get a pair? Three?”

“Give it a rest, Dad,” she said, dumping coins into the purple bag and cleaning the front glass doors and keyboard panels of both machines.

“Meeeeeow,” he said, stretching out the sound as he walked toward the door, pulling the wagon. “Maybe you’ll talk more if I meow.” 

Alice couldn’t help laughing. “Okay, Rudy!” she teased him.

In the parking lot, her father pulled the wagon toward the van, the yellow, red, and black Oliver’s Plumbing logo brandishing both side panels. He situated a narrow, portable ramp from the van floor to the ground and maneuvered the wagon into the van, where they filled it with items for the next pair of machines, repeating the process for all eight machines. At the end of their run, the purple bag bulged with coins and the cash envelopes. They picked up lunch from a nearby diner before returning to the plumbing building. In the reception area, Helen, the office manager, was writing the next week’s job list next to plumbers’ names on a large whiteboard. She stacked clipboards with data sheets for each assignment in the cubbies labeled with plumbers’ names. Helen’s hair was neon purple. She’d dyed it when she turned seventy, she said, to be “visible.” It’s also why she regularly wore fluffy pink slippers and black cat-eyed, rhinestone-studded glasses.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Leave a Reply