The Best Day

It started off as a normal day.  Lacey woke up at 7:30 am to the buzz of her 7:15 alarm.  She lathered and rinsed.  She did not, however, repeat.  She brushed her teeth with her electric toothbrush and blow-dried her hair.  She thought about putting makeup on, but then remembered that she had decided to sleep 15 extra minutes instead.  A shirt, a skirt, a pair of heels and she was out the door.

A short walk and a train ride later and she was walking into the office.  It was Monday.  Mondays were always the worst.  They started off with a Monday morning meeting with Mr. Frank.  Mr. Frank was, quite frankly, an ass.  She always knew when he was coming around the corner; the waft of his over-priced cologne reached her desk about 20 seconds before Mr. Frank, with his slick hair and polished shoes,  made it there.  She hated him.  It was not an intense hate, but a hate that had resigned itself to a dull persistent buzz underneath the surface.

She pulled up her email as she sipped her cup of joe.  The normal stuff; spam, a request from this co-worker or that co-worker for her to buy a box of cookies for their child's fundraiser, a company memo about this or that.  She was about five emails requesting her to purchase little blue pills in, when it popped up. 

Urgent was the subject line, which she thought was odd since she worked in a corporation and nothing in a corporation was urgent.  She clicked to open it.  It read as follows:

“Lacey:

Please meet me in my office at 9.  I have something important to discuss with you.

Sincerely,

Mr. Frank”

Odd, she thought.  Why would Mr. Frank want to see her?  Maybe she was going to finally get that promotion for which she had been hoping.

The following half hour crept by.  The clock finally clicked to 8:55 am and she walked the 100 steps to Mr. Frank's corner office.

“Come in, Lucy, come in”  she didn't bother to correct him on her name.  She sat down on the Italian leather chairs and began to study the numerous pictures of Mr. Frank on his desk.  There was one of him holding a big flopping fish he had apparently just caught.  There was another of him and his wife, an ugly woman, Lacey thought.  The picture did not do justice for the dark hair that protruded from the mole on her chin.

She awoke from her daze to the sound of Mr. Frank's voice.  She smiled politely.  “Lacey, you've been working hard these past few months here with us”  she tried not to think of his wife's mole as she continued to smile.  If she could just keep smiling and not blurt out that his wife was a hideous cow, she was going to get her raise.  He continued.  “We're so happy with your work, but unfortunately, due to budget constraints, we have to let some people go.  And seeing as you're newest on our team, it only makes sense that it has to be you.” She continued to smile.  It hadn't sunk in yet that she wasn't going to get her raise.

“You're wife is a hideous cow!” she screamed as she was escorted out by security to the whispers and dropped jaws of her co-workers. She kicked, she screamed.  She could almost feel the envy of all her co-workers as she did what they dreamed they could do, but never would.

Not really. Lacey would never be brave enough to do that. She simply shook Mr. Frank's hand, thanked him for the opportunity and went back to her cubicle.  There was not much to gather.  A few minutes later she was walking out the door for the last time.  The only thing she had left of the place was the linger of the over-priced cologne of Mr. Frank that still clung to the hand he had shook and a cardboard box filled with a lone stapler and a picture of her cat, Fran.

Lacey did not know where to go.  It had been quite a while since she was free to do whatever she wanted in the middle of the day.  She usually daydreamed of what she would do with her time had she not had to spend the day at work.  It usually involved sleeping in, reading a good book, or long lunches with friends.  But, now that she finally had the opportunity to do any one of those things, her mind was at a loss for ideas.

She walked along, hugging the cardboard box that held the few mementos she had kept at her desk.  There was nowhere left to go but home.  She headed to the train station.

It is amazing how much you notice about the world when your mind is not clouded with deadlines and names you must remember for this meeting or that.  Lacey was so busy noticing the world around her for the very first time that she did not notice at all the person on the sidewalk into whom she very nearly sank her Kate Spade spiked heel .

“Excuse me, sir, I'm very sorry!” she exclaimed.  The man held her gaze bemusedly.  “S'all right ma'am” he replied, “you must got somewhere to be!  Don't let an old foo' like me stop ya”.

Lacey stood staring a moment longer, waiting for her brain to kick into gear.  “Well, no, not really.  Not  today, anyway.”

He gave her a toothless grin.  “Me either, not today, anyway.  But sure does seem strange for a sharp-looking lady like yous to not have no place to be.”

Lacey waited for him to ask her if she had any spare change.  Instead, he stuck out his hand.  “Billy's the name, don't worry, I just washed it last week.  You ain't goin' catch anythin'”

She looked down the sidewalk, and contemplated turning and walking away.  Then she looked back.  She took his hand.

“Lacey.  Lacey Chamberlain.  It's nice to meet you Billy.”

“That sur' is a purty name, miss.  And you sure don't have to lie.  It hasn't been nice to meet me since 1963.”  She wasn't sure how to respond, so she just smiled politely.

“Why you doin' that?  Here you are, holdin' a cardboard box, dressed like you got someplace to be, when you just said you don't, smilin' like that.  I ain't no professor, but I seen enough to know that wherever you just came from you sure ain't goin' back again.  So why you doin' that?”

Her smile faded as she looked down at the black, pointy heels on her feet.  “Well, Billy, to tell you the truth, I don't know.  I guess I've been smiling like that for so long that I don't really know what else to do.  I never learned to do anything else.”

“Ah, I see now.  Well, Ms. Lacey, you don't have to smile like that.  Not around an ol' foo like Billy.  I don't got nobody to tell, and you know as well as I do that no one would believ' me if I did.”

Lacey sat down beside the old man.  It felt good.  The heels hurt her feet.  They didn't say anything for a minute.

Lacey turned to him.  “How did you get this way, Billy?”

“Well, Ms. Lacey, some people are just born this handsome.”  he smiled his toothless grin.  “But somethin' tells me you ain't wonderin bout my good looks.  I wish I could say it was a long story, that I came from a violent home o' that it was cause of the war.  But I cain't blame this on momma o' daddy o' even ol' Uncle Sam. I'm here cause this is who's I am.  Do you know who's you is, Ms. Lacey?”

She stared at the black concrete.  No one had ever asked her that question before. 

She turned to Billy and smiled.  Not her normal smile that she used when she didn't know what to say, but a real smile.  “I think you're a lucky man, Billy.” 

He gave her another grin as he laid back down on the sidewalk and closed his eyes.  Lacey got up, brushed the dirt from her skirt.  She looked at him one last time,  turned and walked away.

“Ms. Lacey, you forgettin' you's  box and you's shoes!”  She didn't turn back. 

Billy laid back down on the warm concrete, and smiled up into the sun.