The line went out of the glass doors of the lobby. Young women in dresses, students in shorts, housewives husbands formed the line that snaked through the lobby into a huge cafeteria like room. It moved fast and she signed the book and entered the room, careful not to make eye contact. An overweight woman with long hair sat at a table. Debbie looked at her, hesitated, then joined her. Her smirk did not escape Debbie's glance.
"You can wear shorts," she explained. "I've been to these before. It was for an administrative clerk."
"Yeah, I'd much rather wear shorts. I brought them," Debbie said. She looked down at her nicely pressed navy skirt, her black sleeveless with string of pearls. Outside the large windows, young men walked around the outdoor employee patio in shorts and tee shirts.
The woman smirked, her eyes far away. "See?" she said.
"They say NO RESUMES NEEDED but I always bring mine. And they always take it," she nodded.
Debbie looked into her eyes. They were aquamarine with a crazed, unfocused look.
"I was at McDougal Douglas for six years. Making fifteen dollars an hour. They layed us off and the next thing, they had hired all temporaries in our place," she said.
"If I don't get this job, I know where I can go. Up the street. Picking oranges for five dollars an hour," she smirked.
"It's a job," Debbie said.
"They called me," she said. "I couldn't believe it. They wanted me to work in Casa Grande. You know where that it?" Debbie nodded, concealing her tiny pink address book. "They wanted me to work the third shift," she said.
"The job no one else wants," Debbie said in understanding.
"My daughter...she wants to move out. She's eighteen. You know how much her friends want? They live in California!" she said.
"Does she have a savings?" Debbie asked.
"No," the woman smirked.
Debbie wanted to leave. She didn't want to take the test. She just wanted to get out of there and go home. She thought of the plane flying out of this desert. But she did not want this woman to see her walk out. She wanted her to stop talking.
She filled in the answers quickly, in the circles, with her pencil. Some of the questions, she did not bother to read thoroughly. Some, she did. When she knew the right answer, she darkened the corresponding space.
The woman started to erase vigorously, blowing off her paper so that Debbie could feel her breath on her hands, her cheek.
Debbie calmly finished the tests and stared at the clock. At four twenty, she left without looking back, through the glass doors, past the employee patio. When Debbie was sure the woman had gone, she returned to the patio and waited for Carlotta. She took off her heels and took her thongs out of her packed pocketbook.
"That was ridiculous," Debbie said as she got into Carlotta's car. But she knew Carlotta would not understand. The test was too confusing to explain.
As they reached the huge grocery store parking lot, a storm was kicking up. The sky was darkening. The sparse trees were being whipped around by the wind. In the distance, lightening struck. On her small enclosed adobe patio, Debbie watched the trees and wind in fascination. She grabbed her black Izod sweater to pull over her white halter top. It poured for exactly twenty minutes and then it stopped, to rain no more for a long time. That was it. At the first bar, cowboys wandered restlessly, indistinguishable from each other in their big cowboy hats.
"Meat!" Debbie said. They left quickly. "The Lonely Cowboy Bar," Debbie joked. "Maybe they'd take us back to their ranch. Make us their wives."
Carlotta frowned in distaste as she drove to the next bar.
"My parents always say, do what you like," she said.
"Mine don't. They say, make money," Debbie said wearily.
"My father doesn't have a very high opinion of reporters, anyway," she said.
"But you've showed him," Debbie said. "You got promoted to Editor."
"Yeah, I think he's gotten used to it," she agreed.
"Someone took my chair. There were four chairs and somebody took all of them!" an irate girl shouted in Debbie's ear.
Debbie turned to her. "You do not own this chair," she said. Carlotta was on the dance floor.
"What?" she said.
"You do not own this chair," Debbie repeated.
"I'm not saying I own it! I'm just saying that we were sitting there!"
Debbie slipped off the chair and walked away, not desiring a fist fight before she left Arizona.
Two young men were talking to them. They wanted to go to another bar.
"You're sure you'll be there," the young man asked Debbie.
"When Carlotta got in the driver's seat, she asked, "Do you want to go there?"
"No," Debbie admitted and they decided to go home.
"My friends tell me I'm too paranoid. When this girl moved here from New Jersey a year ago, she was found in a park. She was de-capitated. It was really sad. We figure she had a fight with her boyfriend, went to the park, and wanted to be left alone. It was really sad."
"I don't think you're too paranoid," Debbie said.
The next morning, she heard the cat's incessant, haunting meowing in the apartment next door. A sad, crying meow behind the locked door.
Haunting.
"Oh, isn't that annoying. I'd like to get rid of that cat," Carlotta said.
"No, I feel sorry for it. It sounds so sad."
In the outdoor jacuzzi that night, Debbie announced that she was going home.
"I drove her away," Carlotta said. After a few minutes, Debbie caught Carlotta eyeing her sadly through her long hair and tanned face. She looked away.
UP NEXT: Meet...finally...THE SINGLE MOM OF CACTUS COUNTY!
