It had been a long, long day. Longer than most. The wrong number at two a.m. and then again at four had left her sleepless. The jaunt to the meeting she and the other managers of The Plaza had planned for nine had been chilly and unwelcome, especially after the realization that she had run out of coffee the day before. After the meeting, she had had to walk to Leroy's Auto-Body Shop to pick up her eight year old, standard Ford, only to find that, not only had her breaks needed servicing, but a portion of her starting cylinder was scorched seriously. Already frustrated by the wasted meeting, she had opted to get groceries while waiting. As was usual around Thanksgiving, the supermarket was packed. Lines of customers waiting to have their many purchases rung through stretched down the aisles. When finally the harried cashier finished with her order, deftly bringing up the total, she realized that she didn't have enough money on her and was forced to put it on Master Card, adding to the massive debt she already owed. She was then informed that parcel pickup was down. Containing her growing irritation, she picked up her plethora of plastic bags and waddled out of the store.

The pay phone on the corner was old and it took her eight tries before the machine would accept her quarter. Leroy's informed her that her vehicle would not be ready until three. She used her next quarter to call a cab.

The apartment was empty, as always, when she arrived. Dropping the bags heavily on the floor, she threw her purse and keys on the table and ran a weary hand through her wind blown hair. Her coat she draped on a chair and her boots she left haphazardly in the hallway. The apartment was a mess. Her cat, Rolph, had knocked two more of her potted plants over and had tracked dirt all over the living room. There were unwashed dishes in the sink. Partially dirty clothes and half-read books lay on the floor and the coffee table. Sighing and rubbing her temples with two index fingers, she decided that she didn't want to deal with this right now. Plodding resolutely into the living room, steadfastly ignoring the muddy pawprints on the carpet, she dropped unceremoniously onto the couch and let out a long breath, as if trying to relieve her mind through her mouth.

And then the phone rang. Groaning, she reached over the arm of the couch and grabbed the receiver of her old-fashioned telephone off of the end table, shoving it up to her ear and lips. "Yeah," she muttered in annoyance, wanting the caller to know how much she resented this intrusion of her privacy, of which she seemed to have very little nowadays.

"Hello," a familiar, nasal voice greeted her.

It was all she could do to keep from moaning in aggravation. "Hello, Tom."

There was a moment of silence. She frowned, hating the way Tom would call her up for no reason, just to sit on the other end of the phone expecting her to have something to say.

"Look, Tom, I'm really not in the mood to talk right now. It's been a busy morning and all I really want to do is sit back and relax for a little while. Could you maybe call back a little later?"

"Um, yeah, okay. But there's something I have to tell you first. I've got an interview for a job at that new restaurant." He stopped talking as if expecting her to know exactly which restaurant he was talking about.

"Oh. Well, that's good. I'm happy for you. But, I've really got to go, okay? I need a little time to myself."

"It's that little cafe next to the post office, across from that computer store. Cammy's Coffee Castle. It's really nice, and Cammy's thinking of hiring me. I talked to her when I dropped of my resume and she said I could come in today for an interview."

"Well, that's really good. I'm glad. Look, I'm going to go now, okay? I think I need a bath to calm my nerves. How about you call me back later, maybe in the evening? I ought to be around then."

"Okay. I'm thinking of wearing my blue suit to the interview."

"Good. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Um...okay. You want me to call you later?"

"Yeah. In the evening."

"All right."

"Okay, bye."

"Bye."

She hung up the phone tiredly, glad to have escaped that encounter suitably unscathed. Tom was a friend, and he could be okay sometimes, but other times she really didn't want to have to deal with him. He got on her nerves, though she couldn't say exactly why. Maybe it was just his way of talking, or the way he would call when she really didn't feel like talking to anyone. Maybe it was just the annoying tone of his voice, or the way he never talked about anything but himself. She sighed again and pushed herself up from the couch, feeling more and more inclined to take a bath. If it was her day off, why was she so stressed out? she wondered as she made her way slowly to the bathroom.

The water filled the tub at a leisurely pace. She shrugged out of her clothing and threw it on the counter with the towels, and then spent a moment looking at herself in the wide mirror over the sink. Her hair was still a mess, straggling down her back like withered corn husks, its brown dull and drab. There were purplish-blue bags visible under her eyes and, no matter how she tried, she couldn't make her mouth form anything but a unsatisfied, drooping curve. Her belly stuck out a little as she slouched; even her breasts seemed languid, sluggish. She gave a faint-hearted exhale through her nose before turning to twist the taps and step into the steaming water. It assailed her feet like hundreds of burning icecubes and it took her a moment to lower herself in, gasping and inhaling sharply as she did so. In a few moments, the heat began to soothe instead of shock and she leaned back, closing her eyes, immersing herself in the hot water.

As she soaked, her thoughts ranged from what she still had to do today to plans for the upcoming week. Tomorrow she was scheduled to come in as the head cashier of the department store she worked at. The next day was the same. Amazingly enough, she had her Saturday off, but had no plans. No plans because she had no social life. Tom was the only one who even came close. Sunday was Thanksgiving and her mother had invited her down for the holiday. But that would mean she would have to see her grandfather, because he always came down on Thanksgiving. He would probably want to talk with her, give her another lecture about how she was throwing her life away by not furthering her education. Her half-hearted reassurances that she would when she deemed it necessary no longer placated him. And she would come away feeling like a little girl in the costume of an adult, lost with no clue about what was best for her. Maybe she would go visit her father.

Her father had aged quickly after she and her brother had moved out, both in the same year. Despite his earlier proclamations about always living in the house of their childhood, he sold the place after replacing a couple of the carpets and repainting the rec room, moving to a single apartment. He had never given a reason why and she had never asked for one. She supposed that living alone in that house, even though it really wasn't all that big, had made him lonely. She visited as often as her schedule would allow, when she was sure she could handle seeing how white his hair had become, and how the once strong hands had become feeble. Most of the time, after the visits, she would come home and cry, feeling more than ever that she had somehow lost something of very great value.

She washed herself, first her body and then her hair, taking the time to shave her legs and underarms carefully. Once done, she spent a few moments just lingering in the water, rubbing her pruned fingers together. When the threat of re-dirtying her body by staying too long in the grungy water became unbearable, she stood slowly, her body heavy with moisture. The mirror had fogged up a bit and she watched her obscured image as she dried herself, listening to the gurgling of the water draining. She wrapped a towel around herself for warmth more than modesty and hurried into her room to dress, wishing she had turned up the thermostat before entering her bath.

Neglecting to put on socks or a bra, she slipped into baggy clothing, taking a few moments afterward to return to the bathroom to model in the clearing mirror, her curled, tangled hair almost black. She ran a brush through it almost regretfully, watching it return to the straight curtain she was so used to.

She padded into the livingroom and fell languidly onto the couch, disturbing Rolph who lay sprawled out on the back of the used sofa. She searched around for the remote, eventually finding it under a shirt on the floor, and turned on the television, flipping through channel after channel of mindless drivel. Finally settling on a rerun of a sitcom she didn't detest, she put the remote down and glanced around the room. A pile of overdue library books sat forgotten on the top of the old wire record holder. She stared at them for a moment and then looked back to the television, watching a predictable gag and listening to the canned laughter. Grabbing up the remote, she turned the show off and stood, stretching her arms and yawning before walking into the kitchen to put on her coat. She shoved her bare feet into her boots and then loaded herself with the books.

The library was only a couple of blocks away. The air felt a little chill, nipping at her ankles as it seeped over the sides of her boots, hungry for exposed flesh, and she walked briskly, somewhat relieved by the lack of pedestrians sharing the sidewalk with her. A stranger opened the heavy library door for her as she approached and she nodded politely at him. The library was fairly empty; she returned her books and paid her late charges in near silence, feeling, oddly enough, as if she were in the lull before the final climax of a novel where dialogue is neglected in favor of paragraph upon paragraph of vivid description or tense internal monologues.

She wandered over to the adult fiction section, browsing through the titles, hoping that something would catch her eye. It had been a long time since she had found a book she had actually enjoyed. Usually she managed to get only one or two chapters into a novel before losing interest, putting it down somewhere in the mess that was her apartment, or, if it didn't belong to her, putting it on the dusty old wire record holder where it, too, would gather dust until she finally returned it to the library. Many of the books ended up staying on the rack until they were long overdue.

She almost bumped into a lady who was skimming through a hardcover book. The lady looked up and smiled. She smiled back. The lady looked back to her book and she continued skimming titles. After a moment, the lady spoke.

"You know, it's so hard for me to pick one book out of all of these. There are so many I want to read, but I don't like taking out more than one book at a time. I like to finish one book before I start another, you know?" The lady laughed and she joined in the laughter, a little nervously, not really getting what there was to laugh about. And then she left adult fiction.

She glanced wistfully at the children's section of the library. The last book she had really enjoyed had been one she had read as a child. She had to admit that she liked juvenile fiction better than the fiction written for adults. She understood it; it entertained her. She almost took a step in that direction, but a thought, always the same thought, stopped her. What would the librarian say? Probably nothing, she realized. But it wasn't what was said that would bother her. It was what was unsaid.

What is this woman doing reading a children's novel?

She hated the feelings of insecurity that plagued her when she said or did something immature in front of other adults. What would they think? They would think she was a child, see her for the scared little girl she sometimes felt she was. A girl in the guise of a woman. And then they would question her about her life, about her motives, the motives she herself hardly understood. And she would become unsure, insecure, unable to hold her own against this barrage as everything she had built up came into question. And began to crumble around her with only a few words.

She left the library and hurried back to her apartment, locking the door behind her as if afraid of pursuit. The sky was cloudy now and the apartment dimmer than she remembered it. She kicked off her boots and dropped her coat in the hallway. There was a chirp as Rolph padded noiselessly up to her. She knelt down wearily and began to stroke his dark fur, feeling him purr at her touch. After a moment, she picked him up and cradled him in her arms. He struggled at the embrace and she was forced to put him down. Glancing back at her haughtily, he jaunted back into the living room.

And so she put her arms around herself, feeling the tears begin, and cradled gently.