Shooting Star: Chapter 5

Halley lies on her bed, eyes peacefully shut, flat on her back, her head turned toward the left side of her bed, away from the clock and toward the adjacent wall with the window. The clock displays 5:58 in the monotonous red digits. From outside the window, a golden light slowly enters the room. Halley eyelids quiver then open briefly. She inhales, her drowsiness leaving quickly. She looks to the clock, only a minute left until time to wake up.

Usually, Halley would take the opportunity to attempt to sleep for the remaining fraction of minute, but today, her hand darts to the clock, turning it off before it sounds. She had slept hard last night, she realizes as she pops her neck. She hops out of bed silently. She opens the closet door and seems to ponder over her outfit before retrieving the usual work wear. She passively closes the window blinds, removes her sleep shirt, and dresses at a casual pace.

In the bathroom, the brunette pulls up her hair, and makes the everyday bun out of it. She could remember a time when “down” was for normal days and “up” was for the more elegant occasions. Now, to have her shoulder-length hair sprawled over her shoulders is a rare pleasure. She applies the hint of blush, the barely-noticeable eye shadow, and pulls her coral red tube of lipstick, twisting it up, the tip long since smoothed over. She stares at it for a second, before twisting it back into the container, and throwing it carelessly behind her. It lands noiselessly on the rough carpet in the hall. She opens the medicine cabinet, grabs a black make-up bag, and starts to root through it before coming up with another lusterless golden tube. Returning the bag to the shelf, and closing the mirrored door, she removes the cap and twists the tube, revealing a vibrant orange-red color somewhere between the color of mango and grapefruit. She applies it and stares at herself breathlessly. The touches of once invisible blush now blaze like softly glowing embers against her cheeks. Her eyes water just looking at herself. Halley removes the hair pin and lets her hair fall around her head. She shakes it out and once again grabs the whole mass of it with one hand and with her other hand, she feels her temple and moves it up to her hairline, reaching her middle finger in and pulling away a thin lock of hair, which she allows to lie against her face, about an inch from her eyes. Tilting her head, but not smiling, she spins her hand and stabs her hair back into a bun.

She stares at herself for a moment, and then takes a peak at the digital clock by her bedside. Ironically, she has fixed herself up four minutes quicker than on normal days, when she rushes through the ordeal. Time has miraculously slowed down for her, if only a little.

Turning away from her reflection and aching the slightest bit because of it, she strides down the short hallway to the outside door and taking only a passing glance at the calendar.

* * *

Halley approaches a table and smiles politely, “What would like, guys?” in a normal accent, without any hint of the South and very little North. The two twenty-something males are still undecided. Halley walks away, giving them a minute. She’s had thousands of customers, but these two seem familiar. She tried for two months to remember all her customers at least by sight. This was too difficult, so she tried to remember only the ones who hit on her, so she could be icy, but even this select group became too large for her memory. She settled for a system of continual amnesia long ago.

“Dude,” one of pair says to his companion, “wasn’t that the waitress you hit on last time?”

“You know, it’s been a couple months. Yeah, it does look like her, but she’s different. Besides, the other one had to have been from Georgia or something, judging by her accent. This one’s from around here. And I’ll bet you anything she’s taken.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The way she carried herself. Waitresses are low-income, so they’re not getting their confidence from their money. That means they have to get it from their boyfriends. I know girls, and they rarely produce their own confidence. Trust me.”

Halley returns, “You guys decided yet?”

The first guy opens his menu, “Yes, I’d like…”

* * *

Halley exhales, still staring intently at the total stranger that she just expressed her utmost distaste. Her eyes squint against the harsh stage lights coming from her right.

“Okay,” a voice comes from the audience, “that was wonderful. Dennis, I like your charisma. We’ll keep in touch. Miss Malore, I was intrigued by your performance…”

* * *

Halley breathes quickly, her nervousness clearly visible even in the extreme low light. She brushes off her large, puffy skirt, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to let the heat escape from under her many petticoats. She leans in, straining to hear voices, and nods. “Okay,” she whispers to herself, “almost time.”

Suddenly it becomes very dark; pitch black even, and Halley runs blindly into the abyss. Hands grab her from behind and sit her down in a chair. The light returns and Halley finds herself seated at an outdoor table complete with a tea set and a place of English muffins, looking quite unsurprised. A woman, dressed similarly, comes upon her, and the two initiate a conversation.

“…if I may speak candidly—” the woman asks her, mid-way through their rather haughty discussion.

“Pray do! I think that whenever one has anything unpleasant to say, one should always be quite candid.” Halley replies with a twenty-four carat smile, oblivious to her archaic language.

But the woman says something wrong and hatred fills Halley’s face.

A tall man with unruly black hair comes upon her and she embraces him, and then becomes disgusted with him moments later after a startling revelation from her new and, frankly, former acquaintance. There is some angered dialogue and Halley’s companion finally states, “Neither of us is engaged to be married to any one.”

“It is not a very pleasant position for a young girl suddenly to find herself in. Is it?” Halley replies.

One can scarcely notice now how out of place Halley and her companions are. The clothes they wear are centuries old, and the furniture, undeniably made for the outdoors, rests on a black wood floor rather than a field of green grass. Most noticeably, a conversation so personal should have been greatly hindered by the thousands of eyes watching them from their plush, scarlet seats, arranged in sloping rows and curving in almost a semicircle around the small box where the scene is taking place.

Three people in this audience look onto this scene with exceptional interest. These three sit in the upper tier, second row, slightly off-center toward stage right. All three are in their early twenties and in formal attire. The first man, contently smiling, has light olive skin, dark brown eyes, and longish black hair, all of it pulled behind his ears and lying against the back of his neck. The second man, casually smiling, also has black hair, but it’s shorter, jet black, and unruly, but in an organized unruliness, if that’s at all possible. The third person is a woman, her hair deeply cherry red, straight, and falling perfectly to her shoulders, a hair clip in the shape of a white blossom holding the left side behind her ear. Her white-gloved hands cover her mouth, gleefully smiling, and her eyes are in teary delight.

Chapter 6