Lunch Hour | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Lunch Hour | Previous Challenge Entry
By Susan Lower
03/01/08
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It was Friday. Two hours before lunch and Jane sat on a bench outside her office building clutching a box. Fired. She sniffled, but the button sized tears rolled down her face. Over head the sky drew dark. The wind blew cool at her neck. The doors to her old job firmly shut.

She sighed. There was no going back. This morning she walked in, confident, toting her bagged lunch of yogurt and fruit. Not even a half an hour later her boss handed her a pink slip. Executives, she thought with a snide, four years and this is what they thought of her. How on earth was she supposed to go home and look into the face of her son not knowing where tomorrow’s meal would come from?

Last week, she’d emptied her savings. The family car had broken down for the last time. It just seemed logical to replace it. She’d prayed about, felt positive God affirmed the decision. She needed a reliable car.

Only now she needed to pay the rent and put food on the table more. What good was a new car without a job to drive to? How would she tell her son she could no longer afford those new basketball shoes?

She notched her chin; she had enough groceries for a few more days. They gave her two weeks severance pay. She still had three weeks till the rent and utilities were due. She’d find away. It was as if her dog had died. That happened last week. The same day her favorite pair of shoes got stuck by the heel in a sewer drain. She had other shoes. The dog was old. Hey, there were other jobs out there.

She tried to cheer herself up. Hefting up the meager contents of her box she walked to the parking lot. The clock at city hall chimed on the lunch hour. Slowly one by one people passed her, walked behind her, made their way to their cars. No one spoke to her. She kept her eyes to the sidewalk. The picture frame in her box slid and tilted her box to the side. The radio which used to sit on the corner of desk threw her off balanced when it shifted. She stepped into the path of an unexpected pedestrian. The box toppled out of her arms to the pavement spilling her belongs into the space of employee #9.

“I’m so sorry”, she looked over at the man who had merely side stepped the catastrophe. His warm smile and kind eyes dried the next burst of tears she would have shed.

“Here let me help.” He said bending down to pluck up the picture of her son. He snapped the broken frame back together and placed it in box she managed to retrieve. “Cute kid,” he helped her pick up the rest of her things.

“Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say. Above her the swirl of gray clouds grew heavy. She wouldn’t make it to the other side of the lot before it began to rain.
“I really am sorry.” She said. “I was distracted.”
“Of course,” He smiled. “Your not the only one today I fear.” He nodded towards a gentleman stuffing a briefcase and a trash bag into the backseat of a car.

“I must be going. Again I’m sorry.” Her lip trembled. She knew the man at the car; he worked at the end of her floor in the advertising department. The knowledge of his departure didn’t make her feel any better. He too, had a family who depended on him.

At the first touch of a rain drop she scurried past the man. “Wait,” he called. She turned back and he handed her a card. “You’re from the seventh floor, second door over, right?”

“Yes,” she was curious to look down at what he handed her. “Well, at least I was.”

“Tomorrow, 9 o’clock,” He tapped the card. “I think you’ll find there are greater things in store for you.” He left her then with the sprinkle of rain.

Jane turned over the card. She paid no attention to the mist of rain dampening her hair. Her heart swelled. “Thank you Jesus.” She whispered walking in a hurried pace to her car. Tomorrow could not come soon enough.

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