Gold: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Two hours and a gas station sandwich later, Auralie stepped into the cool, welcoming air of the downtown public library in Dallas, Texas. Sweat clung to her, and she felt like a doused rat emerging from the water near a wharf. Summer blazed outside, and taking the bus coated her in layers of soot, dust, and exhaust. While being wedged between the window and a woman with a canvas bag full of groceries, she had had plenty of time to think about this morning. She probably should have kept her cool—no way that Dawn would give her a reference now, but the satisfaction of telling everyone to go to hell was worth it. For now.

She inhaled the smell of paper and ink, and her eyes swept over the familiar sight of stacks of books, large potted plants, and a giant globe in one corner. Sunlight streamed through large windows, illuminating the rows of public computers, the self-help check out machines, and the children’s wing, with its brightly painted murals of caterpillars and lions. The downtown library had made up updates for the 21st century worker—stationary bikes with a small stand for a laptop or a tablet perched along the wall, for those who wanted exercise breaks. Stepping into the library always felt a bit like coming home, no matter which library it was. This library was special because the director had given her first job out of the military—after all the shit went down. Laura Michaels had looked at her resume, asked her a few basic questions, and didn’t say anything about what her background check surely pulled up. Even today—especially today, the memory made her throat close.

As she strode toward one of the public computers, she replayed what happened over and over, and once again, she felt that hot anger zip up the back of her skull and tighten her stomach. Good. If she was angry, then she couldn’t be afraid.

She quickly logged on, then pulled up the webpage for the flex job account she had made. All that anger would help her focus.

Until a screaming child erupted in the children’s area.

It happened some days—children didn’t want to leave the library when Story Time was over, so they howled until their parents plucked them up and towed them away. Auralie always felt both relief and empathy for them—she didn’t like crying, but it was cute how they loved the library so much that they didn’t want to leave.

There was nothing cute about how this child wailed.

Normally, Auralie didn’t interfere, since she figured no parent wanted the stress of a stranger butting into console a kid who probably just needed a nap anyway, but there was no way Auralie would be able to concentrate when what sounded like a child being tortured by demons.

She scooted out of her chair and walked toward the child. He was a tiny, admittedly cute Asian boy dressed in overalls and a Thomas the Tank engine shirt. His face was red and scrunched up. His mother looked exhausted—a baby, no more than six or seven months—snoozed in a stroller nearby.

Reaching into her pocket, Auralie pulled out a pair of lollipops she still had with her from the bank. The bank always kept dog treats for pets and candy for children in the drive through window, and Auralie doubted his mother would approve of Fido’s Dental Delites.

“Hey,” she said to get the child’s attention. “Look.” She held up the two sticks.

Maybe it was the shock of seeing a stranger, but the boy stopped crying long enough to look up.

“Hey Mrs. Lollipop,” said Auralie in a sing-song voice. “Do you want to check out some books?” She wiggled one of the lollipops.

“Sure do, Mr. Candy,” she replied to herself.

I’m not getting any points for creativity, she thought. But at least the kid was hiccupping and not crying.

“But we’ve got to check out the books, then go home for a snack,” she continued. Then she turned the candy toward the boy, as if speaking to him. “Do you want to go home for a snack?” asked Auralie.

The boy glanced shyly at his mom, then nodded his head while rubbing one eye. He then pointed to the candy.

“May I?” asked Auralie.

“Yes, thank you,” said the mother. “Come on, David, let’s go.” She reached for his hand and pulled him up while Auralie unwrapped the candy and gave it to him.

The mother thanked Auralie again and pulled him away. Auralie sat back down at the computer and began to fill out applications. She had a good two hours before her shift started.  

As Auralie filled out application after application, the tedium grew so strong that it made her jaw ache. Always the same information, and applications always wanted her to fill out exactly what was already on her resume. Work history. Going back ten years. Thankfully, if she concentrated on how boring it was, she didn’t have to think about her anger. How absurd the whole situation was. She just let the cool air of the AC flow around her and the smell of books lull her into a kind of stupor. Her eyes hardly wavered from the computer screen for two hours while she filled out any application she came across. Dishwasher. Assistant maintenance landscaper. Call center representative. Night shift security.

That last one had a little promise, but there were so many people who had already applied—276 by the website’s count. Auralie was just a minnow in a very big ocean.

Bitterness—that old feeling like a creeper vine—squeezed her chest and she gripped the mouse harder. She shouldn’t have to be here. She had a job lined up after getting out of the army. It was going to be perfect, a cushy CPA job with the government. She would work forty years, live on 20% of her income, then save the rest, then retire when she was 55 and live on mutual funds for the rest of her life.

But she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. She just had to say something, she just had to stick her nose—

The computer flashed a warning that her time limit was almost up. She glanced up at a wall clock and stretched her neck. Twenty-eight applications in two hours wasn’t bad. She stood, even though everything screamed in her to hurry, hurry, hurry. She had nothing—no savings (her stupid, piece-of-shit car wiped that out last month), no family members she could ask to borrow money from (her parents would just dangle the money over her and feel entitled to use Auralie as a permanent servant), and she couldn’t file for unemployment. The government didn’t help disgraced veterans.

Grabbing her backpack, she went to the bathroom to change into her uniform for her shift. When she emerged, she caught sight of Solomon Grant, philanthropist, venture capital investor, and lover of crossword puzzles, ambling up the staircase, Financial Times newspaper tucked under one arm. Today he wore a crisp, linen suit that nearly matched his long, white hair that he kept tied neatly at the nape of his neck. No doubt he was going to sit at his usual spot, one of the large, plush chairs in a reading corner near where Auralie normally stood in position. They had met through osmosis; he came nearly every day, sat in the same spot while Auralie stood guard, and eventually, they had struck up a conversation. He had turned to her and said in a lilting Welsh accent, “What’s a 12-letter word for fear of a baker’s dozen?”

Almost immediately, she replied, “Triskaidekaphobia.” She and her grandmother loved doing crosswords and Scrabble together. She loved pulling out the official Scrabble dictionary as a kid, and even though she hardly ever won against her grandmother, she loved how the tiles made a satisfying click against the board or figuring out the puzzles in the game. Her grandmother would always make her cheese toast or serve pecan shortbread cookies with milk while fleecing Auralie with vocabulary.

After that, they struck up a conversation, and the time passed quickly with someone to talk to.

This particular security job was relatively easy compared to some of the jobs Auralie had while in the Army. The most she had to handle was Jimmy, the homeless guy who spoke nearly nonstop to the books about advanced alien mathematics, when he forgot where he was.

There were lots of Jimmys in the library. Most of the time, they didn’t cause a ruckus, but occasionally, Auralie had to steer them away from patrons who didn’t want to listen to tales of Nostradamus.

A woman dressed in pressed slacks and a white blouse with frills on the cuffs and collar walked up to her. She clutched her purse as though hefting a shield.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” said the woman. She discreetly pointed at Jimmy. “Is there anything you can do about him?” She leaned in closer to Auralie, who caught the whiff of coffee on her breath. “His odor is causing a distraction.”

“But he hasn’t threatened to harm you, correct?”

“No, but—”

“And he isn’t loud, shouting, or otherwise causing a disturbance?”

“No, it’s just—”

“Then please let that man, who doesn’t have a home, who has to sleep outside, and who doesn’t have access to a consistent bathroom, just find rest. He has as much right to the library as you do. If his smell bothers you, I would suggest moving to a different reading location.” Auralie smiled at the woman, who grimaced, then walked away.

The library was one of the few places left in society where every single social class mingled, second perhaps only to Olive Garden. Sure, she sympathized with the lady; Jimmy was…ripe, like the best of Roquefort cheeses, but that was socially taboo, not a crime.

As she took up her spot in a sunny corner, she felt her shoulders unclench a little bit. Job searching was going to be a long-ass slog, but at least she did something about it. Fear and desperation clawed up her throat and peck at her eyes, stinging them, but she couldn’t break down in the middle of the library. She had a job to do, and she would stand here until she was relieved of duty.

Auralie waited to speak until Solomon finished the paper, folded it neatly beside him, then turned to her. She dreaded this conversation, the words she knew Solomon was going to say.

“So how are you?”

What was she supposed to say? “My life just turned into an even bigger pile of shit, and it was already pretty shitty to begin with.” Or, “I was a dumbass who got her dumbass fired from one of the easiest jobs on the planet, and now I don’t know how I’m going to pay rent.”

When people asked that question, they usually didn’t truly care how the person was doing, and why would they? At the grocery checkout, at the bank, at the doctor's office…everyone just making small talk. Auralie didn’t like small talk; she needed to get to the heart of the matter quickly. No time for inefficiency.

“Um, not great,” she replied.

“Oh? What happened?”

Heat crawled up her cheeks. God, why was there such shame in losing your job? Like you had failed as a person. People only paid attention to you if you had money to give them or they were giving you money. That’s it. That’s all humanity really boiled down to. Be paid or pay up. And fuck, the bank didn’t even want her after a few mistakes. Worthless, in their eyes.

“I was fired,” she said. She looked at the questioning look in Solomon’s eyes, his mouth poised to probe for details, but she added, “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m taking care of it, though.”

One of the flex jobs would surely accept her. Everyone needed a warm body these days, doing the menial work no one else wanted. Her fingers itched to check her phone, but the director had a strict no-phone policy on the floor. The small rectangle burned against Auralie’s thigh. She took a steadying breath and said, “What about you?”

To his credit, Solomon dropped the issue. “Oh, you know me,” he said. He waved the newspaper in the air. “I’m almost done with today’s crossword.” He gave her a pitying look, and Auralie wasn’t sure which was worse—to be scorned or pitied. It was the same look that people gave the homeless in the library. A look of pity and caution, as though they had leprosy, as though if they came too close, they might catch the poverty plague. “You’ll find a job soon. You’re resourceful.”

“Thanks. Any hints today that stumped you?”

“Well, not me, but I pity anyone who hasn’t read The Gold Bug by Edgar Allen Poe.” He smiled knowingly. “Have you read it?”

Auralie shook her head, waiting for the feeling of wanting to burst into tears to pass. It was a special kind of torture to pretend to be normal when one’s world was crumbling around her.

Get it together. You can find a job.

“Just The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart,” she added.

“Good stories those, but the Gold Bug was always my favorite as a young boy.”

“Rumpelstiltskin was mine.” Auralie loved the idea of taking something near worthless and brittle and making a roomful of money. She had loved imagining all those rooms full of gold coins, necklaces, tiny statues made of gold and the princess in her tower, and getting the best out of the tiny demon.

Solomon chuckled. “Would you also sell your child for money?”

“I would sell a lot more than that.”

“Oh, don’t let the pessimism seep into your bones,” said Solomon, turning to face her. A light shone from his eyes. Solomon was always so cheerful, so bright. She needed him to be dark and dour for once.

“Too late. It started around the same time I learned that there is no such thing as a fairy who takes your teeth for coins.”

“You will pull through this. You’re smart. If you can survive six years of being in the army, you can handle this little hiccup.”

A “little hiccup” was what people who wore Tom Ford shirts to the library called losing a job. But Solomon had always been kind to her, and she had already let anger run amok in her life, so all she said in response was “Thank you.”

After that, Auralie fell quiet. Solomon didn’t stay too much longer, tucking his newspaper under his arm and giving her a small wave goodbye. Auralie forgot exactly what he did before he retired, but she knew that he probably had Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth. They never really talked much about his personal life; the only things Auralie knew for certain was that he was a widower, had three grown children, and a great Irish hound named Lucy.

The time crawled by without Solomon to keep her company. On her break, she checked her phone—no word from flex jobs. Maybe something would hit before her shift ended.

She went back out and mostly faded into the background, unless someone needed to know where the bathroom was. When her shift ended, she refreshed her phone screen five times in as many minutes, but the result was still the same—no flex jobs had taken her.

Suddenly, all the fight went out of her. She knew she should just go home, hop back on her laptop, and keep on applying to job after job after dead-end, shit-wage, stupid-bosses, Dementor-level-soul-sucking job.

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t face one more second of being stuck on a belching, farting bus, breathing in gas exhaust, only to stumble back to her apartment two hours later. She couldn’t take one more second of worrying about where her next paycheck was coming from, how she would pay the bills, or how she would take care of her grandmother. The thought of going home, checking the mail, and finding yet another “overdue” letter in her mailbox set her teeth on edge. She normally did not run from a fight or a challenge. But this wasn’t a fight where she had a chance at winning. Not even in a “the chips were stacked against her,” for she had fought against small odds. No. This was ongoing and never-ceasing, where she would never have enough. Without a good job, she could never pull herself up, and with a black mark against her, she could never get a good job.

So as she stepped out of the library, the warm night air hitting her face, she opened up her geocache app. There were far better ways of frittering away one’s existence, but Auralie enjoyed any puzzle she could get her hands on. She needed the hit of dopamine of figuring out a complex problem because no other options of escapism currently presented themselves. Weed and alcohol were expensive, any good television required a subscription service, and she had broken up with her last boyfriend eighteen months ago, so sex was off the table. Hookups were nice, but she didn’t feel like fucking a stranger, so useless, imaginary digital points it was.

She opened the app, and a new quest appeared.

Follow the yellow brick road.

To be continued…

Pssst…Hey y’all, it’s Ariel. If you like what you’re reading, consider chipping in to my GoFundMe. Every little bit helps!