A new story started 9/25/2021
When the clock struck twelve noon, the blue and white BART shuttle from San Fransisco landed in Emeryville, California leaving a young woman, Penny Lopez, standing on the platform. Beach blond, petite, and thin-waisted, she wore jeans and a medical uniform top, as if she were about to enter surgery in outpatient facility. She stopped walking toward the gate to the parking lot and set down her satchel, which was stuffed with water, clothes, and snack bars and had a North American Union Flag on the flap. She smelled the clean scent of shuttle fuel and the exhaust; and although she didn’t mind a little dirt, the station lacked the cleanliness she’d come to expect in her life.
Tim Slater saw the girl come into the terminal where he was waiting for his Mother’s shuttle from San Jose. Intrigued, her watched her fumble with her satchel while she looked for something, something apparently carefully stashed since she was removing clothing to get to it. He wondered what she was doing coming to a nothing town like Emeryville. Her apparent disorganization offended him; he required a high order of organization in all things. For that matter, the terminal offended him: the sticky floors, the noisy traffic, and the two people behind him discussing oral sex.
Jenny walked down the platform steps and then sat cross-legged on the ground of the terminal, her satchel in front of her. She examined her communicator with concentration; she couldn’t be lost, she thought, but it had been many years since she had come down here, and her sense of direction was notoriously poor. She looked for a landmark on the communicator readout for Emeryville, hopefully, one that she could see from the elevated shuttle lobby.
Tim thought about talking to her. She looked interesting; her hair was straight and went to mid-shoulder; her bulge at the bust was not pronounced but could be said to be as petite as her build, she wore hiking boots, which, when considered with the blue jeans, indicated she might live in the Sierra’s. Tim, felt a familiarity with her; and he decided, after some deliberation, to talk to her. He walked across the lobby, and he tried to approach her in a non-threatening manner.
“Hi,” Tim said as he came up to her. Up close, she had several beauty marks; one was on her cheek and several were on her neck. Her eyebrows were plucked and her nails neatly manicured. Tim thought she looked well-kept, not an itinerant hitchhiker at all. She looked up at him with a friendly smile.
“Just get to town?” he asked.
She took in Tim; he had on his best pair of Dockers and a plaid wool shirt that he wore on cool days like today. He was big; a hulking specimen who had an appearance of a wrestler. His hair was shoulder-length, neatly combed, and freshly washed so that it had a sheen when the sunlight hit it. She looked him over and paused at his left arm, which was missing. Instead of a stump, he had a prosthetic arm, which was attached at the elbow. He noticed the look, and felt uncomfortable and a little defiant, just as he did when anyone said anything about his artificial arm. Her eyes paused on it for a beat too long.
“What?” Tim said. “Haven’t you ever seen an artificial arm?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything; my brother had one. Where am I?” she asked.
“Emeryville, California, population 31,899,” he said. He had a scowl on his face.
“Oh good,” she said. I was afraid for a moment I was in Oakland.”
“You may wish you were in Oakland. There’s nothing much happening here.”
“I’m here to visit my Uncle. You from here?” she asked.
Tim scratched the scar on his chest, and said, “Glided up from Modesto, yesterday. I’m here to pick up my Mother; she should be here any minute. I don’t live here anymore, but I come back to see my parents.” She smiled at him, and the smile highlighted her beauty, which he found increasingly appealing.
“Your brother is a vet?” he asked.
“Was. He died three years ago.” Her shiny disposition became dull all of sudden.
Tim pulled his hair behind his left ear. “Happens to the best of us.”
“Well, he’s at peace now.” Her sunny disposition came back. “He was never happy after he came back from Iran. You might say he was troubled.”
He felt his thoughts swing to his own troubles; he lost track of where he was for a moment. For a second, he felt the fear come back and sit with him, patient, waiting. He struggled and succeeded in coming back to the present, just as Dr. Davis had suggested. “I served in Iran; three tours.”
She looked at him, long and with respect, and then said, “I was an Army Corpsman in Iran. My Uncle is a veteran too. Afghanistan.”
“Well I guess the Army is okay, but it ain’t the Marines.”
A silence descended on them, and for a moment Tim couldn’t think of anything to say. It was nice to talk to someone for a change instead of sitting alone in his apartment in Modesto, where he worked as a librarian. A quiet job, he sometimes went nearly the whole day without saying anything except occasional directions to find a book or an article on the computer for a visitor. Modesto was a flat town in a flat valley, the big valley, which had become almost a majority hispanic town. Not only did few people talk in the library, when they did, chances were it would be Spanish they spoke.
He had become a librarian at the suggestion of Dr. Davis, who thought the environment would be a good one for overcoming his PTSD. Because of his influence, he had, with some difficulty, earned his Master’s degree in Library Science from San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science. The move to Modesto was a necessary one because they had offered him the best job. Also, he couldn’t live with his mother anymore and her overly kind manner. Nothing irritated him more than kindness.
“My name’s Tim, Tim Slater.” He held out his hand.
She took it and said, “Penny Lopez.”
Tim paused, and then said, “Do you need a ride? My mom’s shuttle should be here soon. I have a transport is in the parking lot. Are you here by yourself?” he asked.
She hesitated, she didn’t trust him to know whether to trust him or not. She moved away from him, stood, with the satchel between like a protective barrier. She thought that he looked okay, artificial arm and all, but she remembered the vets at the Oakland Vet Center that were there when she had brought her brother in, and most of them hard to be around, even dangerous. She hesitated; she had only recently split from her boyfriend, Sam, in their hometown of Nevada City, and her feelings were still pretty raw, even more like live wires discharging high voltage. This man appeared to be okay; besides his appearance, he seemed to genuinely want to help her. They were both vets too, and it would be unseemly to brush him off.
“Sure, I could use a ride,” she said, standing and putting on the backpack with a practiced motion. “Want to wait over there?” She pointed to the bench by the concession machines which was empty.
They sat in the shade, the day being warm but not hot. She set her pack at her feet, and said, “So, Tim, what do you do?”
“I’m a librarian. I work for the Stanislaus County Library system in Modesto, thirteen branches and growing, that is if they pass the latest bond issue.”
“Do you work at all of them?”
“Just the main branch in Modesto. I mostly work with the computers, helping people with the databases and other computer applications.”
Penny sat close to him, next to his artificial arm, which he pulled back so it didn’t poke her in the ribs. She said, innocently, “I’d think it would be difficult to work with computers with only one hand.”
He reddened, saying, “I’m not handicapped.”
She put her hand on his shoulder, and said, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
She was beautiful, he thought, and he wondered about her life and whether she was married. He looked at the train schedule on the wall and figured they had at least fifteen minutes before his mother’s train got there.
She reached into her pack for a bottle of water. “Thirsty?” she said.
“No, a little hungry though. I was going to take my mother to lunch when her shuttle gets here.”
She sipped the water, a ventured a glance at him. He was handsome in a rugged sort of way; he had acne scars on his cheeks, which contributed to his overall rough look. A large-sized Harrison Ford. Kind of touchy though. She felt a certain animal attraction to him; he was the opposite of Sam, who was as gentle as an afternoon breeze; his lack of rough edges had ultimately made her lose interest in him. Tim had that brute appearance that she found attractive in men; even if they were a little too rough, a little too sharp around the edges.
“Want to go to lunch with us?” he asked.
Surprised, she considered. Tim saw that she had dimples, which became apparent as she considered his request and gave her a cute appearance. “My uncle said he wouldn’t be home until 3 p.m.; I suppose I could eat. He glanced at her. “Actually, I’m pretty hungry.”
“Good,” Tim said. “I know a great burrito place downtown.’
Penny put the water back in her pack. Tim stood and went to look up to find the shuttle. She carefully looked him over when he stood in profile. His build attracted her, as did, strangely enough, his artificial arm. She had worked with lots of soldiers who had lost limbs, and she felt their loss almost more than they did, which was probably due to the empathy she inherited from her mother. For her, the lack of a limb made no difference in a man, except when the loss affected them mentally. She wondered if this was the case with Tim.
He returned and said, “I think I see the shuttle,” he said. “Let me help you get your pack on.” He helped her get it into place, and together they stood on the platform as the train arrived. After stopping, his mother got off and spotted him. They walked toward each other. Penny stayed where she was.
After greeting each with a hug, they came back to where Penny was. “Mom, this is Penny. She’s here to see her uncle and I invited her to lunch.”
“Call me Jane,” she said to Penny and offered her hand, which Penny took lightly. She examined Penny with a critical eye, frowning a little when she took her hand back. “You’re not a local girl, are you?” she asked with a chilly voice.
“No,” Penny said. She smiled, her disposition was sunny and warm. “I’m from the foothills. Nevada City.”
Jane looked Penny up and down. “That explains the boots, I suppose; don’t they sell dresses in Nevada City?”
“Mom, be nice,” Tim said.
“I am being nice,” she said, sounding a little hurt. “I just think young women should dress appropriately and not look like they are going backpacking in the Rockies.”
Without further comment, Jane said, “Where’s the car?”
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