A story from the space next ordinary (edited)

"What the hell is that," Yvonne asked the 12 year old boy who was with her, pointing at the locked glass case. Her son? Grandson?

"It's an iPod."

"No. It's too expensive. Get a game." She had a pinched, sucked in mouth and she looked like she had a headache: frowning, squinting with one eye.

They walked away for a token visit to the game section, but they came back with a blue-vested clerk. (Where did they find one of those?) The clerk was jingling keys on an elastic leash attached to her sweatpants. She carried them with authority, as if she was a cop with a baton.

"He wants one of those eye-thingies. Whatever that is," said the woman through clenched teeth as if she was telling someone about the jerk who just forced her off the road with a big Dodge truck pulling a horse trailer. She kept muttering and sighing while the clerk tried six different keys. "He could get a game, but he wants one of those. Thinks we live by a damn money tree. And I guess we'll have to get some headphones too."

"They all come with headphones," the clerk said with the snobby authority of an Acura salesman.

The boy pointed to the Nano and received it with a smile. The clerk stared at the ground letting her words drift up like cigarette smoke. "Is that all you want."

"I don't even want that. He just has to get it because it costs more." Yvonne said this with a sarcastic meanness that had no effect on the boy. He must be used to the way she talks. The clerk walked away without saying another word, tethered keys pulling on her waistband and bouncing against her thigh.

15 minutes later, I saw Yvonne at the gas station. The boy wasn't with her. (He was probably at the DQ next door, eating his birthday Blizzard.) Yvonne was buying scratch and win lottery tickets. A pile of them. I stood behind mom-with-Ford-SUV, both of us waiting to pay for our gas. SUV mom looked at me and smiled a shoulder shrugging, eye-rolling smile after a couple minutes of watching Yvonne scratching her tickets and handing them to the cashier to run through the computer. NOT A WINNER flashed on the LCD above the register each time.

Another woman walked in. She had to sidle between the chips and me to get to the back of the line. She was tall in her stilettos, calf hugging jeans, and long red earrings. The filler-guy checked her out a bit too long. I could see him in the mirror looking at her ass. She must have seen him too, but her face didn't register any offense. She was chewing gum. When she squeezed by me, I got a strong whiff of perfume. It hit my nose like the humid air that hits when you step off a jet in Mexico and reminded me a bit of the gas fumes I just inhaled filling up my motorcycle. She said, "excuse me" with a deep, husky, Jame Bond villainess voice and I noticed one of her front teeth was tobacco brown behind waxy red lips. When she claimed her spot in the line behind me, she coughed up half a lung and sighed. The gas jockey didn't take his eyes off her until a customer drove over his "ding-ding" cable outside.

My attention returned to Yvonne. She looked like she was writing the test that would decide her future: if she could just get it right. She had to scratch the prescribed squares, blowing away the scratch dust and peering like an archaeologist before a most delicate specimen. She was looking for the right number. Her lips moved like a zealot as she silently offered her prayer for a winning ticket.

The SUV mom looked back at me again. I took off my helmet and settled onto my left hip for a long line wait. I smiled at SUV mom and then looked back at Yvonne to assess her wardrobe. She was wearing a black and red lumberjack jacket with black bicycle shorts and white sneakers. If I hadn't observed her with buying the iPod, I would have guessed that she was a bingo junkie suffering from nicotine withdrawal. I guess she still could be, but her face had such a hopeful concentration I could almost say she looked like an artist on the verge of creating her next masterpiece.

Skinny legs poked out from her shorts like shouldn't-be-there barbie stems. They reminded me of horse legs with all the hair shaved off: bandy and tight and pale. I would have expected to see more varicose veins on a woman her age, but there were none. Just bluish-white, TV-light skin.

The clerk waved the line forward. "I'll just help these people while you do that," he said. Yvonne didn't look up from her task, the world focused on the dull edge of her lucky penny.

SUV mom paid and hurried off. I paid and headed out to my motorcycle. Somebody honked a horn. I looked over to my right and saw a van with its reverse lights on. It was stuck behind a 1980-ish Topaz. White and rust. I delayed my departure to see if it belonged to Yvonne.

The van driver went into the gas station as I reset my trip meters. He came back a few seconds later, but Yvonne was still leaning on the counter contemplating her tickets, making sure she didn't miss any magic squares. Hoping against fate.

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