Fire Truck

A Story by Audrey Fi

A struggling actress comes to terms with her failure.

She pointed to the menu with a stabbing motion. “I’d like this one,” she said, “though I’m not sure how to pronounce it.”

“Fifty-two?” asked the waiter, leaning forward and squinting.

“No, fifty-one.”

The waiter wrote this down and walked away. She glanced at the clock and discovered, to her dismay, that he was already half an hour late.

“Can I take this chair, miss?” a fellow patron asked her.

“No, I’m using it,” she replied.

The fellow patron raised an eyebrow and looked at the empty seat.

“My friend’s coming later,” she quickly added, and the fellow patron left.

She felt sweat on her palms, and a fluttering in her stomach. She hurriedly checked her cell phone, for any messages. He hadn’t called. She flipped through recent messages from him: the one suggesting lunch, the one confirming lunch, and the one double-checking the confirmation for lunch. There were, as the backlit screen screamed, “NO NEW MESSAGES.”

They had arranged to meet about her prospects. She had been in town for a year and a half now, with no steady work to justify her upscale apartment or outlandish expenses. She had gone to every agency in town, looking for another paycheck. Her most recent work had been in a local commercial for a law firm. She had played the “Smiling Receptionist.”

He’d told her that he could find her something better, something fulfilling. He listed his credentials, though they seemed far too good to be true. She didn’t care. She would have been an extra for the “Smiling Receptionist” if anyone would hire her.

They had set a lunch date. He was now forty minutes late. She was certain he’d show up. He had promised he would. The last time she’d called, when she was double-checking the confirmation of the lunch, he’d told her that he had found some potential parts.

She let her gaze slide over the table, and out the tinted windows across the street. A toyshop stood in between a video store and a place for psychic readings. The windows had a few display cases showing off rather plain stuffed animals and other childish knickknacks. She let her eyes roam over the sidewalk.

There was a flash of color. There were green mittens, a bright green, a combination of limes and Granny Smith apples. And these mittens snugly fit the pudgy hands of a small boy, bundled in winter gear, bouncing around in front of a smiling middle-aged woman.

Sitting in the restaurant, she realized that the woman had fewer wrinkles than she did.

The boy and the woman paused directly across the street, in front of the toyshop. The boy grabbed the woman’s sleeve and wildly motioned towards something in the corner of the display case.

She squinted and saw something bright red. Gradually, as she squinted harder, the red blur took shape; it was a fire truck. The boy was now gesticulating in all directions, as the woman laughed.

She touched the restaurant window faintly, and breathed out, and her eyes were glued to the woman and the little boy.

“Excuse me, miss?” It was the same patron from before. He appeared to be annoyed, she noted, as she turned around slowly.

“Yes?” she asked hollowly.

“I was just thinking, your friend hasn’t arrived,” the patron said impatiently. “And if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, we’d like to take that chair.”

She stole a glance at her cell phone and then consented.

“Your number fifty-two?” the waiter asked; he’d approached with a tray.

“It was fifty-one,” she told him.

The waiter apologized and hastily returned to the kitchen. She checked her cell phone yet again. Her agent was now almost an hour late; he wasn’t going to show up. She crossed her legs, and then stared back out across the street. No one was gesturing excitedly. The boy with the green mittens was gone, and the woman with him. The fire truck, too, had disappeared.