SEVEN

Sue propped herself against the door of the Suds-n-Save laundromat and with an unsteady hand, cupped her last cigarette. The glow of the ember painted her face in a tired and meandering hue.

“That fucker, he think’ I’m a goddam fool,” the words leapt from cracked lips. “He ain’t been actin’ right for weeks and if he think’ I ain’t onto his ass he got another thing coming.” She took the final drag of her cigarette and squashed the butt beneath her sandaled foot before returning to her fiercely guarded washing machines.

Sue always did laundry on Friday nights. While everyone else was out spending whatever was left over from the week, she could sit and watch over her machines, making sure, “ain’t nothin’ got stolen.” She and her man, Robbie, didn’t have much and it got stolen once. As Sue often mused, it cost them “a whole lot of begging and borrowing just go get back to basics.” So, she’d sit; impatiently tapping her foot for the two hours it took.

Arms tucked in and folded in thirds. That’s how Robbie liked his shirts done. While Sue busied herself transforming the modest pile of warm cotton, her mind drifted back to her and Robbie’s last argument.

***

“I was just thirsty this week is all,” Robbie protested, throwing his weathered hands up as if to signal surrender to a storm he knew would blow him away.

“I wasn’t born yesterday. We’ve gotten one jug of OJ every week for 2 years and you tell me now that I come home to find two glasses in the sink that you,” Sue aped incredulity, “that you was just thirsty. Who the hell been in my house, Robbie? Who been drinking my juice?”

***

Sue finished folding the clothes and double checked the dryer. She once said that she “lost a whole shirt because it got stuck in the fins.” And on this Friday night, tucked behind the washer door lay one of Sue’s panties. They were $15 a pop down at the mart, and she knew well that “you can’t just buy one, you gotta’ get the whole set.”

She started packing up to go, but as she did, a heavy thought crept its way into her chest and sat firmly on her heart; a thought as crushing as that second empty glass in her kitchen sink. A flash of heat swept over her and, before her mind could catch up, she found herself turning her tattered laundry bag out onto one of the folding tables. Them ain’t my panties.

***

Three weeks ago she had called Robbie on her lunchbreak to tell him to thaw the porkchops her mom had brought them a while back. “Who’s that,” the words found their way out before she had even registered the rationale.

“Nobody, just got the T.V. loud. I’ll take the porkchop out now,” Robbie replied flatly.

***

But them ain’t my panties. There should be seven pairs. One-two-three-four, shit, where’s the rest of them? Sue fumbled through the humble mound, her nicotine-stained fingers swimming against the linen currents. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven, just seven.

Sue’s phone chimed, it was a text from Robbie. “I love you, when will you be done there?” The screen was cracked, and half of the pixels were dead. It was nearly illegible, but to Sue the message was crystal clear. Of course there are only seven. Robbie loves me. It was as if she had heard the safety click on a loaded gun aimed straight for her heart. She and Robbie were safe.

Her roiling heat gave way to a nauseating, chilled sweat and just as suddenly as it had appeared, the heaviness in her chest dissipated.

She smiled a tired smile and started refolding the jumble of shirts she had scattered. I should cook something special tonight. “Soon,” she typed out the reply, her fingers catching on the cracks in the phone’s screen. “Take out some beef to thaw and I’ll make spaghetti.”

She opened her laundry bag to put everything away, and the gun went off. It was there before her very eyes in crimson and lace.

Eight.

Justin Waters: a 37 y/o single father to a wonderful 8 year old daughter, an Army Veteran, a chemical engineer by day, and a writer by night. As a scientist, I find myself often pulled towards science fiction but a compelling character can tug me in any direction.