Cheryl Evans

The lady on the Bus

The woman in front of me keeps bumping me with her bags. Her arms are loaded down, and I can see the red grooves that her bags are making in the soft flesh of her forearms. It looks painful. She's teetering back and forth and I swear on the next turn she's going to fall over. It's the bags. They’re throwing her off balance. I will never understand why people insist on buying more than they can carry. I mean, didn't she know she would be riding the bus? Not that she’s dressed for it. Her hat is bubblegum pink and looks like it could be made of felt or something. It’s one of those funny french hats, a beret I think they’re called. And then there is the dress. It’s pink, like the hat. And it fits to her body like plastic wrap on leftovers, really tight in some places and baggy in others. It’s low in the front, so low I can see the tan line from her bathing suit on her breasts. Her skin is lightly golden 'til it hits that line and bam! White as whipped cream. Her earrings are so heavy they are pulling down her ears. And they’re cheap. The kind that you know is supposed to look expensive but isn’t foolin’ anyone. The bracelets loaded up her arms clink every time she sways and her feet are shoved into stilettos at least a size too small.

You know she is really trying to look sophisticated but the heat isn’t helping her one bit. Sweat slicks her hair to the back of her neck and it’s starting to curl around her face. She probably spent hours on that hair only to have it ruined by the lack of air in this tin can on wheels. It’s obviously dyed and she probably calls it blond but it's actually yellow, like the petals of a daffodil. It’s oddly pretty actually.

As the bus comes to a stop, a kid whizzes by on his scooter, squinting to look in the windows of the bus. I wonder if he can see her hair, lemon yellow under a pink beret, through the bus windows.

I am fixated on the woman in pink. I have so many questions for her. I wonder what she does? Is her to-do list filled with tasks like dye hair, get manicure? Does she work? No, she can’t to be shopping on a Monday. Does she have kids? I wonder...

A screeching baby snaps me back to reality. The mother sings softly to the child, trying to soothe her. I turn around to glance at the baby and when I look back she’s gone. I stand quickly, knocking my purse off my lap and dumping its contents onto the dirty bus floor. I scan the bus in a kind of panic to see where she went. Then I spot the hat, bobbing toward the front of the bus. As she exits she stumbles, her heel getting stuck in a sidewalk crack. She moves through the crowd on street head held just high enough to seem forced. The bus lurches forward and she fades into the distance like pink mirage.

I wonder where she’s going, wonder, wonder.........