Twenty Minute Break

Rosalia Vista thought herself unworthy of her given name, after everything. Once she graduated from the Academy, she’d allow them to announce her full name. Her namesake is the reason she decided to pursue a career in law enforcement. Police may have failed her as a child, but she could find justice as an adult. 

 She was close to having the five thousand in Academy tuition, as close as she’d ever been. Only four hundred more, and she could transfer the funds tonight. She could imagine the confirmation email subject: Congratulations - Officially Enrolled in the Recruit Class of January 2037. She’d have two months to get her act together on the PT test, but she was young. She’d be back in shape in two weeks. 

For too long, it had been one step forward, two steps back. Bills paid, five hundred saved, then a few hundred for new brakes and driver assistance after a failed car inspection. The next month: bills paid, seven hundred squirreled away, then a surprise call that her dad is alive and in a home for paralyzed adults. He needs to be moved, and, of course, that costs a thousand. 

For now, like her bank account, she went by an abbreviated version of her full potential. 

“What do you want, Roe?” Marty sighs. 

Roe places herself directly in front of the seated bald man, not that there is anywhere else to place herself in this broom closet of a back room. Using his name, Marty, makes her throat tighten. More things were doing that to her again: using people in authority's name, ordering food in the drive through, asking the nurse if she could speak to the manager.

Marty quickly minimizes his browser, and clicks on a spread sheet with five cells filled. His tie hangs to his belly button, the crater visible behind the strained buttons of his short sleeved dress shirt. “Trouble with the screen replacement again?” He keeps his eyes on the screen; types something that could be a word.

Roe resists the urge to roll her eyes. She already corrected all of the screen repairs he tried himself yesterday.  

“I need to run home. I swear I left my straightener on in the bathroom,” she lies. “I’m afraid I’m going to cause a fire in the apartment. I only need twenty, thirty minutes.” Roe knows that Marty walks to his car on his lunch break to triple check it’s locked. He checks his home security app hourly. He would empathize with this anxiety. 

“I don’t have anyone to cover you,” Marty says. 

I’m asking you to cover for me, the look on her face responds. She lets the silence expand between them, the one beneficial skill developed spending years mute. 

“Fine. If you’re a second over twenty minutes, I’m writing you up.” He groans as he pushes himself up by the office chair arms to stand. 

“Thanks,” Roe throws over her shoulder as she’s striding out of the tiny store. “Thirty minutes.” She sets a timer on her phone.

In seconds, she’s out of YouBreakWeFix, down the back hall, past the nail salon that only men in matching sweat outfits went to, and past the abandoned collectables store. Once outside, she allows herself to stop for one deep breath, letting the sun warm her face. Soon, it would be too cold and too cloudy for such luxuries. For now, the burnt leaves clung to their branches, and she wouldn’t need a coat until dusk again. 

Roe starts her car, the usual wave of relief at the mere fact that her car started is quickly replaced with dread because her check engine light still glows red. The bluetooth is out and her AUX is frayed at the end so she flips through the radio.

Roe turns the volume down on another one of those sleep ads: Just like food and water, sleep is necessary for life. Good rest is a right. Get your free sleep-aid pillow tonight. She makes a mental note to stop at the kiosk giving them away after work, never feeling as impacted by the double moon, but better sleep couldn’t hurt. 

Roe drives the two miles to her apartment building in silence. 

When Roe parks at her apartment, she trudges up the brown carpeted stairs, thankful not to pass a neighbor. Inside, she grabs the USB with the essays she typed up over the weekend. She sighs. They’re too good. She got into this one because it was on the cultural implications of the translation of texts throughout history. Roe had, because of Primrose, been interested in language since a young age. She often asked her grandmother why she switched languages so much throughout her day, and she explained that each language was better at expressing certain things than others. She chose the words that let her express herself best. All this is to say, Roe spent the weekend, nerding out too hard for some rich asshole who didn’t want to do the schoolwork Roe wished she could afford. 

She tucks the oldschool USB in her pocket and glances at the handle of vodka on the counter. 

No. Better drive straight back, get the money, finish her shift, and deposit the cash directly after work. Have a drink to celebrate pressing “Submit”.

Also, a hair of the dog would make her feel better, let her get through the day. Then she’d obviously have to stop the booze tomorrow, once the tuition was paid and she was enrolled.

After the liquor burns down her throat, she thinks she better get an upper too. While she’s at it. To stay sharp. She pops the pill in her mouth and chases it down with the liquor again. 

Walking down the stairs, she feels lifted. Not actually good, but functional. Brighter. Not the dull, slow version of herself that walked into this messy, shitty apartment. A slightly different version that could manage to trade this USB for the cash, the version that could work six more hours under the artificial light for Marty and the pissed off customers that came in. 

As soon as Roe parks back at the mall, she spies Rocco sitting on the bench, waiting for her. His girlfriend - was it Jodi or Jess? - lays her head on his shoulder. God, she hated those morons so much. But they were too stupid to use the University software that confirms the words were typed by human fingers, and had the cash to pay someone like her to do it. Roe wondered if they even knew how to type, if they exclusively used the voice to text to communicate. 

“We were worried you weren’t going to show,” Jessica said by way of greeting. 

Roe frowns, and pulls the USB out of her purse. “Four-fifty.”

Rocco lets out a whistle. “Upping your prices on us smarty pants?”

“It’s one fifty an essay, as it’s always been. There are three essays here.” 

Rocco stands and pulls the money from his pocket. Roe hates this part. They exchange the goods at the same time, like a fucked up, crisscrossed handshake. Rocco always makes it feel slimy, pressing his fingers into the flesh of her arm, sending creepy crawlies running up her spine. 

Last time, she reminds herself.

The second Roe puts her hand in Rocco’s she knows something is off. The cash feels short, and there is a plastic feel in the money too. Instantly, Roe grips around the USB, keeping it tight in her palm. 

She feels light headed. Is it the surprise or the vodka and upper cocktail?

Rocco grins. “We supplemented with amps for you. Figured that was okay.”

Roe moves to pull her hand back but he’s gripped her around the wrist, too tight. 

The girlfriend stands from the bench, a worried look passing between the two of them. 

“Four fifty. Cash. Or nothing,” Roe says as calmly as she can manage. 

“Sorry, honey.” Rocco grips around Roe’s fist, grinding his thumb into her palm where the USB is tucked inside. “That’s what it is this time.”

“We’ll do all cash, next time,” Girlfriend chimes in from her peripheral.

The base of Roe’s skull tingles. She recalls the self-defense book she checked from the library after her first foster brother forced himself on her in the night, and she couldn’t overpower him. By the second night, under Primmie’s pillow, she slept with the book. He arrived at three in the morning, and she knew how to use his weight against him. Sent him away screaming and bloody.

Now, she’s recalling page 55 in the chapter of upright defense, and the precise sequence of moves she will use in the next ten seconds if he doesn’t take his hairy knuckles off of her. 

Roe grips her fist tighter. “Come back later with all the money and you can have the essays.”

“You nerdy bitch,” Rocco spits. “I’m leaving here with those essays whether you take this money or not.”

The twenty minute timer on Roe’s phone jingles from her back pocket. The three of them are temporarily distracted. Marty would write her up now too. 

She should just give in. It wasn’t worth it. Take what she could get. Sell the pills herself, maybe even make more on it. Plus, her own supply was running low. He must have known that, somehow. She had time to run back into work, tell Marty she caught too many red lights. She could even offer him one of the pills to keep him from writing her up. 

“Are you going to let her get that?” Girlfriend asks Rocco.

“Shut up,” he snaps. 

The way she flinches, and cowers back, Roe recognizes. Roe sees the bruise under her eye, the concealer she tried to cover it with too thick in the sunlight. 

Rocco's pupils dilate. He has no intention of walking away from here without those essays. They’re finals, and his life is over if he fails. His dad will cut him off, and he would actually have to work. He grips tighter, and leans to pull Roe forward.

 In a kick of her leg and a shift of her weight, she has Rocco caught off guard. She flips him over her back. He screams, yelling incoherent expletives. In a breath, he slams to the ground. Back splayed hard against the concrete. 

Roe braces herself, ready for him to pop up, come on the attack. 

The base of her neck still prickles. Roe transitions to the Ready Stance from Chapter 2: Feet shoulder-width apart, toes pointed forward, feet staggered, knees bend slightly, back heel elevates, palms forward and hovering twelve inches from her face. She tucks her chin, and shrugs her shoulders slightly. 

She’s ready, expecting him to move, to lunge after her. 

He doesn’t. 

He doesn’t move at all. 

“I should have known better,” Roe tells Girlfriend, who’s already on the phone, calling the police.