As Yet Untitled (WIP)

The first time I saw Sunny Glade, she was arguing with the postmaster in my father’s store. I was seven, and what my uncle, the postmaster, always called precocious. When he said that word, there was just a hint of a snarl in his voice, the outside corner of his left eye pinched up in his face, and he pronounced it with three distinct syllables: pre-CO-shuss.

When you’re seven, the world passes you over with little more than a glance. Counters are too tall, conversations are too adult, and your opinions are of no consequence. So when I heard Sunny growl,

“Ah shit Roy, even Janey could do better than that,”

I waited for the trouble that was sure to come my way—somehow, I’d been unwillingly placed right in the middle of Grown-Up-Things. The store got very quiet as Sunny looked at me, nodded her head, and winked.

For some reason that I can’t really explain, Sunny’s voice was the sweetest thing I had ever heard, even if the words that came out of her that day (and most others) were the same ones I got a mouth full of soap for saying. Uncle Roy shot a glance in my direction, his left eye beginning to pinch, and then he muttered something under his breath to my father. Both men disappeared into the back of the store, and I tried desperately to make myself as small as possible while they were gone. After several minutes, I was beginning to think I had believed myself into to being the size of an ant, and that when my pa and uncle returned, they wouldn’t even notice me. The voice in my head was chanting “go on now—get smaller, go on, go on now—get smaller,” and as I began to shrink, you can understand why I jumped a full foot in the air when Sunny’s big hand landed on my (dwindling) shoulder.

“My goodness Janey Bell, you really have grown up.”

All I could manage was a squeaky “Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you remember me?”

The voice in my head was part way through a sentence about everyone knowing who Sunny Glade was when I realized that using her first name wasn’t polite, and admitting that I listened to gossip would be even worse.

“No, ma’am, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

As the words rolled out of my mouth, I silently hoped that it was better to forget meeting a person than to admit to only knowing her by what I overheard in the store.

“It’s okay, Janey. When we met, you were much younger.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Well, then. Let me reintroduce myself. I’m Sunny Glade.”

The large hand that had been on my shoulder moved and floated in the air before me, but I stood motionless and in silent wonder of the woman who was before me.

“Young lady, how about a proper handshake?”

She was not at all what people said. She was tall and pretty, and though I couldn’t have named it then, there was a toughness about her that was powerful and compelling. My mother would have called her an example of nature’s elegance. It was a term she only used in reference to women, and only to those who clearly held their own in the company of men.

As I began to reach out to put my small hand into hers, my father and uncle came back to the front of the store. Before I had time to shake hands, Sunny’s arm was back at her side. She had moved to the front of the store, and I thought I saw her face change. As she stood at the counter, it seemed to me that she became a bit more like the woman I had heard described, and a bit less like the woman I had just met.