The cheeseburger was cold to the touch. Cold. On the first bite, the juice had burned her lip.
She started to look at her watch then realized it had been a gift from Ken so she had thrown it in a box.
Donna knew she had been in the parking lot too long if the one cheeseburger she ordered had gotten cold.
What had been two semi-trailers in the field across Huron were now eight.
The puddle on her light blue shirt wasn’t burger grease, it was tears.
She scrolled her texts again.
Billie inviting her to a wine and art thing, the automatic reminder from Contours about her breast augmentation and the one from Robin:
You have done a marvelous job of forgetting you have a daughter.
Donna hated her sister’s sarcasm, even though they shared the trait, but she knew she was right.
Ken had walked out two days before Donna’s birthday.
And Donna had forgotten a lot of things, except spin class and Adderall.
She had dropped 40lbs, was down to 103.
The cheeseburger had been a breakthrough dining moment.
She heaved what was left out the window.
She stared at it, feeling guilty about the litter, so she got out and retrieved the wrapper from underneath the unwanted bun and meat and pickles, but left that mess for the birds or raccoons or whatever might patrol this empty parking lot at the edge of the county.
She threw the wadded burger wrapper on the floor of the car.
In front of the semis in the field across Huron was one of those illuminated signs on a trailer with an arrow, like a mini movie marquee.
It said, “Now Hiring”.
Donna got back in her car. Without looking at the mirror she glimpsed streaks of makeup in it.
She wondered what they were hiring for.
Men were linking the semis together, somehow, chaining metal feet together. The semis were all painted solid gloss black, save one.
It said Hades Hideaway.
The rest of the semi was obscured by three scissor lifts. Donna read “aunt...action.”
She felt like she smiled, but wasn’t sure if it physically happened.
Aunt Action.
That’s probably what I felt like to that twenty-nine-year-old guy I slept with after the Harvest Festival. “Aunt Action.”
She shivered.
I made it to forty-seven without doing cocaine, then had did it in a motel with a guy in a punk band I met at the Harvest Festival.
She looked out at the semis.
A forklift had a stack of oversized, Dracula-style coffins on it.
Donna’s mind filled in the blanks. Haunted Attraction.
She looked in the rearview, immediately wiping mascara from her cheeks.
Maybe to that guy in that band I had been that too. Haunted Attraction.
Maybe I’ve forgotten about Jill because Ken wasn’t Jill’s father.
But he had been around for fifteen years, and regardless of any of that, my daughter needs a mom.
She started the car, then immediately turned the key back in the off position.
The Haunted Attraction was hiring. Temporary job, but the kind of job Jill would love.
Donna had a quick conversation with herself.
Jill likes horror movies and goth music right? Are haunted houses against the goth ethos? Donna wasn’t sure.
Maybe I was a terrible mom before Ken left and just got worse.
She walked across the street to a temporary trailer that looked to be the office part of the operation. A particle board sign leaned against it to the east.
Donna assumed it was another sign that said Hades Hideaway.
She walked up the loose metal stairs and opened the flimsy door of the trailer, which did in fact have a small red metallic sign that said “Office.”
There was a poster of a werewolf held up with one high viz yellow thumbtack and framed OSHA and Equal Opportunity Employment certificates
A woman behind a table had her cowboy boots up on the table.
Donna immediately noticed by the stamps on the heels that the left and right boots had been manufactured by two different footwear companies.
“That was quick,” the woman said. “Ernie just pulled the sign up 5 minutes ago.”
Donna tried to smile.
“I was just in the neighborhood and--
‘Ain’t much of a neighborhood. Jus’ a field really. That carpool parking lot cross the street.”
“Yes, “ Donna said. She looked at her phone in her hand.
“We don’t take no resumes on phones, the woman said, chewing something. No emails, attachments, zip files. Jus’ fill out the application on the desk and we’ll call ya if we want ya.”
“It’s for my daughter,” Donna said. “I thought she’d like being a scary performer in a haunted house. She’s kind of a natur--”
“ Not a house. It’s a full village. Takes about two seasons to make it to the cast. Gotta do at least one season as a plainface.”
“Plainface ?”
“Concessions, you know, hot cocoa, caramel corn. Good ones move up to usher before the season is over.”
“Oh.”
“We gotta see commitment, work ethic.”
“I just thought--”
“Don’t care what ya thought. MacMillan Attractions been in business 38 years. We got a certain way of doing things, it works. Bring your daughter back, have her--”
“I know all her information, can’t I just--”
“Having her mommy fill out her application doesn’t demonstrate a whole bushel of commitment to me, now does it?”
“No...ma’am. I’m sorry. I was just hoping to surprise--”
“That’s a helluva surprise. Damn, Becky Sue, you got you a job you ain’t even apply for, working the underground at a haunted attraction.”
Donna stood straight up.
“Pardon me...the underground?”
“That’s behind the scenes, cleaning up, wiping puke off the scenery, refilling the gelatin in the swamp monster tanks.”
“Oh.”
“If she doesn’t have the gumption to come in and apply herself, the underground is probably the job she’s best suited--”
“She doesn’t even know about this place. I just noticed it and wanted to surprise--”
The woman pulled her feet down and stood up.
Donna got a chill and realized that her nipples were hard against her draping blue t-shirt. She wobbled on heels she didn’t remember putting on this morning.
She would ask to use the restroom but there obviously wasn’t one in the bare trailer.
“You about 5’8”?” the woman asked.
“5’6’” Donna said. “I’m wearing heels.”
“So you are. That’s alright. We got a character, The WraithWitch. A Scarecrow-like woman. Scrawny, haggard. Can you cackle? You look like you can cackle. You’d make a great WraithWitch. ‘Leven bucks an hour, seven days a week. You get a food break and two piss breaks and if attendance is good MacMillan gives out bonuses. Last season erryone got two hunnerd extra.”
“Scrawny...haggard?”
“Yep.”
Donna wobbled but found her voice.
“No, you’re saying I’m scrawny and haggard? “
The woman looked Donna up and down.
“You are, mos’ definitely, scrawny and haggard.”
Donna stared at the woman. A bony knee peeked through a small hole in her corduroy pants and her back was beginning to hunch.
“You’re scrawny and haggard too, you old bitch!”
Donna inhaled through her nose, feeling herself again, feeling energized. Jill would be proud of her. For the first time since high school band camp, she made a real fist.
The woman smiled.
“Yep. Got that right. I’m scrawny and haggard and I’m tired of playing the Wraithwitch. Been doing it eighteen years.”
Donna stepped back, looked at the stack of generic applications on the desk, looked at the woman.
“You just said it takes a season or two to get on the cast.”
“We make exceptions if someone is a perfect fit. Over 6’8’ for Frankie, big boobs for Evil -line. You’re scrawny and haggard. Perfect for The WraithWitch.”
Donna leaned over and grabbed the woman by the shirt.
“I walked in here…”
Donna heard menace and anger and pain in her own voice, like she was watching herself on TV.
“...to find a fun job for my amazing teenage daughter.”
The woman slipped her hand behind Donna’s neck and leaned in.
“Gonna have to work on your wraith voice, sugartits, but if you take the job I’ll give your kid twenty hours a week on caramel corn.”
***
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
One of your better last lines, which is saying something.
You should really pay your subscribers more. Pennies a day is not a living wage. :-)