Beth's Story
1986; Springer International Publishing; Volume: 12; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0311-4198
Autores Tópico(s)Race, History, and American Society
Resumobeth always took buses whenever she had to go somewhere. or she walked. she was used to walking. long distances. people walked everywhere when she was a child. because there wasn't any other transport. because they didn't have the money for the fare. because they didn't waste it on what was only a mile or so. and she scuffed along behind or was carried on somebody's shoulders. and had to have her boots resoled every six months if she hadn't grown out of them. when she was a child her feet grew quickly. too quickly her family said. she was glad because she hated the brown boots that took so long to lace up to her ankle bones. she was taken to the shoe store but the old woman brought out a pair exactly the same except bigger and when she stood up and looked past her knees: she could almost see her face in their smoother darker toes. after that. when the boots started to hurt she made cuts with a knife where it rubbed. then covered the cuts over with newspaper. the family stopped talking about her feet as if they were plates of meat on the manly ferry and her feet stopped growing. until there was no more leather and only newspaper from fifteen years ago. she read the headlines and bought herself a pair of italian heels and caught the bus home.beth enjoyed taking the bus. even if the cost of a ticket was ridiculous and getting more expensive all the time. that was the way things were. as she shrugged her shoulders. stoically. and sat up the back and looked out over the cars and the passengers and the pedestrians. she liked how things seemed to make patterns from that height the flat steel tops in many colours shifting merging the dark round heads rushing and dodging in between. sometimes covered over by a block of chrome colour. disappearing completely. beth sat back in her seat and looked out the reflector mirrors above the driver's head. while the bus drove on until someone rang the bell. pulled the chord. pressed the button.and the emergency exit window was fascinating. although beth was scared of the jump.beth worked in car insurance. she worked on the counter. from nine to five. with an hour for lunch. she listened to what people had done to their cars then wrote the details out on blue and white paper. at the end of the day. her desk had a stack of blue and white papers filled with her handwriting. she sorted them into piles and put them in trays and took them upstairs. beth did not have to make decisions about who was right or wrong. she had to make a note of the details. she felt a load had been lifted from her shoulders when she put the trays outside mr prestic's office. she breathed deeply as he walked downstairs again to get her bag from the staff lockers and her lunch box from the lunch room. sometimes she thought she was relieved because she had gotten rid of the trays full of paper. sometimes she thought she was relieved because she could go home now. sometimes she thought it was a combination of both. sometimes she thought it was neither.sometimes beth thought she had been employed in car insurance because of her sympathetic eyes. she wore very thick spectacles made of glass and she overheard the young girls in the office call her coke bottles when she wasn't listening but she knew from practising in the bathroom mirror. the glasses made her look kind and attentive. even when she was using the computer or checking a file or making a cup of tea for mr prestic. and the people who told her about their cars liked her: everyone of them seemed to have a tragedy to tell. she certainly never felt a desire to laugh in their faces as the other girls who worked on the counter talked and giggled about. in stitches in the toilet. she didn't have much in common with them. they were all a lot younger than her. teenagers talking about their boyfriend. and their boyfriend's new carburettor. or wives and mothers talking about what they'd bought at franklins or what they were going to cook for dinner or whether they should try to find child care. …
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