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The lady fists her hands and puts them on her hips. I look up and see her staring at me with what appears to be sympathy.
Odd.
She walks over and sits down on the curb beside me and I notice she didn’t come out with a broom this time.
“I don’t know you from adam,” she says in her shaky old lady voice. “But I can definitely tell you’ve got some shit happening in there.” She waves her hands around my head like she can see the chaos inside my skull.
“Ya think?” I reply, wiping my nose on the sleeve of my shirt.
She looks at me like it’s best that I keep my mouth shut while she’s talking. I comply.
“Just think about the things that you’ve done. Think about why they’ve happened or why you’ve reacted to them. That’s your first step. What has you so kerfuffled that you can’t seem to stand on your own two feet?”
“Well,” I say, unsure if she wanted an actual reply or not. “I told my husband that I wish I wasn’t with him anymore. That I wished I was away from him and our four kids.” I wince when I hear myself admit it out loud.
“That’s a bit harsh,” the woman says. “Even for a hoodlum like you.”
“I’m no hoodlum,” I counter, glaring at her.
“Let me guess,” she says, resting her chin on her fist and looking off into the distance like she’s reading about my life on some imaginary script. “You have more than one tattoo. You have piercings in questionable places. Your job isn’t anywhere near what your twelve-year-old self had in mind for your now self. And your friends are all pretty pissed off at you for whatever you did wrong.”
I blink at her.
“How…”
The old woman unties her flour-covered apron and pulls her flower-printed shirt up to reveal her hip.
My jaw drops when I see a tattoo on her, very similar to the one I have on my hip.
I raise my shirt to even the playing field and show her.
“Just as I suspected.” Then, she adds quickly, “I don’t need to see the piercings,” holding up a hand. “But am I at least close?”
I nod. Then, I drop my face into my hands.
“You just need a plan,” she says. “And if it were me? I would start with an apology. To whomever it is that needs one.”
“But that’s not even the start of my problems,” I say, shaking my head. “I have this woman who’s out to get me. I never even did anything to her.”
“Are you sure?”
I shake my head again. “I guess I can’t be too sure. I woke up in this life only a few days ago and I have no idea how to get back to my old one. I was a wife to a lawyer. I had four mouthy little shits for kids, but I loved them with all my heart.”
“Now you just sound crazy,” the old woman says.
I ignore her. “What I said about wanting a new life was only out of anger.”
“You done fucked up, my girl.”
I smirk at her. “Yeah, well, I already know that much. I just need to know how to get out of it.”
“Again. Start with an apology. Maybe figure out what you did to piss off your enemy. I’m sure whoever it is has some baggage of their own that is amplified when they talk to you. But it’s hard to say. I’m no psychologist or head doctor.”
“Probably for the best,” I say. “You’d chase them out of your office with a broom.”
“Now, I was just getting to warm up to you and out you come with this bologna.”
“Sorry.”
