The following is part of a serialized story, Everyone Thinks I Dream of Chocolate. You can find the first chapter here.
As far as I know, Becky was one of the longest working employees for Lou’s before I became hired. She started working for them when she was a junior in high school and decided to go work full time for them right after graduating.
Ten years later, she started dating Matt, one of the head maintenance staff working for Old Town Mill. Well, at least I think they were dating. Their affection for each other, at least in the company of others felt pretty baseline. Becky also mentioned that she had no interest in marriage. It makes me wonder if this is just her general attitude towards relationships or if this was more to do with Matt. Either way, I came to the conclusion that it was none of my damn business.
She was pregnant with Matt’s kid by the time I started working there and she planned to leave by the end of the year.
“I just think it would be best if I was there for the first couple years of her life. You know?”
I didn’t because I had no interest in having kids nor could I even fathom the possibility.
While Becky helped me get started at the chocolate shop, I mostly saw Matt after she left. He was constantly running back and forth. A thick pair of work gloves always wrapped around his hands or tied around his waist. Heavy work boots stomped on the ground as he passed in a heavy march led by one man. His uniform was the Old Town Mill’s official staff shirt, either green or red depending on the day. The colors were probably a remnant of the Mill’s history when it was once a year-around Christmas Wonderland).
His shorts were always kept short, thin enough for me to see the beads of sweat glisten like lakes and ponds overlooking a forest.
Matt’s core defining feature were his eyes. Christian and I always played a guessing game, trying to estimate how much weed he had smoked that day on the Mill’s roof. Everyone knew that the maintenance staff smoked up there and the owner of the Mill was rumored to be a pot farmer living mostly in California these days.
Personally, I didn’t really care. It did remind me of my own dad. I wasn’t a planned kid either and when I was born, he worked at my grandfather’s Japanese and Korean Cuisine restaurant. He left for work at the crack of dawn and returned around 11:30 every night. I got to spend maybe two hours with him every night before I went to sleep. He coped with the stress of that job much as I coped with the stress of this one: booze.
I can’t imagine that in the long run, abusing marijuana is any better than abusing alcohol. I know that the “studies” (wherever those are coming from) are saying a lot about the lack of physical addiction in marijuana. I have also been in the rave scene long enough to know that if people can get addicted to whipped-cream cartridges, they can get addicted to anything. Still, if it’s what helps him get through the day. I’m not judging. I had my own problems, too.
Becky came to visit every once in a while and she would bring her daughter, Amber. Every single time, it was like experiencing jumps in time. Becky seemed to have gotten to that age where your face no longer changes, only your hair. Always brown, usually straight. Sometimes tied back in a ponytail, either everything wrapped or the back allowed to hang below.
Her child had more drastic changes. She went from a tiny baby to a small child to a wandering toddler that rambled on through the mill. More and more, there was life in her eyes. They were vessels that captured the light of the world. Each time I looked into them, there was more and more of an understanding that she was indeed alive.
It was nice. Again, I don’t really have an interest in having kids myself. Still, it is incredible to see how they grow and change and experience physical and mental growth, closer and closer into adults.
The last time I saw her, she was using full-on sentences and she was only two years old. She was wandering on her own two feet. While I witnessed this, I had memories playing of a not-so-distant past, where she was still in a stroller, only her head bobbing back and forth as she simply observed the world like fish looking out of their glass bowl.
Still, Becky and Amber’s visits reminded me of not-so-pleasant things.
Becky is roughly my age. A little older but not by much. Around the same age as when my parents had me. I remember them struggling. I remember the fights. Maybe, it was about money and maybe it wasn’t. I’m sure it was stressful. I can understand why Mike is always high.
And I wonder if this is what Becky wanted? Probably not. This is the same girl who found herself working for the same small business for 10 years after graduating. When I asked her what her plans for the future after Amber is a bit grown and going to school, she said,
“I don’t know. Maybe go back to school. Maybe come back here if Dick and Lou say it’s ok.”
So maybe she likes to keep life simple. I don’t know. I might be projecting my own fears into the conversation.
What I do know is that at the time, I couldn’t help but think about where my life was at. Before I finally left Lou’s, I was making $18 an hour for 40 hours per week. It’s not Comp-Sci money but it was enough so that Chrissy and I could eventually move out to our own place. I was paying bills, sustaining myself, and miserable.
I wonder how they are? I wonder if Becky is still content. I wonder if she was ever content at all.
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19. Helicopter Parent
Danger Wonka 