Laura Ray (Ray Series) (6 page)

Laura felt exasperated. She rode the car from one location to another in frustration. She worried that she had been too lenient with her only daughter. She definitely had a mind of her own. She determined not to say anything bad, but kept a smile on her face.

Finally when Samantha stepped back and let Nora do her own shopping, she soon found the perfect dress. A nice appropriate dress, not necessarily made for a wedding, but very pretty just the same. The chiffon dress had an overlay of lace bodice with white embroidery along the edge with matching embroidery along the edge of the sleeves. The skirt hung normal length with flared pleats which tapered from a normal fitting waistline. She looked beautiful wearing it.

Jamie found a dress that Nora approved to be the right color of pink which also worked in normal attire but beautiful just the same.
Luckily they found matching shoes just the right color to wear with Jamie’s dress.

After buying the dresses, the fun part could begin. Samantha led them to lingerie department where Laura picked up a very sheer pair of panties to show Nora. “What do you think of this?” Nora turned three shades of pink. Since Nora cooperated so well blushing. They continued to embarrass the poor girl getting lots of laughs at Nora’s expense. By the end of the day
, they had bought enough lingerie, night gowns, and slippers to last her a while.

On New Year’s Day, the small chapel blossomed with flowers sending their fragrance throughout. After the boys had the guests seated Danny came to escort Laura to her s
eat. She felt so proud of her twelve year old son escorting her down the aisle as tall of she was.

Soon the wedding march began
with Jamie walking down the aisle. The single white lily with its pink streamers that she carried perfectly complimented her pink dress and shoes.

Nora appeared in the doorway, she wanted to walk down the aisle alone since her father was gone. She looked beautiful in every way to Laura.
As she walk down the aisle carrying her bridal bouquet of pink orchids surrounded by white lilies, she only had eyes for Jeremy who held out his hand for her as soon as she got within his reach.

Laura couldn’t keep back the tears. For one, Nora walked down the aisle alone because she had no dad. Two, never again would her daughter live with her
as her little girl. Three, Nora was a vision of beauty. Never had she seen her daughter so lovely. Laura glanced over at Samantha who also wiped tears from her eyes.

While the women shopped for dresses, Jeremy and his dad, Donald rented a small apartment near the campus. Now her daughter had her own home, her own husband.

Laura wiped the tears away and enjoyed the ceremony and reception. She wanted Nora to be happy. Nora deserved this rite of passage. She really did.

Laura consoled
herself, she still had Danny at home. Thank God.

Chapter Seven

As soon as school started Laura knew that she needed to find another job. She went to the employment office to see what was available. She found that no receptionist positions existed. The only job that offered evenings and weekends off unfilled was at Cherokee Togs which hired people, mostly women to sew jackets. Laura had never sat down at a sewing machine, how could she work at this job? She stood there wondering what she should do, knowing that if she didn’t go back to work soon, she and Danny would be in desperate straits. The other option would be working at a nursing home on the night shift, also weekends were mandatory.

She shook her head; there was no way she would leave Danny at home during the night. She told the man at the desk that she would try the job at Cherokee Togs.

She was to report to work Monday morning at seven o’clock. Danny would learn to get up and get to school on time by himself. He should be old enough to handle that responsibility. She felt that she had no choice. There wasn’t much left in the savings account John had left her. She wanted to save that for emergencies. Her car and food for the holidays had taken all and more than she had saved from working for Mr. Hudson.

When she reported to work, she saw at least seventy-five sewing machines. At least one nerve calmed down, she told herself
. There is always safety in numbers. She didn’t think she could be singled out here. People were everywhere she looked.

Soon Anna her foreman
, a small thin woman with short cropped, overly permed hair peppered with gray met her and took her to a machine. She explained the details of the machine, how to thread it with four spools of thread, how to run it. Then she demonstrated what she expected Laura to learn to sew. Laura’s hands shook so much; she could barely run the material through the machine.

Anna noticed Laura’s nervousness and smiled reassuringly. “Take your time. You’ll learn to meet quota before long. Anytime you need me, all you have to do is let me know.”

Next Anna introduced Laura to a little wiry woman sitting beside her by the name of Lorie Mae. Lorie Mae’s dish water blond colored hair strung down in her eyes and hung unkempt to her shoulders. Lorie Mae did the same piece mill that Laura was expected to learn. Anna said, “Lorie Mae is very good at her job and meets quota every week.” Anna turned to Lori Mae, “If you want you can give Laura pointers to help her learn her job.”

Lorie Mae jiggled her head with an eager grin.

Meeting quota, Laura learned, meant that you completed a set number of bundles of cut material each week. For Laura, that meant about twenty-five bundles a day. Until she reached her quota her wages would be meager, after reaching her quota she could begin to make fairly good wages. From there and the more bundles she completed the more she could earn. It was all up to her.

The first day she completed five. She went home exhausted. Never had she worked so hard in her life without accomplishing much.

The next day she went back to work with renewed resolve to do better. Lorie Mae sat beside her with flying hands pulling the material off the stack and sending it through like the material knew exactly what it should do and all Lorie Mae had to do was tap it.

As Laura studiously tried to follow Lorie Mae’s example, the material seemed to have a mind of its own with her and wiggled every which way as she
tried to guide it through. As Anna had suggested Lorie Mae went over again what Anna had explained to her the day before. Laura remembered exactly what Anna had told her but she shook her head in acknowledgment trying to show appreciation that Lori Mae was trying to help her.

Almost every day Laura could see an improvement of how she handled the material and her bundle count slowly crept up. It would be a while before she met quota but she had her hopes. Everyday Lori Mae faithfully explained what Anna had taught her the first day. It got to the point that Laura dreaded for Lori Mae to even speak. Then one day Lori Mae asked her about her family. Laura happily chatted about Nora and Danny trying to keep her hands going.

Lori Mae said, “My husband is a truck driver. I don’t see him very often. Sometimes he comes home on weekends and sometimes not.” She mentioned that she had a little boy but she seemed vague about him. Laura wondered if she saw him either. There was no way she would ask. 

Danny came home with bruises on his cheeks and a smile on his face. Startled Laura went to him examine his face. “What happened to you?” she asked.

“Aaron and I took care of Bobby Jackson,” Danny said triumphantly.

“What happened?” Laura wanted to know.

“You know how he always wants to throw rocks at us?”

Laura nodded.

“Well, today he came after us again. Instead of running away on our bikes like we usually do, we got off and went after him. You know how Mr. Roberts has been teaching us how to box? Well, we were ready for him.” Danny stopped to catch his breath.

“What
happened? Is that where you got your bruises?”

“
Nuh uh,” Danny shook his head rubbing his cheek. “Bobby forgot that he didn’t have his backup. See? Mr. Roberts taught us that we shouldn’t try to fight anybody unless we had things in our favor. Ha, Bobby didn’t have a chance against Aaron and me. We’ve grown a lot. Well, Ol’ Bobby Jackson saw us coming at him with our fists up like Mr. Roberts taught us to when we fight and we could see him getting scared.” Danny stopped to laugh so hard that he laughed with his eyes shut.

Laura smiled appreciating Danny’s mirth. “Did he run?”

“No. I’ll give it to ol’ Bobby, he’s not a coward. He stood there thinking he was going to get beat up because we’re as big as he is now. Almost anyway.” Danny held up his pointer finger, “One thing Mr. Roberts says is, ‘Always give a cornered rat a chance to escape.’ So instead of beating the tar out of him, Aaron says, ‘I bet you can’t beat us on the football field.’ So Bobby says, ‘I bet I can.’ We take him to Coach Bradford. He was expecting us ‘cause we already had him in on this scheme. He just didn’t know which day.”

“So what did Coach Bradford do?” Laura asked intrigued in Danny story.

“Coach Bradford took us out on the field and made us push those heavy things back and forth across the field that the defense team pushes.” Danny raised his eyebrows. “You should try pushing those heavy things. They are really heavy.”

Laura laughed, “No, thanks, I’ll leave that stuff up to you men. So who won?”

“Bobby is strong! He won.” Danny answered with big round eyes. “The couch told him he wanted him on the team.”

“So how did you get all those bruises on your face?”

Danny rubbed his face thinking, “I guess I got them from pushing those heavy things. I remember pushing it some with the side of my face. Still ‘ol Bobby had to work hard to beat Aaron and me, ‘cause we’re good, too.”

“So you think Bobby won’t come after you again?” Laura asked.

“Nope, Coach Bradford told us that he would keep Bobby too busy to bother us again,” Danny said confidently. “I told Coach that he ought to try him out for baseball since he likes to throw things.”

Laura laughed gathering him up in a hug. “I’m proud of you.”

Friday afternoon Lori Mae surprised her when she commented, “I’m going to go out tonight, might even get me a banana.”

Laura had no idea what she was talking about. She had never heard that terminology. After a while her mouth formed an ‘O’ all by itself.

Nobody could smoke anywhere except in the break room. Some still sneaked into the restroom and smoked hoping not to get caught. If they ever did Laura never knew of it. In the break room the smoke hung so heavy in the air that you couldn’t see across the room. Laura had never smoked and neither did John. There was no other place for break except outside. When summer comes, she promised herself, she would sit outside on the park tables out there.

After two months of Lori Mae telling her the same thing that Anna told her, Laura had reached the end of her rope with her. She said, “Do you think you need to tell me every day what I learned the first day?”

Lori Mae got angry, “Well, okay. If that’s the way you feel, I won’t talk to you anymore.”

Laura apologized, “I sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you, it’s just that every day you tell me the same thing that I learned the first day.”

“Fine!” Lori Mae retorted angrily, “Like I said, I won’t talk to you anymore.”

Lori Mae became
contentious to her every day. It didn’t matter if Laura spoke to her or not. It was like she had no eardrums.

Lori Mae sat on the left side of Laura. Nobody sat on her right side. Sometimes the girl named Candace would talk to her from behind. The thing with Candace was that she talked all the time at the top of her voice. Everybody within a radius of thirty feet could hear everything she said over the hum of all the
machines. Laura learned in a hurry not to speak of anything confidential to her. Candace lived with her father who ran a fruit stand. Apparently he was hard of hearing so Candace learned to speak loudly. That was Laura’s guess anyway.

The woman directly behind Laura didn’t talk at all. The one sitting to Laura’s back left lived in her own little world. The only thing she would talk about was would you come to her church.

The months rolled by and school started again. Danny entered into Junior High. He took football. They met for practice every day for two weeks in the hot sun before school started. Laura worried about him every day. Some of the boys wouldn’t drink enough water and passed out on the field. One thing about Danny, he always drank lots of water.

The day came when the Coach named the starters for the team. “Bobby made the starter team but Aaron and I are second string,” Danny told her with disgust.

“Is Bobby that good?” Laura asked.

Danny thought a minute. “He is good, but so are Aaron and me. Why didn’t I get on the starter team?”

“You may have to ask the coach that, but I have an idea.” Laura rubbed his back trying to comfort him. “Have you looked at how big those ninth graders are?”

Danny’s eyes got big, “Oh, yeah. Some of them are
twice as big as I am.”

“How would you feel if one of them ran over you or stepped on you?”

“I wouldn’t want that, I don’t think Coach would let them,” Danny said with assurance.