Andrea Lithgow, Waiting

The room was big enough, I suppose, for all these people, waiting. Their feet lined up in rows. Some were out of row, and some were even. Some were crooked and some sat straight together. Rows of shoelaces, buckles, straps, and even a button. I wondered if the old hippie lady did the button herself. As more people came in, the temperature in the overly lit room changed. I took my sweater off and neatly folded it on my lap, the way I like it, with the sleeves folded in thirds, the right sleeve under the left sleeve. The way momma taught me. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the shoelace on my left shoe looked uneven. I’d have to fix that, and soon.

“Number thirty-seven, please go to window four.” The mechanical lady-voice sounded upset and I looked down at the funny-shaped ticket in my hand and wondered who decided to make the tickets that shape. It seemed that a perfect square or rectangle would’ve been just fine and probably more comforting to all these people, waiting. Across the aisle, facing me, the rows of chairs slowly filled up as the mechanical lady slowly ticked numbers by. My number wasn’t even in sight. The back row wasn’t getting filled up as much as the front two rows, so the faces staring back at me felt top-heavy. The back row had one, two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirteen chairs vacant. Thirteen. Uh oh. The next row had seven chairs empty, and the next row had only three chairs empty. And that’s three chairs less than the same number of chairs in the back row. If I count all the empty chairs in all the rows, then divide that number by three (my favorite number) then see if that’s one of my other favorite numbers, then all the numbers will feel safe. Then I realized my whole plan would fall to pieces as soon as someone got up to go to their window or someone new walked in.

“Number forty-three, please go to window eleven.” More numbers. I could keep track of all the numbers that the mechanical lady said then add all those numbers up to a final number, then keep dividing that number up until I arrive at one of my favorite numbers, hopefully. My chest contracted at the thought of having left over or unattractive numbers at the end of that process. From my left, a young lady with a baby strapped to her chest made her way down my aisle. The baby bag looked like a raggedy thing she may have picked up at Good Will. I looked at her untidy hair, and next, of course, her shoes. The laces weren’t even tied right, I could tell. This poor woman.

“Excuse me, sir. Do you mind if we get past you? It’s time to nurse.” She forced a laugh and tiredly waved to the end of my aisle where it seemed there might be a shred of privacy. The idea of naked boobies made my throat constrict, so with big eyes I could only nod. The bigness of what seemed like extra baby weight, and her slimy baby bag trying to get past me nearly slammed me in the face. My entire body shrank into the size of a peanut, and I immediately thought about my favorite number, and the moment that I knew it was my favorite number. I could see my momma staring into my face, swirling the baby food around in circles as the spoon got closer and closer, with her melodic voice singing, “one, two, three, wheee!!” At least my dadda told me it was my momma, but I never saw pictures of them together. I stared straight ahead as the mother settled herself in next to me, the slime almost creeping off her bag and onto me.

“Number fifty-one, please go to window seven.” The mechanical lady was started to feel almost like a friend. So that’s fifty-one plus seven equals fifty-eight divided by let’s say, two. And that leaves me with twenty-nine. Twenty-nine is just one away from thirty, which is exactly three times ten. I got just one away with my first calculation. Next door the baby wailed, but I forced myself to keep looking straight ahead. Across the way, and above the rows of people that kept constantly changing, there was a big corkboard with notices and signs. As I stared, the rows of silly sayings and announcements started swimming, yet when I squinted, they all merged to make a pattern that felt comfortable. When I stopped squinting, the board reverted to feeling like a jumbled mess. The saying that my eyes stuck on read, “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.” Eight words, two long, two medium, and four small. That is, if you put the words with three letters in the ‘small’ category and the words with four letters in the ‘medium’ category. Thirty-four letters in total, divided by two is seventeen. But seventeen is a strange number and I’ve never liked it.

“Number fifty-nine, please go to window thirteen.” I looked down at the now slightly wrinkled ticket in my hand. The boldly printed 66 felt entitled, like it had the right to feel like hot shit because it was the perfect number. And to think that I drew the perfect number. I should play the lottery today. But my shoelaces were uneven, so maybe I should not play the lottery today. But maybe it would still be okay because it was still morning and if I fixed my laces now, then I still had a chance at winning the lottery. I leaned down and undid the lace on my left shoe and carefully held each side next to each other. There was a ¾” different. I’d have to undo the entire lace from the very beginning. I quickly counted the number of awake hours in the day, and the hours I’d used up and the hours I had left. I figured if the percentage of hours where my shoelaces had been uneven versus the hours left in the day where they’d be even once I was able to fix them would be low enough that it would still be safe to buy a lottery ticket.

“Number sixty-six, please go to window three.” My heart started skipping and wouldn’t stop. Window number three. I simply couldn’t believe it. At that moment, I knew there was no doubt that I’d be winning the lottery. But only if there was that certain parking spot available that I parked in the last time my quick-scratcher made me twenty bucks. But maybe this time it would be okay if I parked in a different spot because all the numbers were just too good. I bent down further to quickly tie the lace, but then thought I might trip, and everyone knew tripping and falling was bad luck.

“Number sixty-six, please go to window three.” There she was again. “Number sixty-seven?” No, no, no, NO, NO!! Window three was my window, damn it! And I finished tying my lace into the fastest bow on the planet. I pushed my way over the people still left on my row, almost stumbling over myself. “Here, here, I’m right here!” I waved my crumpled ticket in my hand. My voice came out louder than I expected, and the entire room seemed to all look at me at once. I arrived at window three almost in a panic and before I could gather myself to even know why I was standing at window three, I saw stacks of cards in front of me that were uneven. A short stack of fliers and an even shorter stack of something the size of a business card. I impulsively grabbed each stack one by one and straightened them. They had to all be straightened before I could look up and tell the person behind the counter why I was there.

“Hello sir, and how are you today? Next time you come to the DMV, it might be helpful to know that more of us start coming onto shift at 9 a.m., and so the lines are not as long then. You know? Don’t show up right when we open, because that’s when everyone shows up. Nobody wants to wait, right?” The lady chuckled in an almost sadistic way.

Nine. Nine a.m. she’d just said. Nine is divided by three, which then becomes three again. At window three with ticket number sixty-six. Threes and sixes and nines were spinning around in front of me like little characters holding hands, flying around in a circle.

“Sir….? How can I help you today?”

I looked down at my shoelace and saw that it was still tied in a somewhat neat bow.

“You want to know something? I think I’m going to win the lottery today.”

She laughed again and grabbed the papers from my still-trembling hands.