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If she looks back on the situation logically, which she can’t really help but do, she supposes that she really has Bobby to thank for her current situation. And she would. Thank him, that is, if she were braver and less familiar with the feel of a man’s knuckles on her face.
Because if it weren’t for the fight she’d had with Bobby that morning, she wouldn’t have come into work in a sour temper, stomping her feet and slamming trays down on the counter far harder than is at all necessary.
And if she hadn’t been slamming trays, she wouldn’t have accidentally smashed three glasses in a single shift – more than she broke on her first day on the job, or any day since then.
If she hadn’t broken that third glass on the main counter rather than in the kitchen like she did the other two, the log lady wouldn’t have made a snarky comment to her stupid log, and Shelly wouldn’t have snapped at the crazy old bat.
And if she hadn’t snapped at the log lady, Norma never would’ve pulled her aside and asked her what was on her mind. And she wouldn’t have told a completely unconvincing lie that had Norma raising an eyebrow incredulously. And then Norma never would’ve asked if maybe Shelly wanted a ride home after her shift, “To give us a chance to talk, woman to woman,” as Norma had put it.
And if Norma hadn’t driven her home after work, if Norma hadn’t taken the initiative and pulled off onto an old logging road and stopped the car once they were out of view of the main road. If Norma hadn’t taken off her seat belt and leant across the centre console and pressed her lips to Shelly’s while she was still asking why they’d stopped and what Norma thought she was doing. Well, then Shelly wouldn’t be in her current situation, now would she?
She wouldn’t be stretched out on the backseat of Norma’s car, with the other woman’s fingers entwined in her own, and Norma’s lipstick smeared around her mouth. She wouldn’t be desperately trying to memorise the marvellous way her heart is beating out of synch and her stomach is alive with tiny little flutters. She wouldn’t be trying to match her breathing with Norma’s and trying, as casually as she can, to brush her arm against the other woman’s nipples where they poke out against her shirt. And she wouldn’t have Norma’s lips pressed against the skin of her neck, whispering about how she’d been fantasising about this for a long time, and how hadn’t Shelly noticed her staring? And she wouldn’t step out of the car with the lingering feeling of Norma’s lips against her own, and the smell of Norma’s perfume pressed into her skin, and her mind alight with plans to meet again tomorrow – somewhere more comfortable, when neither of them has to rush off afterwards, and where they don’t have to navigate their way around the gear stick or seatbelt buckles.
So she feels as though she really ought to thank Bobby. And one day she will, when she’s grown more of a backbone, and she’s not so worried about what Bobby or anyone else in this town thinks. But until then, he really doesn’t need to know why her smile is suddenly brighter and why there’s an extra skip in her step.