Better Than Here

By Laura Nelson Selinsky

Shirl Crabfelter rehearsed three rules daily as she donned the counter-girl’s top for Shady Grove Deli & Vendorama.

1. Don’t wake Ernhert if he was drinking. 
2. Don’t show up late for your shift at the Vendorama. 
3. Don’t pay any mind to the angels on the roof.

Other rules could change a person’s life—Don’t drive drunk. Don’t cheat the taxman—but those were ordinary rules for ordinary people. Shirl liked rules that spoke directly into her life. As God spoke to the preacher. As whiskey spoke to Ernhert.

Shirl tied her thick-soled sneakers—good for standing twelve hours—and reflected that having oddball names drew Ernhert and her together. Schoolteachers had always insisted she must be Shirley. In time, Shirl gave up correcting them. Gave up school entirely at sixteen. She began wiping counters at the Vendorama and hadn’t moved since.

But, at the moment, she did need to move, unless she wanted to be late to work. Ned, the assistant manager, docked her for showing up late when the angels kept her awake.

Snoring rattled her mirror. Ernhert was still asleep, so she’d drive herself. He could find his own ride to the garage. Besides, he was too skilled at bodywork to be fired for lateness or even for drinking on the job. But there was no such leniency for Shirl. As Ned often said, “I can replace you with any skinny chick who can lift a plate.”

After a peek over her shoulder (in case Ernhert suddenly appeared), Shirl grabbed five dollars from Grandma’s teapot—Hide some cash, or the whiskey steals every penny—and, clutching her purse, she ducked the silent angel clinging to the screen door and ran to the Chevy.

The engine started on her third try. She leaned out the window to see around the small angel on the hood. It kept waving its gossamer hands in front of the windshield.

Revving the engine, she burst from the driveway. The cloud of dust she spun up didn’t dissuade the angel. She accelerated down the gravel lane while the angel waved with increasing desperation. The sudden turn from gravel onto asphalt sent the rear of the car sliding across the intersection in a whirl of flying stones.

The angel bounced across the roof, onto the trunk, and into the path of a school bus, which squashed it flat.

The school kids wouldn’t notice a roadkill angel. Shirl had learned in third grade to keep her trap shut about the pests since no one else could see them.

Next came twelve hours of routine misery. Shirl wished she was home with the angels.

Ned was in a sour mood since hippyish Purslane had turned down his requests for a date. He’d insisted Purslane’s career at the Vendorama depended on his goodwill, and today she’d replied with a letter from her father, a partner at a law firm. Then Purslane returned to grad school. Ned took out his rejection on Shirl.

Three customers refused to pay for the spoiled “cod” the cook kept serving, and Ned recouped the loss from Shirl’s tips. A toddler collided with a glass rack, escaping without a scratch, but the four dozen shattered tumblers came, again, from Shirl’s tips.

During the supper rush, a mechanic dropped Ernhert on the Vendorama steps. Shirl forced a grin, but no answering smile came from Ernhert. He stomped through the door, reached under the till for Shirl’s purse, and dumped it on the counter. He confiscated the keys and her five dollars, and left without a word.

Ned smirked. “Looks like I’m not the only one ready to fire your ass.”

Shirl slumped forward, resting her head on the register. Time to reconsider the angels’ offer. They’d been fidgeting like preschoolers, waiting twenty years for her answer. Could she get out of town with her cash and the two-hundred-thirty from Grandma Summy? Shirl had never gotten around to telling Ernhert about that money, like he’d never got around to marrying her.

A baked potato thumped onto the counter at her elbow. Shirl jumped, slipped on the unswept linoleum, and landed hard on her hands and knees.

“Get back to work,” said Ned, who’d thrown the potato. He laughed in his awful snorting way. Shirl pushed herself up, praying her knees hadn’t picked up glass splinters.

She scooped her remaining belongings into her purse, pulled off the uniform top, and dropped it. At least wearing nothing but her sports bra and jeans made hitchhiking home easy.

And when a trucker dropped her at the end of her street, the angels were waiting. They’d been waiting since Shirl’s seventh birthday, whispering about fleeing Turner’s Pass. They didn’t understand that a little girl couldn’t walk away from her life. Not even if Mom was AWOL and Grandma Summy had to go to that expensive doctor. Three angels came every day; sometimes there were more. When Grandma died, a dozen angels had perched on the roof.

Now, as Shirl walked toward her single-wide trailer, the regulars stared down at her: a huge angel who rumbled like a gravel truck descending Turner’s Mountain; a silent angel who kept changing shape, unsure how many wings and eyes it had—more than the “two of each” that Christmas cards led Shirl to expect; and a small angel that glowed like halogen headlights. That was the one she’d bounced under the school-bus.

When Shirl climbed the cockeyed porch steps, she heard Ernhert’s snores and smiled. She unlocked the door and entered with the smallest angel. It grabbed her bankbook and clothes without disturbing Ernhert, but she had to retrieve the keys from his discarded work pants herself. She threw everything in the back seat, mounted her phone on the dash, and paused. She couldn’t do this alone. It was too dangerous.

Then she got out and swung all the doors open. “Well, come on then.”

Rumbling, trilling, and flickering, the angels climbed in, and Shirl drove away without a single glance back.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laura Nelson Selinsky is an author, wife, and mom. She teaches literature, writing, and mythology to students with significant learning differences. Every job Laura’s had gave her an opportunity to share wordcraft, but this chance to share fantasy with others is the most exciting so far.

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