Black

Addie ran her fingers through the braid while trying to check her progress in the biggest part of the shattered bathroom mirror. It'd come like this, a perk of low-income living.

Her crinkled hair was only good for afros and being wound into rope, neither really got her in tight with hiring managers who'd prefer she owned something to cause the actual shape of her hair to change, which along with being racist, required money, which required a job, and that would be why she was showing up at their pretentious doorsteps anyway.

She was what her grandfather lovingly called a Hienz 57, someone from so many places that there wasn't a clear indication of "where" they were from anymore. Someone at school had said that the saying was only for ketchup and dogs, so she never repeated it, but she guessed that's why her hair was unruly and her skin was dark, but not dark enough to prevent mild sunburns.

She stared into the bottom half of the mirror, her hair neatly tied back in the way of at least some of her people. "You look nice." she told herself. Really convincing, she replied.

"Just go to the stupid interviews, or you're going to die," that was more like it. Convincing herself she was somehow worth something when she had basically no evidence to back that up was useless. Convincing herself that death was coming unless money was, that was easier.

With a combination of her phone and the mirror she did her best to make sure there wasn't any dust of tears in the good outfit before locking up and running to the first interview of the day.

The little juice store made the hair on her neck stand up when she came in. She held a folder full of printed out resumes, even though she'd applied online at the library, some people still wanted something to hold, even if printing that something whittled away at her food fund.

"Hello? I'm here to see... Janice?" she gently asked the echoing, empty shop.

A teenager probably five years her younger looked up from the counter. Do they get angrier every year, or is that just me? This one had the heavy eyeliner and demeanor of someone in Death Metal, but personally Addie couldn't blame them.

"Ss' out." the teen said.

"Oh, well, I have an appointment with her," Addie commented.

The teen sleepily stared at Addie like she was an alien. After a while she pointed, "there's a chair."

She wanted to laugh, but instead commented, "right," and sat down, waiting uncomfortably, watching the clock on the wall as the teen helped whoever wandered in to the store with whatever measure of customer service she could muster up at that particular moment.

She had given up and was standing up to go when a lady talking on her phone with a drink from a rival juice bar came barreling in. The two collided, the purple-red juice and squishy jellies flying everywhere. Addie fell backward, her folder flying open and her papers sinking into the sugary muck.

"Excuse me!" the woman yelled. "Do you know how much that drink, how much this shirt costs?!" The woman's shirt was mildly stained near the name tag reading "My name is Janice! How can I make you happy?"

Addie looked down at her own clothes, which were covered. She had nothing to change into, even if she had time to change.

"E-excuse me," she panted, fear and anger mixing as she ran out of the store and to the only place she could think to be- her next appointment.

She entered the second-hand shop hoping she wouldn't be kicked out automatically. "Hello?"

"Oh hello, honey, what can I do for you?" said an elderly gentleman.

Addie automatically winced at the pet name, but continued regardless. "I'm here for an interview... I know I look terrible, I'm sorry, I had an interview at a juice spot a second ago an it-" no, no emotions you don't get to take over "-it-" she tried to take a breath to get through the knots developing in her chest "-it didn't go well," she finished in a high squeak, before bursting into tears.

"Oh sweetheart!" said the old man, throwing out another pet name. "Let's get you taken care of, then I can interview you."

"Taken care of?" Addie sniffed

"This is a second had store, I have emergancy showers just in case sumthin' gets on yah that you don't know what it is or you just don't want on yah and lots of clothes and stuff to clean clothes." He explained. "Just choose sumthin' to change into after you get cleaned up and we can call it a gift."

"Are... you sure?"

"Well yeah, most of these things here are gifts to me, and I use the money I get from them to help out people in need. Go ahead, darlin.'"

It took a lot for her to trust him. After she made sure the emergancy showers properly locked she went over them with a fine toothed comb, expecting a hole, some tiny camera, or the mirror to be one-way, but every trick afforded to her as a woman told her this was actually a safe place. Still on guard none the less, she quickly showered and changed into the nice pantsuit that she'd chosen. It fit her like a glove. It'd been tailored for someone of her similar tall, gawky stance. For once, she felt good.

"Sir?" she came out with her ruined clothes. "I'm ready to talk to you now, if that's okay. All of my resumes were ruined in the juice incident but I can do my best..."

"That's alright," he smiled, and gently took the clothes, placing them in a washer. "I've already decided. You're hired!" he threw his knobby hands into the air and did a little dance.

"But, you didn't find out anything about me."

"You need a job, I need a worker, I'm pretty sure you're capable of reading price tags, right?"

"Right..."

"So lets talk about your wage and benefits..."

Addie started work that day, and while she stood at the front desk, a glass case full of a little bit of everything, she put her hands into her pockets.

Inside she felt a very tiny book, only about five inches tall. She pulled the little leather book out to see it's shiny black cover. It looked a little curled and waterlogged like it'd been washed with the clothes.

"Probably was left there by the previous owner," she said, opening the pages only expecting to see ink stains. Instead there were tiny precise letters.

Edwin is amazing and he's doing his best. But who shops at these kinds of stores anymore? There's a few nerds who refuse to just go to normal antique shops, but most of the people who shop here are the poor and the poorest, looking for scraps left behind from on high. We're the true trickle down economics.

Addie read on as the owner vented about working in the shop with Edwin, the old man who'd been amazing to her. The owner wanted to do more, to help the shop, themselves, Edwin, the town around them, but with limited resources they felt trapped. Addie empathized.

The last page read:

Edwin, I did something stupid. The vacation I took a month ago? It wasn't to see a cousin get married... it was to get far enough away with my gang that we could pull off a good robbery.. I stashed my 20,000 in my apartment, behind the broken mirror. But... then I got sick and well, karma came swift and hard the cancer took over my throat and jaw, I never got to tell you much. Like thanks... just... thanks.

With a broken breath Addie closed the book and shoved it into her pocket, looking up to see that her shift had been over for quite some time. In a panic, she went to find Edwin.

She heard him first. He was snoring, watching TV in his office. "So that's why you hired me," she chuckled. she gently shook him awake.

"Hmmn?"

"My shift is over."

"Oh, so it is! Sorry, was resting my eyes," he laughed.

"Ed... do you remember where you got this outfit?" Addie asked lifting her arms a little.

"Oh yes, I thought it was funny you picked out that one." Edwin smiled and pointed to a picture on the wall. "Nell donated everything she owned when she died... she used to work here. Terrible thing, cancer."

Addie walked over to a photograph of the old man with a young woman a little younger than her: dark skin, hair in an afro, smoking and moving boxes while making a dumb face.

"Now don't think I'm trying to replace her, or some nonsense," Ed went on. "I know you're far more respectable than her already. But when you chose her outfit, it just felt like her saying... you know, 'pick this one Ed.'"

"...I found this, in the pocket, it's a journal. The last page is meant for you." She took out the book and handed it to the old man.

"Aw darn it she could write small, I can't read any of this. Can you tell me what it says?" He asked, returning the book.

"...basically it says thanks."

Edwin smiled and put his hand over the book, the other hand on her shoulder and said, "both of you are welcome, sweetheart."

"Ed? No more pet names."

"Oh? Oh! yeah yeah, I'll work on that."

It would be too coincidental, but the itch was there and it wasn't going away. Addie took a towel and gently pried some of the bigger pieces of the broken mirror away. It was silly, she was just damaging her own property, but then the tiny bit of green shown through.

Her heart didn't know whether to jump or sink so it just did flips. She could be rich off of someone else's crime. Whatever Nellie did the insurance probably paid for and everyone's happy by now right?

Or she could call it in, call the police. The very thought made her hyperventilate a little. In most cases, if she were being actively murdered she wouldn't call the police. Calling the police now meant admitting she had the money from a crime that was done by another black woman.

She took the biggest piece of the mirror down. It allowed stacks of money to spill into the sink, but that's not what she cared about. She held the mirror at a place so she didn't have to dangle in a weird position, allowing her full body to be in its frame for once.

"You're strong."

There was no shot back from the peanut gallery this time.

Thinking of the karma that caught Nell, the people who might be needing this money and her own soul, she began to dial.