Interchangeable Fate - Chapter 1

This all started back in the beginning of senior year of high school. When I found myself stuck at our slow convenience store, yawning away and wishing I wasn't there. There was a low buzz coming from the radio blending in with the noise the doors made as each customer walked in and out. It was just a typical night I'd fill in for my Mother while she worked her other job. She was at a hot shot hotel that took an hour from our apartment here in the Bronx by train. She made beds while running our small convenience store just to put me in school and feed me. You'd think she was the epitome of success with her hardworking ways, raising me alone after all these years. But still, I saw success in her, even through her tough palms, hole bearing sneakers, and the plain blue uniform she wore to work everyday. Somehow, through all that she had been through, she managed to raise a very ordinary girl, not that there was anything wrong with that.

I yawned again in my stool, sitting behind the cash register. I looked over at the clock resting next to my Father's portrait on the wall, candles always it beside lit. No more customers. It was already past ten. I slipped off my stool and threw my coat on, grabbing the keys around my neck after blowing out all the candles and switching off all the lights. After locking up, I walked to the bus stop a couple blocks away, my converse slapping against the sidewalk, hands in my pockets. When I got there, I sat and waited for the bus to come.

At Ventura, I wasn't the all around sweet, but outgoing social girl all the cheerleaders wanted to be and all the football players wanted to date. I had a few friends here and there, but only had three real best friends I rode through childhood and high school with. I had long, thick, wavy, brown hair that fell to the bottom of my back and a light complexion, nothing too special. Decent teeth, decent body, decent everything. It could be worse, I suppose. Plain name. Alison De La Cuadra. Easy to pronounce, easy to spell.

A little awkward, you can say. My personality, I mean. The only similarity shared with my Mother was hair color and high cheekbones. Otherwise, we look totally opposite from each other. Her beauty was that of a knife, real sharp while I was but a weak, timid, but stubborn girl with beauty that I wasn't sure even existed. I threw in some coins in the machine after getting into the bus, taking a seat alone next to the window.

I watched the blurring lights of shops, cars, and buildings. The presence of night life intertwined into mundane colors through the glass windows before my eyes. This was my usual routine on Wednesday's through Friday's, those were the days my Mother worked the graveyard shift. I hated working there around fall and winter because it got so cold and we could never get the heater fixed. Unfortunately, October was just around the corner. But I don't complain. My Mother puts up with twice as much and then some and not a word of negativity comes out of her mouth. I'd figured it'd be best if I did the same.

Although my Mother was a serious woman, I knew she loved me with all that she had. Though she was no child, I grew up with her over the eighteen years of my life inside our tiny two bedroom apartment, just the two of us together. I've always had this dream that I'd get the both of us out of there someday. I didn't know what or who I wanted to be in the future but whoever I turned out to be, I wanted to be a good one.

She doesn't know that yet, though. For now, I got straight A's and worked the register at our store. I would wash and iron her uniform so it was ready for her the next day. We were like a machine, my Mother and I. I would do everything that needed to be done when I was alone in the apartment, and by the time she'd be home, I'd already gone to bed. As I would get up for school in the morning, she'd still be fast asleep on her futon, dark hair sprawled across her quilted pillow, shallow breathing and back against the wall.

The bus stopped by the flickering lamppost next to our complex. I hopped off, inhaling the last wafts of the September air, keys jingling in my pocket. I walked up the sidewalk, sprinting up the stairs and unlocking our door. I closed the door behind me, the F swinging upside down with a clank on the other side. I tossed the keys on our nightstand, landing on a picture next to my Father. I held the frame and raised it to my lips. "Miss you, Dad." I whispered before setting it back in its place. I slipped off my jacket, the sound of trains passing by loud and clear through the windows even when shut. I tore off the long sleeve on my back and tossed it in the washer before stepping into the shower.

I don't know where I want to go to college. I don't know how I'm ever going to depart this small apartment and leave my Mother. I breathed it. It was sewn into my veins, even the store that my Great, Great Grandfather opened up back in the times where immigrants flourished into Ellis Island. He was one of them, and he opened up a small convenience store with the only money he took with him from Italy just for the survival of his own family. I admired him. Today, my Mother and I still ran it and got through each and every day together, even while individually living in our own worlds. We were still side by side.

I looked down at the brochures from NYU and Columbia, how its rich colors and high class students who laughed in the picture as if learning was the most joyous thing in the world looked so odd against the dim lighting of my small room. It was stacked on top of coupons and faded sweaters. Almost like it didn't fit in a place like this. I brushed my long, wet hair, beads of water dripping on my thighs. It was so cold against my skin, like snowflakes dissolving against my palm. I laid the brush down and piled my hair on top of my head, fastening it with a clip. I laid my head on my pillow and flicked the switch, the room growing dark. My breathing stayed in tune to the noise outside as I stayed there, hoping the sirens and train engines would somehow hum me into a deep slumber.
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"What are you doing up? Didn't you come home at one?" I asked, my eyes scanning the fridge for milk.

"Trains. They sure know how to kill a night's sleep." My Mother rubbed her face in her palms and yawned, the steam from her coffee visible against the sunlight.

"Well, that's one of the many disclaimers we just have to live with while living in such a run down town." I sat across from her, pouring myself a generous amount of milk on my cereal, a huge mug of steaming coffee right beside me.

"How'd you do on the test?" My Mother pulled her silk bathrobe tighter against her chest.

"Eighty seven percent. Average. Could've done better." I answered, "Might stay after school to take it again, but I'm happy it's not an F."

She did not utter an answer but instead looked out from the window, watching the waters glitter under the bridge from far away. Even the ugliness of the buildings rotting away with their graffiti infested walls could not hide the beauty of the New York skyline that was barely visible through our balcony.

"I might be needing $47 soon, to pay for SAT's." I tried bringing up the subject in a subtle manner as it involved money. She did not hear me.

"Mom," her eyes were married to the view. "Mom," I tried again, making her jump.

"Huh, what was that?" She turned her gaze on me.

"SAT. $47." I really hated asking her for money, even though I knew she would give it to me.

"Don't you have fee wavers for that?" Her question stung me even as she reached inside to pull out dollar bills from her pocket.

"Not for SAT's," I answered, letting the fifty she placed in between us sit there. She just nodded and got up to place her mug in the sink.

"Well hurry Ali, don't be late for school." She kissed my forehead as she passed me, walking down the hallway and making it to her bedroom. I looked at the fifty, wondering how a dirty piece of paper meant everything, every ounce of it we could earn determining our well-being for the next week or so. I thought no more and stuffed it in my pocket, hoping it was all going to be worth it someday.
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I swiped my metro card into the machine and the metallic gate unlocked itself. The train I took to school everyday was already there waiting, its doors parted and ready to take me and the rest of the same people I rode with everyday to the nicer part of town. By now, my Mother was probably asleep once again or trying to find ways of how she could fall asleep if she couldn't. I chuckled to myself at the thought of her devouring doughnuts in bed while letting our old-fashioned record player scratch a Doris Day record. "I Remember" would always be her common choice, and with time got stuck on my brain like everything else she did repeatedly. I sat down across from an old man snoring behind his newspaper. (Continued in next part).