Alone

A woman can't live on bread alone. Nor can she survive without a lava lamp, a Japanese teapot, and Billy Holiday on CD.

Yet on a daily basis, Chloe didn't make time for these frivolities. She listened to books on tape to save time, took fast showers so she'd get to work early, and her aroma beads grew stale on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet.

Dreams are free, drifted through her mind on the drive to Huntsville Elementary. Dreams didn't require Hep A shots, or fat wallets, or condoms for that matter. Dreams kept her alive. Without them, her soul would surely wither and die.

Teachers don't meet many men above the age of twelve. The ones who show up for parent-teacher conferences are married. And male coworkers either had significant others attached at the hip or were too young to consider.

Her best years had bypassed her entirely. They skipped town on a Greyhound and never sent postcards. They were probably shacked up with the daydreams of the wealthy and carefree.

She passed a coffee shop and longed to stop. Every day she tasted a Chai tea in her mind. But her wallet stayed fused. Money paid for three things: the mortgage, the car, and the bills. Extra was a hard to come by as a good man.