Short Story: Busy Bree

I met the notable author John Steinbeck in a very interesting way. Although Mr. Steinbeck passed away in 1968, his legacy still lives on - mostly in English classes. And it was through an English class where I met him, or rather, his work.
We had read an excerpt the other day from one of his works - Travels with Charlie - where the narrator had to use a dirty hotel room due to problems with his own room. Whilst his time in that used room, the narrator notices some items left behind by the previous boarder and strings together a story and a character for the person -- based on the previous boarder's trash. Our job was to create a different story using Steinbeck's model and have that character make up a story for the previous boarder.
I have done a lot of writing before but none so much as this. Writing this story took planning and all the intricate details had to be fixed. I really like the end result and I hope you do too.
~OOO~

Busy Bree

So there I was, in a small cosy inn in the middle of the wonderful state of Connecticut. It all started when  my older sister -- Claire -- wanted me to be her squire on her sacred trip to Boston since I had nothing better to do this winter break. She had just got an email proclaiming her as one of the lucky students to get into Harvard Law School and she wanted to have a “feel” of the campus .

Our parents had planned the trip in such a way that we would be home on Christmas Eve. Conveniently, strong snow storms cancelled our flight so we were stuck in an airport across the country. My brilliant big sister had the wonderful idea to drive to Philadelphia where the flights weren’t cancelled but unfortunately, our rental ran out of gas in the middle of some snow covered woods and we had to hike to the closest inn a mile away.

Claire, a pixelated version of my dad and the plump innkeeper worked out a solution to the problem at hand. The kind innkeeper let us use one of the empty rooms the small building contained but she explained that it wasn’t quite ready for use yet. Thus, the problem was solved by intelligence and patience.

Claire stepped out to help the tow company haul our rental out of the snow so I was left alone in the room which hadn’t been touched since its former occupant had left.  I sank into a cosy armchair by the fireplace and started removing my snow boots and even got one of them off before I began to notice things and then more things and more. In record speed, I forgot the wonderful fantasies of a bath and power nap and found myself deeply involved with Busy Bree.

As I scrutinized the room, like an enthusiast at a museum, Busy Bree began to take shape and dimension. Before a lot of young ladies get nervous, let me declare that her name is not Bree. She lives in Los Angeles --  a copy of the LA Times turned to the page of a crossword puzzle. She must have met the same fate as us because she was either driving to or from New York -- a phone number of someone named Frank with an area code in NY. I’m assuming he was probably a relative or perhaps a friend.

Bree also had a small child -- perhaps a toddler -- with her in the room. Random scribbles on the paper prove that the paper was a little child’s victim. I think I’m going to call him John -- I don’t know why. Maybe because it was and is.

Like most recently pregnant ladies, Bree seemed to be a shape-conscious person. She was a Weight Watchers member -- an empty bag of popped salt and vinegar crisps with a SmartPoints value of two was tossed into the trash can.

If my estimation of her having a child is correct, she was a very occupied mom. While looking through the drawers, I found a pack of peppermint flavored  breath mints next to an empty and abandoned office folder. She must have been a very busy employee who probably had to converse with a lot of people and leave a good impression, thus the breath mints for a fresh mouth.

John was not an easy child. I spotted an empty Keurig coffee bean pack next to the coffee maker, proclaiming that John was a nocturnal baby who gave his mommy a lot of trouble.

While inspecting the closet, my eyes fell on a band-aid wrapper lying at the bottom. Apparently, John was a nocturnal weapon of mass destruction packed into a bundle of ‘joy’. I bet his mother was really happy to learn that the hard way.

Three things left me puzzled about Busy Bree. First, I wasn’t sure what an employee and mother would be doing in this neck of the woods, second, what was she doing in New York and third, how was she responding to her own life? I stared at the room, as if expecting it to give me more bits and pieces of its former occupant but the room just stared back. It’s job was done.