Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde

to know what she would do, but really there was nothing.
    Years ago, maybe then. “Options” was not such a useless word. But now there was the boy to think about. Suicide, homicide, telling the boss to shove it, they were all off the menu for years, maybe forever. Still, she could have gotten by on one job if not for that damn truck.
    And then she screwed up the order for table nine. Bud, Coors, what the hell was the big difference anyway for a table of slobs too drunk to taste?
    She sidled up behind Maggie, said she was taking five, bad timing or no. She hated to work with Maggie, nice a girl as she was, helpful and sweet as she was, because Maggie was a big, horsey girl, built funny, whom nobody wanted to pinch, leaving more insult for Arlene to duck and bear.
    She used the phone in the kitchen, an overwhelming freeway of body traffic, usually the same few bodies, none of whom seemed to mind the shimmery heat over the fryer or the smell of hot grease near as much as she did.
    Trevor picked up on the fourth ring, right before her cardiac arrest set in. “Honey. You okay?”
    “Sure, Mom. I’m always okay.”
    “Were you asleep?”
    “Not yet. I’ll go in a minute, though. I was reading that World War Two book.”
    “Trevor, I am so sorry. I mean, I am just so, so sorry. I mean, I am so ashamed that I hit you, I just cannot say.” She paused, hoping for something, anything, that would relieve her of the duty tocontinue. “If there’s ever anything I can do to make it up. Anything at all.”
    “Well.”
    “Anything.”
    “I don’t think you’d go for it.”
    “Anything.”
    “Will you take me to visit Jerry?”
    Wow. That big, huh? Don’t you hate moments like this, she’d said to Jerry, where it seems that we’re all pretty much the same? No, Jerry liked them. Apparently another moment Arlene hated was on its way home. The kind in which you see the person who let you down bad, really messed up everything, and right there in his eyes is you. All you see is the same disappointment and stress you know yourself, nothing to explain how a well-intentioned person could cause all that harm.
    Like when Ricky came around after reconciling with his wife, Cheryl, a hateful, miserable thing to do, and he looked like the same man around the eyes, only a little more tired, a little more worried and beaten down.
    “Do you even know where he is, honey?”
    “We could find out.”
    “Okay. Okay, I will, but I gotta get back to work now, Trevor. You be a good boy. Brush your teeth.”
    “Mom.”
    And Arlene hung up quickly, saved from having to admit she treated him like a three-year-old every time she left him alone at night.
    The swinging kitchen door opened at the strike of her shoulder, opened to the sound of Randy Travis too loud and the smell of beer and sweaty men too strong. Hours too long, paychecks too small. Never enough sleep. Just hold on till three, Arlene. And then, in the wake of that wisdom, try not to notice that it’s an impossible world away, and when and if it ever does come, it will only lead to tomorrow, another working day. Another no-beer day.
     
    T HE WOMAN IN THE FRONT CUBICLE of the county jail wore her blood red nails so long she had to type with the eraser end of a pencil. She sat with her legs crossed, in a tight, short skirt, chewing her gum with clicking sounds Arlene found irritating. Arlene tightened her grip on Trevor’s shoulder.
    “Name?”
    “Arlene McKinney.”
    “And you’re here to visit…”
    “Jerry Busconi.”
    “Can I see some ID, please?”
    Arlene slid her driver’s license across the counter, which she hated to do because the picture made her look so bad. In fact, she thought the woman might have smirked a tiny bit at her expense, though she knew she probably imagined the slight after all.
    “Wait in there, please,” the woman said, sliding the license back and gesturing with one amazing nail.
    It seemed like a simple enough request. Until Arlene tried. And