SWC #2: The Job

I confess. I wrote this the day I picked the prompt. Once I had made the prompt post I couldn't keep my mind from working on it. I might have messed with the wording a bit. Also if you want to join the Summer Writing Camp link up, it's HERE. It closes this Friday.

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Her proximity was almost overwhelming. They had worked together for a long time now. Every odd Thursday his boss would give her a call. But this train- the seats were so small he could smell her hair without trying. She smelled like ginger, as usual. 

He had always wanted to talk to her, to know her. How did she begin her trade? How had she become such an expert? He remembered his first day meeting her. His boss had went on and on about Trayton; he had never suspected that Trayton was a woman. 

What did she do outside of work? 

But the job called for silence. “No talking,” his boss had said. So they sat next each other on the train as if they were strangers. Well, technically, they were. Strangers. Actually.

In the true sense of knowing each other, they didn’t. But he knew plenty about her, not just that she smelled of ginger. She loved romance books, especially the ones by Carolyn Cane. She always brought one to read on the train. Her voice was soft and quiet when speaking to others. She was about 4’ 8’’. She liked to wear green. She always had a window seat, but never looked out it. Except once. They had travelled over a river. What about rivers, or that river, was so significant to her that she had gazed at it so intently? 

The train jumped. Their knees jostled and knocked together. Yet neither said a word. 

He wondered if she wondered about him. 

That would, of course, be ridiculous. But what if she did? 

The train slowed and finally pulled to a stop. There was the call to leave. He set his newspaper in his seat and sighed. He left his brief case, and took hers instead. It was identical to his own, except for one thing.

 Hers had the diamonds hidden in it.