Despite the sunken, purplish bags below her rich brown eyes, she hadn't been graduated from college for much more than a few years now. Thin fingers tapped against the store countertop which she leaned haggardly against, the smudged glass of the jewelry case dull and in desperate need of a good dusting. In years past, she would never have allowed such a transgression of cleanliness. That was when she took unconditional pride in her family craft, in creating beautiful jewelry which men and woman of a lifestyle far more luxurious than she could ever imagine would frequent her newly inherited shop to enjoy. The bell of the door rang tinny through the shop, rousing her from her stupor as her unfocused stare quickly twitched upwards into that of a practiced smile. She greeted her newest potential customer with a remarkable amount of apparent sincerity, her tone deceptively genuine in order to mask the scripted nature of her words. Her fingers stilled against the counter, chipped black nail polish and a menagerie of callouses and cuts across her fingers and palms gleaning only the slightest bit of relief in the coolness of the glass beneath them. She allowed her eyes to drift back down to the display below her as the stranger milled about the store, her face barely visible in the reflection of the display case. Deep black curtains of bone-straight hair draped limply over her sagging shoulders, interspersed with a few more steaks of gray than she remembered there being last week. Her face was sallow these days, a new and unfamiliar gauntness in her cheeks overtaking the healthy pink which her mother used to adore. Her nose reminded her of her mother, too. She saw the same flat bridge, a gentle dusting of moles and freckles which contrasted a soft brown in opposition to jet black brows. A loose thread from the sleeve of her olive green sweater dangled against the exposed skin of her wrist, swaying in rhythm with the sputtering air conditioning unit behind the register. She twisted a bronze-colored ring on her finger, a subtle tint of green and blues staining her skin in its wake, an unfortunate reminder of what she had sacrificed for her family's business - the same business that could not afford to experience yet another robbery so soon. A sinking feeling began to settle in her stomach as her narrow eyes peered up through short lashes, furrowing her brow as she watched her new guest rest his hands against a nearby display case with his back towards her. He would leave fingerprints. She dragged her teeth over her bottom lip, chapped and dry, crying out for more water that she didn't have time to go and fetch from her apartment upstairs. She made a mental note to wipe the cases down after closing up shop. The stranger meandered around the store, and she offered nothing more than a taut smile and a polite nod in return. A dirty display case would be better than an emptied one, she pondered. A quiet sigh passed through her nose as she watched the man leave with a wordless wave. Perhaps the display remaining completely full for the fourth day this week would spell a worse fate than theft.
PSYCHOLOGICAL DIMENSION
The sun was near fully set, and a warm orange hue flooded the dimly-lit storefront. Her eyes wandered to the wall clock hanging above the entryway. It was nearly a half hour after closing time, and while her aching feet demanded that she close for the day, the empty tills in the register and the lack of transactions processed in the outdated computer insisted otherwise. With a decisive huff, she opted to ignore the guilt that the latter thought summoned, stepping out from behind the counter to pull the steel shutters down. Her footsteps were silent, in part to do with her inherent fear of existing in a space, and the rest due to the worn down treads on the bottom of her sneakers. She wrestled with a rotting lock for a moment before moving onto the subsequent ones, all blatantly installed at different times over the years due to the abundance of break-ins. After fixing the final door chain shut, she wiped her stained fingertips against her denim jeans, performing a cursory check of the makeshift security system before turning towards the rest of the store.
She had good memories here. Her parents had loved her deeply, and intended for the act of leaving their jewelry shop in her name to be one of care and trust. She found it ironic how such a thing could turn so quickly into a burden when her parents were taken from her much sooner than anticipated. Not finding it in herself to be able to sell the store, move across the country, and start over with the funds, she had remained there for the last two years of her life, a cruel and demanding reminder of her love and commitment. Although grieving, her decision to independently carry her family name as an artisan was entirely her own. With no siblings, no close friends, and no lover to speak of, she supposed that a critical factor in her choice was her desperation to cling to their memory however she could. Another could have been her fear of giving up and appearing weak or uncaring, though in front of who, she couldn't say. Despite her lack of friends her age, she'd never known what it was like to be lonely before. Maybe if she had, she would have relented the shop and searched for a place where she would never have to find out.
The familiarity of the space was as haunting as it was comforting. The blue and green patterns on the yellowing wallpaper were faded and peeling in a few spots, but retained their charm nonetheless. The warm amber incandescents shut off as she flipped the switch behind the counter, the door to the stairs behind her beckoning her to rest for the day. Her mother and father always encouraged her impressive work ethic, but it was rare that her father wouldn't also take the opportunity to remind her that she must take care of her mind and her body in a similar fashion.
Her father grew up in the states and her mother immigrated from Macao, which would almost make for a standard mail-order bride story if not for the fact that her father's family also happened to hail from China. The contrast of culture from a first to second generation immigrant occasionally made for a tumultuous conversation, pitting her mother's furiously enforced standards of proper personhood against her father's optimistic and more flexible view of the American dream. She knew her parents were very much in love, but it was always the most obvious to her when it was invisible to the rest of the world. Many wordless evenings had passed with her father poring over the stove, herself doing homework at the table while her mother occasionally stepped in to taste and to spice as necessary, sharing two perspectives on the same culture they grew up in so differently. It was obvious to her which parent had cooked dinner on any given night, but impossible to choose which she preferred when they were eaten in such soothing company. It occurred to her somewhere in her teenage years that her luck was impeccable, being afforded the opportunity to experience such security in her childhood because her parents had so deeply grounded their marriage in her existence. It was a truly abominable twist of fate for them to both be ripped from her world in such a violent and instantaneous way.
Locking the stairwell door, she cursed under her breath, realizing that she had neglected to clean the display cases as she had noted to do earlier. For a moment, she waited for the frustration to boil in her blood, expecting the familiar sting of tears to burn in her eyes. She was almost disappointed when she felt nothing at all.