Thorny Thursday — The Big Four-Oh

After 30, each birthday gets tougher, and 40 is no exception

“So, it’s the big four-oh today,” said Elaine.

I had just arrived at work, clocked in, donned my smock, and was putting on that gawdawful hairnet I had to wear behind the deli counter in the back of the grocery store.

“Yeah, forty,” I replied.

“Brynne, don’t be down about it,” said Elaine.

She was twenty-two. What did she know? I was facing another decade—a milestone in my life—and here I was, single and dishing out coleslaw, bean salad, and greasy fried chicken or slicing ham, turkey breast, and salami for a bunch of grouchy customers, often looking as if they had just slid out of bed. The job didn’t bother me too much. It paid the rent, and I got to take some of the older food home.

It was the being single part.

But I wasn’t sure why it bothered me. Did I really want a life like June Cleaver, Edith Bunker, or Marge Simpson had? Okay, so they were TV characters, but I had seen how marriage and motherhood had been for my mom. She had pined for that career that she had never had the chance to pursue. Who knows if she would have succeeded? But she never had the chance to even try.

And I had grown up in a time when women were supposed to stand strong on their own or balance married life, including having children, with their work. No one ever said how I was supposed to meet Mr. Right standing eight hours a day behind the deli counter at the local grocery store and going home too tired to do much of anything but shower to get the smell of grease off me and flop in front of the TV, pulling up a movie to watch.

“Brynne,” said Mike, the deli area manager, “fry up some extra chicken pieces today. We’re having a ‘surprise special’ as Lenny calls it.” He rolled his eyeballs when saying the store manager’s name.

The two men never got along well. The owner had hired Lenny fresh out of business school. Mike, a few years older than me and twenty years older than Lenny as well as being very happily married, was a “lifer,” having started as a bag boy in high school. He had worked just about every section of the store and had been the deli manager for about six months. I had applied for that position, but the rumor around the store was that Lenny had thought I would meet someone, get married, and quit. I had laughed when hearing that. Who around here would I marry? Mid-sized town, but also a university town. That meant lots of college students but also a very traditionally oriented population—happily married types, not a lot of single men my age, and fewer with each birthday that passed.

I put those thoughts aside, took a batch of chicken parts out of the commercial refrigerator, and began frying. The day ahead seemed like one long, unchanging road. So did my life. I sighed and watched the chicken in the hot oil, the bubbles dancing around.

“Here, we all signed it,” said Elaine, shoving a card in my face.

“Oh, thanks,” I said, opening the card and reading the messages each of my co-workers had added there.

One caught my eye: “There’s a rainbow ahead. Never forget that.”

No name. But it was the only one unsigned, so by process of elimination, I knew it was Sammy, five years younger than me and very friendly with everyone. I had never perceived any special attention on his part toward me. Had I been blind? Or was his message just another nice gesture? I shrugged it off, stuffed the card in a pocket of my smock, and pulled the basket of fried chicken out of the hot oil fryer.

At the end of the day, I clocked out and looked around for Sammy. I saw him come into the back of the store and clock out. He looked at me and grinned. My heart began thumping.

“Hi, Brynne, happy birthday,” he said. “Elaine gave you the card?”

I just stood looking at him and nodding like a not-so-popular teenager in high school when the quarterback of the football team comes up to her.

“Great,” he said. “Any birthday plans?”

“Uh, no, not really,” I said, anticipating an invitation to dinner or something and suddenly aware that I had forgotten to take off that damned hairnet. I hurriedly removed it now and stuffed it in a pocket of my grungy jeans. It didn’t pay to wear nice clothes there for the work I did.

“New movie at Harold’s cinema,” he said. “One of those kind they call ‘chick flicks’.”

“Sounds nice,” I said barely above a whisper.

My mind thought back. Harold had been a year ahead of me in school. He had always been the brainy sort, and most people in town had expected him to move away and have a brilliant career. Instead, he had chosen to work at the only movie theater in town, eventually becoming the manager, and then inheriting it from the owner who had no other heirs. I had rarely gone there, and even in high school Harold and I had ignored each other, moving in different circles. I had been one of the rebel girls, smoking in the school bathroom, wearing revealing clothing, and hiding my intelligence. He had been a star, academically and athletically, and had dated the head cheerleader. After graduating, I had switched to jeans and T-shirts, mostly due to my job at the grocery store, and stopped smoking which I never liked anyway.

“All set?” asked Elaine, coming into the back of the store and clocking out.

“Huh?” I asked, brought back to the present.

“Oh, hi, Brynne,” said Elaine. “Sammy and I are going out for dinner. Have a great birthday.”

“And check out that movie,” said Sammy. He took Elaine’s hand and walked out with her.

I slumped a little and left, walking from the store toward my apartment. Suddenly, I decided to take Sammy’s advice, reversed direction, and headed to Harold’s little movie theater. I stood in line for a ticket.

“Brynne?” asked the ticket seller when I got up to the window.

I nodded.

“Go on in,” she told me.

“Oh, gee, thanks,” I stammered. I opened the door and went in.

“Happy Birthday!” cried out everyone in the theater lobby. All my co-workers from the store were there.

“Who’s minding the store?” I asked, my eyes wide.

“We closed it for the night,” said Lenny. “Man, we had a tough time keeping it from you. And we weren’t sure you’d even show.”

“I almost didn’t,” I said.

“We had a backup plan,” said Elaine.

“We were going to show up at your house,” said Sammy, grinning.

Harold came toward me with a bouquet of long-stemmed red roses and laid it in my arms while I gaped at them and him. Then he leaned over and kissed me, whispering in my ear, “There’s a rainbow ahead. Never forget that.”

I stared at him and then smiled, realizing that love had been there all along. I just hadn’t seen it. He walked me into the theater and sat beside me as the others took their seats. The lights dimmed, and the movie began.

“Time for us to stop ignoring each other, Brynne,” he said, “or should I call you ‘rebel girl’?”

“Brynne will do,” I said, kissing him in the dark.

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NOTE: My text and images are all human generated. No AI content ever!

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