Tessie D

Last Friday, the boy from the carnival started working on the dairy.

I’d gotten to the office early, well before the sun had come up, since it was Friday, and I needed to work on payroll and have everyone’s checks ready by the end of the day. The morning was quiet, just the sounds of the dairyhands working in the barn and the low hum of the milking machines and the smell of the dew mixed with hay, manure, and warm milk. In less than an hour, the sun would be creeping up along the horizon, the morning sky changing subtly from black to pink to blue. I should come into the office earlier more often.

It was midmorning when Mr. Olsen came in with Angel. Mr. Olsen introduced us, and Angel put out his hand to shake mine. His hand was soft with long, lean fingers that wrapped around mine. I recognized him immediately and smiled when he walked up to my desk. He looked the same as the day I saw him at the carnival–maybe just a little bit older and a little taller. His smile is still the same. Warm, friendly.

But Angel didn’t seem to remember me. I felt a familiar disappointment. Maybe I look different since I am entirely different now. Or, maybe it was just a silly little encounter at a carnival over two years ago, after all.

I was talking to my roommates about him later that night, and one of them knows him from high school. They ran into each other at the bar the other night, and he told her that his dad refused to pay his tuition and found a job on the farm. Angel’s dad wanted him to be a preacher, so he sent Angel to the expensive Christian university in town. But when his dad found out Angel had changed his major from Religious Studies to philosophy, his dad refused to pay for the tuition.

Since he didn’t have a way to make the final tuition payments, he dropped out of school and found a job until he could save up the money himself. He had to move out of the dorms since he was no longer a student, so he moved into the little house with the dairy manager.

Opportunities are so fragile sometimes, and at the whim of fate. Family. Money.