Best Friends Forever

“Come on, Murray, get back to the belt! You’re missing packages!”

Ayla’s face burned hot with rage. Her supervisor, Jeff, subscribed to the drill sergeant school of management. Lots of screaming, yelling, and intimidation, with very little in the way of any positive reinforcement or compassion.

She hustled in and out of the two trucks she was charged with loading, ripping packages off the conveyor belt in front of her and setting them up in order on the shelves. She was one of only two women who worked the overnight shift at the “South Center” in Las Vegas for National Parcel Express. The other woman, Lynn, had more muscles than most of the men who worked there. Ayla was athletic enough, but lean and feminine. She seemed completely out of place among the crew of sweaty Neanderthals who made up most of the NPE truck-loading fraternity.

But the position came with excellent medical and d

ental insurance, despite it being part-time work, at no cost to her beyond her modest monthly union dues. She had a full-time day job in a call center, but the insurance there was very expensive, so she’d picked up the overnight shifts to both supplement her bank account and to provide health benefits for her six-year-old son, Preston.

She received no financial assistance from Preston’s “father,” since she didn’t even know the man’s name.

Ayla no longer felt the shame that once plagued her because of the one-night stand that blessed her with her son, but her parents had never forgiven her. Coming from a church-going family with roots in the Deep South, appearances were everything, and having an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter— despite her being an honors graduate from a good high school and on her way to college on scholarship— didn’t fit the narrative they wanted to portray to the world. They still had Ayla’s older sister, Amy, and her little brother, Allan, both of whom stuck to the straight and narrow.

So, Ayla had been cast aside, more or less disowned by her disapproving parents. Her brother Allan, still living at home, couldn’t express his opinion, but her sister Amy, away at college herself in California, championed Ayla in secret, mostly moral support, with a few dollars thrown her sister’s way when she could spare them… which wasn’t often.

Through a combination of good friends and a tireless work ethic, Ayla managed to keep a roof over her head, food on the table, diapers on Preston, and to keep her head above water.

Life was a struggle, but the reward of her silly, sensationally smart little man made it all worthwhile. He had Ayla’s green eyes, but everything else— the thick dark hair and stocky build— came from his Dad.

Whoever he was.

Chapter 2

Ayla rented a house in Henderson which was southeast of the Las Vegas Strip. She shared it with a roommate, Desiree. Desiree was a high school friend who worked in public relations for a small downtown casino, and she had to leave for work by just after 7:00 AM.

Ayla had gone through a succession of babysitters who were willing to show up at her house at 6:00 AM to give Desiree time to entertain Preston once he woke up, so that Desiree could get ready for work. The babysitter was also charged with getting Preston ready for school and on the bus or, during the summer, watching him until Ayla got home from her overnight job.

Her call center day job started at 10:00, so she had a small window before getting her son to day care on days she needed it. She worked through her lunch during the day, eating on her breaks, which allowed her to be out early enough to pick Preston up before day care or the afterschool program ended.

Just in time to go home, fix and eat dinner, get him to bed, and start the entire exhausting grind over again the next day.

The current babysitter, Lupe, had done a decent enough job, although she had the personality of the bread crust Ayla trimmed from Preston’s PBJ’s.

“Murray! Do you have both your earbuds in again? Get out to the belt and clean up your damn mess!” Jeff was growling his commands, his idea of “helping” to yell louder and sprinkle profanity in his commentary.

“Sorry, I’m trying!” Ayla replied, rushing back and forth between checking the time. When Desiree called, she said Preston was awake and she’d given him a banana and turned on his cartoons while she finished getting ready, but that she had to leave soon, no matter what.

As reliable as Lupe normally was, however, on this particular morning she’d neither shown up nor answered Desiree and Ayla’s calls and texts.

Running back out of her truck to the conveyor belt filled with packages, Ayla paused and checked her phone: 6:42 AM. Home was a fourteen-minute drive away if she hit mostly green lights. She’d timed it so that she could enjoy the maximum amount of sleep each night, five hours on average. She could remain at work no more than three more minutes before she’d need to clock out, run to her car, and speed home in time for Desiree to leave for downtown.

After dragging two sixty-pound boxes bound for a local dry cleaner onto her truck (how the hell could hangers weigh so much?) Ayla reached down and hit the button stopping the belt, bringing the entire operation to a grinding halt.

“Jeff!” she called out, waving to her supervisor to get his attention.

“Why did you turn my belt off, Murray?” Jeff growled, marching in her direction with fire in his eyes.

Ayla picked up her keys, phone, and bottle of water from inside the truck. “I have to go home. I’m really sorry, but my babysitter didn’t show up, and I have to go. Right now.”

Jeff gave her a hard stare. He had no children and had little sympathy for problems his employees had with their kids. “I mean, are you fucking kidding me? Can’t you see how much work we have left?”

“I know,” Ayla apologized, trying to slip past Jeff and get to the time clock so she could get going. “But I don’t have anybody to watch Preston. I have to go.”

“That’s a you problem. A personal problem. This is work. We pay you to be here. I’ll take this straight to Randy. You know I will,” Jeff warned. Randy was Jeff’s boss. He was much more sympathetic to family issues than Jeff, but ultimately Ayla knew she was putting her co-workers and supervisors in a bind. She hoped it wouldn’t cost her her job.

“I know. I’m really sorry. But I have to go.” Ayla squeezed herself between Jeff and a stack of boxes. She apologized to J.R., the guy who worked next to her, into whose lap some of her leftover work would surely fall.

J.R. was a workaholic, however, who picked up every scrap of overtime he could get his hands on in order to help him pay child support to two different women for his three kids.