Chapter 3: Surprise!

*Thelma*

I wake up to find a little box on the small bedside table. The white envelope underneath the box is addressed to me. I attempt to rub the sleep out of my eyes with the back of my hand, before getting up and retrieving the envelope and opening it.

‘I can’t imagine my life without you. My sunshine, my angel. Happy birthday to the world’s best daughter. Love, Mom.’

I smile as I open the little box. In it is a gold chain necklace with a blue pendant.

“Thanks, mum,” I whisper to the empty room.

I know that my mother can’t afford to buy me many luxuries, or throw me an expensive twenty-first birthday celebration, but this necklace was something I would treasure more than diamonds or platinum.

I wonder what time it is; a quick look at my phone tells me that it’s half past seven. I’m surprised to see that Roy isn’t still sleeping, and after a quick shower, I make my way down the creaky stairs to the kitchen.

“Happy birthday, dear,” my mother cheers in a sing-songy voice as I walk in.

Uncle Fernandez is sitting at the old kitchen table with a newspaper in his hands. I pray he is looking in the classified section searching for a job.

“Thank you, Ma.”

“Oh, I was wondering why Eunice is making pancakes today. I was so used to the lumpy oatmeal for breakfast,” Uncle Fernandez condescends.

I roll my eyes. ‘Well, maybe if you were working you wouldn’t have to eat lumpy oatmeal.’

Just then he puts the newspaper down as if an idea has just gone off in his bald head.

“How old are you?” he asks.

His voice sounds a bit excited, or panicked; I can’t be too sure.

“Twenty-one,” I answer plainly as I go take a seat in the empty chair closest to the old gas stove. I am hoping the heat from it will keep me warm since the rest of the house feels like ice.

“Something smells good.” Aunt Maggie saunters into the kitchen, still in her robe, with some green curlers in her hair. She starts opening up every pot on the stove, taking a whiff. Is she really going around sniffing the food that we are all supposed to eat? Suddenly, my appetite is souring, because of her and my uncle.

“Did you hear that, dear? Thelma here is turning twenty-one today,” Uncle Fernandez says in a voice that sounds very pointed.

He looks at me suspiciously, as Aunt Maggie stops smelling the food and turns to look at me, equally skeptical.

Aunt Maggie puts a hand protectively over her belly. “Do you feel funny?”

I frown up at her as I wonder in what context she is asking me this.

“I don’t think I turned into a comedian overnight, no,” I reply frankly as I reach across the table to take a piece of crispy maple bacon from a plate mum is dishing out the food from.

“Do you feel tingly? Feel like eating raw meat?” Uncle Fernandez asks.

“Feeling any different?” Aunt Maggie chimes in before I can answer.

Again, I frown. It seemed like whatever Uncle Fernandez was smoking was having effects on his wife too.

“No. It feels like just another ordinary day,” I respond dismissively. 

It was just my twenty-first birthday, why would I feel the need to eat raw meat or tingly? When River had turned twenty-one, had she somehow changed? I know she eats more and has grown even lazier, but I think she was always like that even before she turned twenty-one, if my memory serves me correctly. 

“That’s enough, Fernandez. Leave my daughter to enjoy her birthday in peace,” my mother says, her voice laced with irritation. 

“There is nothing wrong with making sure your beautiful daughter is feeling her very best on her very special day,” Uncle Fernandez retorts.

My mother turns and gives him a disgusted look.

***

Everyone is all crammed in the small kitchen, gobbling down on the awesome food Ma prepared. While Ma rests, I clear up after everyone, even though it is my birthday. Everyone else is now sitting outside enjoying the warmth of the sunshine, or huddled up in a room somewhere else in the farm house.

I can’t help but curse as no one helped to clear up the table. Was everyone here just content with eating, pooping and sleeping? This was a whole different level of entitlement and laziness. 

Most of my cousins hadn’t even bothered to wish me a happy birthday; I guess I was the fool who always tried to buy a small gift for everyone’s else’s special day. Well, never again. 

Except for Roy and Ma, I don’t owe anyone my loyalty.

Casting the negativity aside, I’m simply glad I have the day off from work today. As I’m drying my hands on the torn dish towel, the notification bell from my phone blares in the room.

I pick up the phone and groan. The message reads:

‘Hi, Thelma. We need you to come in to work today. Hannah called in sick, and Kayla had to take her dog to the vet. I will send a taxi to come to pick you up at one o’clock. Rebekah. P.S. Happy birthday.’

What a lovely birthday this was turning out to be….

Out of all people, I would have assumed Rebekah, my friend and manager at work, would understand just how important it was for me to rest, if only for this one day. 

I had been working double shifts for the past two weeks and could do with some time off. Of course, the extra money I was making was welcomed, helping Ma pay the bills and feed this full house, but I sometimes wanted to live a calmer, simple life. Something like having a little time to breathe clean air, instead of the diner air, which was punctuated with the smell of burning oil.

After a quick change of clothes, and packing a backpack with my apron, I make my way to Ma before the taxi arrives. At least I wouldn’t have to take the train or bus; happy birthday to me indeed. I could have told Rebekah ‘no,’ but I guess I was my mother’s daughter. I wasn’t very good at saying no to the  people I loved.

I bid my mum goodbye; she is groggy and I can tell she is barely comprehending what I am saying to her. After giving her a quick kiss on the forehead, I rush out to the waiting taxi.

As I’m driven down the road toward the diner, I inhale and exhale slowly. I remember when Rebekah turned 21, her parents had thrown her a glamorous party which I was lucky enough to be invited to. I could still visualize their enormous modern house with an equally grand swimming pool in their backyard.

She hadn’t had to go to work that day; actually, no one had gone to work. Since her father owned the diner, they had closed the entire restaurant for the day just to give her a memorable twenty-first. Yet, here I was, in a taxi, on my way to work on my birthday. 

Even though I wasn’t going to have a huge celebration of any kind, just being at home with Roy and watching some movies on my old laptop, which was more of a desktop now since the battery died, would have been an awesome way to spend my special day.

As the taxi enters the highway, en route to the diner, I feel my heart sink. Even though I knew I had to go, I really couldn’t stomach the feeling of entering that grease pit today.

But, as if he is reading my mind, the driver off-ramps and takes the wrong exit. Was he answering my prayers to bring me back home? I highly doubted that and fear immediately creeped into my body.

I swallow hard. I had heard a lot of horror taxi rides, but had never imagined I might have one such story. 

“Uh, sir, you're going in the wrong direction,” I point out, my voice shaking.

“No I am not,” he replies.

I can feel my heart pounding so loud that I can hear it in my head.

“I---Is this a shortcut to Wendy’s Diner?” I ask. We are now on a dusty road that has no sign of life or traffic on it. It looks rather deserted, like the kind of roads you would expect to see in horror films without lights or traffic signals.

“Who said I am taking you to Wendy’s Diner?” he asks.

I am now sitting on the edge of the back car seat, hyperventilating.

“Rebekah sent you to pick me up and take me to Wendy’s Diner, right?”

The man is silent as he peers at me through the rearview mirror and smiles devilishly.

“Who is Rebekah?” he asks.

Now I really can’t breathe. This was the taxi Rebekah had sent, right? I had checked the car model and registration number and compared it to the text Rebekah sent me regarding the driver’s details. Everything seemed to match up.

“S---i---sir, where are you taking me?” I stutter.

Again he peers at me through the rearview mirror, and flashes me a manic toothy grin that chills my blood.

“It’s a surprise, Thelma.”