Chapter 18 - Clara’s Rock Bottom
On a sweltering Tuesday afternoon in late July, Julian was driving back to his office after a site inspection on the industrial east side of the city when his Mercedes was brought to a halt by a major traffic light intersection. While waiting for the light to change, he glanced out his passenger side window toward the strip mall across the street.
There, standing outside a discount discount dollar store, was a woman trying to load a bulky box of laundry detergent into the trunk of a rusted, twenty-year-old sedan with a mismatched front fender.
Julian squinted through his designer sunglasses. It took him several seconds to recognize her.
It was Clara.
She looked ten years older than her actual age. Her once-flawless skin was deeply lined with stress and fatigue, her dark hair was streaked with untamed gray roots, and she wore a faded, stained retail uniform shirt that hung limply over her hunched shoulders. As she lifted the heavy box, the bag of groceries resting on her car fender tipped over, spilling generic cans of soup and discount boxes of pasta across the dirty asphalt of the parking lot.
Clara dropped to her knees on the pavement, frantically scrambling to gather the rolling cans before they rolled under a neighboring truck. A passing motorist honked at her for blocking the driving lane, yelling a casual insult out his window. Clara didn't yell back; she didn't curse or display her old, fiery arrogance. She simply hung her head, her shoulders shaking in silent, defeated resignation as she scooped the dirty cans back into a torn plastic bag.
Julian sat in the air-conditioned comfort of his luxury car, his hands resting lightly on the leather steering wheel. For a split second, a distant, buried memory flashed in his mind—the two of them as children, playing in their parents' backyard, promising to always look out for each other.
May you like
Then, the memory was overwritten by the vision of Aria sitting on the floor in her lavender dress, surrounded by her murdered hair.
The traffic light turned green. Julian didn't reach for his door handle; he didn't roll down his window to offer a bill or a word of comfort. He took his foot off the brake, pressed the accelerator, and drove smoothly past the strip mall, leaving Clara Vance in the rearview mirror of his life forever.
