"Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, I'm going to work at the TTC!" Louise fingered her TTC cufflink-cum-pin as she bounced up and down on her toes in front of her hall mirror, failing in her happiness to see Marcia's tail undulating like a snake behind her reflection. The cat's green eyes bored into her back while Louise admired her pin: a black numeral one on the cufflink's round yellow background, the whole encircled with rhodium. Louise's light brown eyes shone with delight. She had turned the official TTC cufflink from the TTC store into a kind of pin that she'd neatly inserted into the second buttonhole of her fresh white shirt.
"Isn't this exciting, Marcia," she bubbled without turning around. "I'm really going to the TTC. Today's my first day on the job, working for Toronto's public transit!" Louise fisted her hands and clapped them in front of her heart. She gave a little shriek of happiness. "I'm actually going, Marcia!" Louise whirled around, the gravitational force pulling her cufflink-cum-pin outward and with it her shirt. The pin sat in her shirt's buttonhole just above the top button of her sky blue V-neck cardigan. Her cardigan was modestly buttoned up to its top button and kept her shirt from revealing too much. Louise laughed down at her mottled brown cat with her black paws and white-smudged nose, who was staring fixedly back up at her as she sat on her haunches.
Marcia leapt.
She stretched her front paws up and grasped the cufflink between them. She twisted her body in mid-air, bum going up, head going down, front legs twisting as she held on to the pin before successfully yanking it downward. Rip! Louise gasped. She clasped her torn buttonhole. Marcia landed - thump! The cufflink-cum-pin ricocheted away. Louise cried, "Marcia!"
Marcia mrrrowwed up at her before turning to race after the TTC pin spinning across the scuffed oak floor. Galvanized by seeing her yellow number one pin disappearing around the corner of her small hall towards her bedroom and her cat's upright tail with its bent tip disappearing behind it, Louise raced after both. When she skidded around the corner, cat and pin were gone. "Marcia," Louise yelled desperately. "Where are you?" Stop yelling, Louise, she told herself. Listen. She breathed heavily. Her heart bu-bumped in her chest. All she could hear was herself. Louise stepped quickly to her bedroom. She'd only bought one white shirt for her first day on the job, a job she'd landed so quickly she still couldn't believe it. She had attended the job interview the moment they'd called her the day after she'd emailed in her résumé for the Customer Convenience Team Vision Member position at the TTC. She hadn't been sure what that job was about, but that hadn't deterred her. Her motto had been to apply for any and every job at the Toronto Transit Commission that she could or whose requirements she met even in the faintest way. She was determined she'd work at the TTC. That was the place for her to be.
At the interview in the slightly tattered-looking office — it must've been a temporary workspace, Louise had thought — the nice woman and slim man standing next to her had reviewed her résumé in less than five minutes barely after she'd sat down. They hadn't asked her any questions other than did she know how to type and what kind of computers was she familiar with. She'd told them that she'd used ones running DOS and Windows and had played with original Macs. Her mother had taught her how to assemble and disassemble all kinds of hardware, she'd eagerly related. They'd stopped her then as the woman looked up at the man, who'd nodded back at her. The woman had returned her gaze to Louise's face, smiled, and said neutrally that she had the job. Louise had caught her breath and clutched her chest. She couldn't believe it had been that easy. She'd tried and tried to get a job as a driver, a subway booth operator, customer service rep, anything to get in the door. But she'd never heard back. It was like her résumé had disappeared into a red-and-white rabbit hole.
She knew that she wanted to work for the TTC ever since the day she'd buried her father, four years after her mother had been murdered by a car and a TTC driver had stayed with her dying mother until the ambulance had come, until the police had arrived, and then the TTC CEO had attended her mother's funeral.
TTC people were there for people, Louise had learnt.
Louise stood in her bedroom, still clutching her ripped shirt, as she repeated to herself: they had even turned up at her mother's funeral. The TTC CEO had been so nice to her father and had bent down to shake her own hand. And she'd been only fourteen years old. She remembered that moment with the same surprise and feeling of honour she'd had back then. The driver attending with the CEO had then gruffly expressed his sympathies.
Four years later, when her father had died in hospital, pale, broken-hearted from his wife's death, he'd spoken to Louise with a sudden gust of energy. He'd said to her that she was like her mother, capable. She would be alright. Louise had shaken her head no, she wouldn't, as he breathed his last. But five days later, as she'd walked away from her father's graveside, she knew where she'd be alright — she'd be alright at the TTC.
A memory slipped in as Louise began to move again. She took the few steps to her closet as she remembered the driver who had taken her home when she was a child. She'd become lost. Memories of that rainy day, the bus wiper wonkily hissing back, pause, forth against the drops, flitted into her mind as she flicked her hangers in her closet looking for another white shirt. She blinked back tears. Why did Marcia do that? The TTC was the better way. It was the best way. Everyone there was so kind. Drivers helping lost children, sitting next to dying women. The CEO coming to convey their sympathies to them, just her and her father, long after everyone else had gone. So kind. She wanted to be there. She wanted so badly to help others in the TTC way.
Her hand flicked a blue shirt to the right, and a white shirt was revealed. Ah, she sighed, relieved. She quickly unbuttoned her cardigan, slipped it off herself, unbuttoned her torn shirt - where was Marcia?! Why did she do that?! She blinked back more tears as she removed her shirt and dropped it on the floor to lie next to her cardigan.
She unhooked the hanger from its rail and carefully slid the ten-year-old white shirt off it. She leaned down to pick up her cardigan and carried both into her bathroom. Her white TTC shower curtain greeted her eyes. She stood there and read: "Union. Bloor-Yonge." Station names. In bold black letters. There were other station names below those two big ones. Her parents had usually driven her everywhere. She hadn't been on the bus before that long ago day when she'd gotten lost. And not after then either because her father had been upset at her mother for putting her on the bus alone. Her father had left her his car in his will, and she drove it everywhere because it made her feel like he was still with her.
But now, she was going to be working at the TTC. Those stations were going to belong to her. She was part of that now. A smile reached into her eyes and lightened her brown irises. A happy hum bubbled up from her heart as she lay her cardigan over the edge of her sink and began to push her right arm into the short sleeve of her white shirt. She said out loud: "Those will be my subway stations, Marcia. I'm going to be part of that soon! Isn't that exciting?"
"Yowl!"
Skittering and skidding thumping paws galloped towards her.
Louise turned to her right toward the shower curtain and then to face the door, her arm frozen halfway into its sleeve. A streak of mottled brown fur hissed as it flew past her startled eyes and agape mouth and punched the shower curtain. Dead centre.
With a harmonious shriek of human and cat, Marcia plummeted downward into Louise's ordinary white tub, the curtain folding itself over her as its rings flung themselves off the shower rail like popcorn. The cat screamed inside the plastic, paws and tail and head turning the back side of the black letters on white background into a panicked alien. Louise's shirt hung off her arm as she reached down to find an edge of the curtain. A paw ripped through, claws fully extended. Louise yanked her hand back, out of those claws' way. Teeth found purchase from the inside, and a cat head emerged, ears flattened, eyes aglow, teeth bared. Louise reared back. Somehow Marcia made the hole bigger and silently launched herself out of the tub and straight for the white shirt still hanging from Louise's arm.
Louise jumped backwards, flinging her right arm back too, banging painfully against the front edge of her white porcelain sink. Marcia streaked out.
Crash.
Louise's head sank into her chest.
Her mug.
Her white TTC mug with its yellow-filled circle and black numeral one dead centre of it.
Her favourite breakfast mug. Marcia had never touched it before. Why did she push it off her kitchen counter today, the first day of work? Her favourite mug had kept her going for the last couple of years as she had futilely tried to get a job at the TTC year in and year out while working other jobs. She'd applied for College right after her father's funeral. She'd studied hard and had gotten the highest marks she could. She'd been an average student. But her instructors had all praised her for her diligence and her positive outlook. No matter how hard the work or how much lower her marks were than what she wanted, she'd always said it was okay. Life was good. She was passing her classes; that was the main thing. Her instructors always smiled when they saw her bouncing into class with a cheerful good morning. Or afternoon.
It was hard to feel cheerful right now. She didn't understand Marcia. What had upset her cat? Sure, she hadn't had a job for three months. Marcia had gotten used to her being at home all the time, she guessed.
She'd found Marcia at a pet store near where she'd buried her father. Marcia had glared through the pet store glass at her, daring her to own her. Louise had known right then and there that Marcia would stay with her. Marcia would look out for her. She knew cats couldn't go out with her like dogs would. Marcia would never tolerate a leash! But Louise's home would always be safe with Marcia in it. Until three months ago, Louise had left Marcia alone in her rented condo for many hours watching Brady Bunch reruns on her television during the day while she was at College then, after graduation, while she worked at one job or another. Marcia had always been content to watch her leave and had always greeted her with happy blinks. Louise shook her head. It was too puzzling. Marcia usually made her feel safe at home. Maybe from now on, she'd be safer at her new job at the TTC instead, she thought.
Slowly, Louise revolved herself back to facing her bathroom mirror and finished pulling on and buttoning up her white shirt. She tucked her shirt into her neatly ironed navy blue pants then put on her sky-blue cardigan again and buttoned it. She pulled it down to ensure no wrinkles remained in its soft wool body. She stared at her reflection. Brown hair curled tightly all around her head, slightly over her ears, and down to her neck. Her fair skin showed no hint of summer sun. Her mother had taught her to wear sunscreen and to stay out of the sun, and her skin would always look smooth and nice to men. She put her palms up to her chest, closed her eyelids over her worried brown eyes, and inhaled, pushing her hands outward. She breathed deeply in and out three times as her father had taught her. She opened her eyes. There. She was better. Nothing was going to ruin her first day at the TTC. She'd been so excited that she would have been early anyway. Now she would arrive right on time. Marcia had gone a little crazy because she knew being early at the TTC was not good, Louise nodded to herself. The TTC was always right on time. She would be too.