Daylight

Pet’s POV

About 5 am the next morning, I realized that no matter how early it was, and no matter how blessedly quiet the bus was for a change, there was no way I was gonna be able to get back to sleep. Too much on my mind.
Normally, I would’ve written down a few lines in order to get the thoughts out of my head, then turned back over and passed out again for a few hours. No such luck this time, though; my thoughts were too numerous and confused.
Screw this, I give up!

I sighed heavily and rolled as silently as possible out of my bunk. As I crept along, I could hear Sal sawing logs, and Tia making that weird musical noise in her sleep that she always did. Mo was completely silent and still, as usual; I always wanted to hold a mirror under her nose, just in case, you know?
I pulled on a robe—I was damn chilly all of a sudden—and padded towards the front of our bus, where I suddenly realized I could smell…coffee?
Maybe I’m wrong and Mo’s awake after all, I thought. When I got to the kitchen area, though, it was Shoshi’s figure I saw hunched over a hot cup, her head nodding to whatever she was listening to on her earbuds.
I resisted the urge to touch her shoulder; I didn’t want to startle her, because I was pretty sure she couldn’t hear me. She surprised me, though: as I tried to move within her line of vision so she could see I was there, she simply turned around and smiled.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Shoshi said, removing her earbuds and turning off her music player. “What’s got you up so bright and early?”
“How—how did you know I was there?” I stammered out.
She just smiled placidly again. “I am Ninja Woman these days,” Shoshi advised me. “Some pregnant women can smell things that others can’t; I apparently can hear and sense things before other people are aware of them. The floor’s just a little uneven right between the bunks and the front here, and I felt the weight of someone there. It’s really weird, huh?”
I dropped onto the bench opposite our soon-to-be-ex-manager. “I’ll say,” I remarked with wide eyes. “Just don’t tell me if you can see or feel anything that’s not really there.”
“No problem, I doubt the bus is haunted,” she nodded. “Caffeine?”
“I may as well, I can’t sleep anyways,” I muttered, pouring myself a cup.
“I’m having trouble too, as you can see,” Shoshi commented. “God, I thought it’d wait till I was…bigger, you know? But I guess not.”
I was curious. “Can you feel the baby yet? You know, is there…movement?”
“I don’t think so,” she mused. “They always tell you that you’ll know, but if you’ve never been pregnant before, how would you know?”
I shrugged. “You’re asking me?”
Shoshi pulled a face. “Rhetorical question, baby. So, how’s your guy, what’s his name, Joe?”
I chuckled and sipped at my coffee. “C’mon, Shoshi, that ‘innocent’ crap isn’t you. You know everything.”
“Not everything, baby,” she responded playfully. “But I’m working on it. So…what’s up with this guy?” Then she lowered her voice. “The two of you haven’t actually done the nasty, have you?” Her eyes twinkled.
I pretended to be shocked. “Why would I tell you?”
“Because I can keep a secret.”
I turned the question on her. “What do you think?”
She squinted her eyes at me. “Knowing you, I highly doubt it…but that’s just me. However, I think the boy’s in your head, if not actually in your knickers.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Why else would a perfectly normal young woman be up at 5 am when she didn’t go to sleep till after midnight?” she questioned. “Especially one who has trouble getting up most days, no matter what the reason.”

I didn’t answer. We fell silent for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet despite the hour.

I drank the last of my coffee and fidgeted with the cup. Shoshi was looking out the window at the sky slowly getting lighter. My heart sank a little as I realized, once again, that there wouldn’t be too many more days like this, where I could talk to her anytime I needed to. When I could still confide in her.
“Shosh…can I ask you a question?” I asked timidly.
She turned to me with another smile. “Sure, baby, what do you need?”
I shrugged. “It’s a hypothetical situation,” I clarified.
“Those are my specialty. So what’s the question?”
“Do you…can you…know…if and when a person is right for you? In a short amount of time, I mean?”
She humored me. “How short of a time are we talking about?”
“I dunno,” I replied, not really having thought this through. “Right away? A few months? A few…weeks, even?”
Shoshi considered her response. “Well, I suppose there could be what they call ‘love at first sight,’ but I don’t know if that sorta thing lasts. Hypothetically, of course.”
I nodded. “Right.”
She rested her head in her hand. “But I think if a person got to know someone well, they’d be better able to judge that someone’s suitability for themselves.”
“Hmmmm,” I said. “That’s not much of an answer. So like, how’d you know with Ray? There must’ve been some point where you knew, right?”
Her face lit up but her eyes went far away, remembering. “Well, when I first met him, he was really quiet. Didn’t make too much of an impression on me, you know? But when were we introduced, and I looked in his eyes….” she trailed off.
I waited.
Shoshi finally spoke up again. “I knew already that the man wasn’t a movie star or anything in the looks department, which didn’t bother me,” she continued. “But when I looked right at him….”
“What?” I whispered. I realized I was holding my breath.
She looked at me. “It wasn’t so much love in the strictest sense; it was like…I recognized him, you know? Like I already knew him somehow. Does that make sense?”
I sighed. “Sort of. I’ve never been in love, but that sounds pretty close to me.” I thought for a minute. “Did you think he was your soulmate?”
“Pffttt,” she dismissed that idea with a wave of her hand. “Personally, I think that concept is bullshit. People saying someone’s their soulmate, I never believed in it. But…after I met Ray, I spent that whole night looking up everything I could find about bashert.”
“And that is…?”
She smirked. “Hebrew for soulmate, of course.”
I burst out laughing out of pure amazement. “You’re nuts, Shoshi, you know that?” I asked her.
“There have been rumors,” she confirmed.

I started to get up from my seat, but Shoshi stopped me with a hand on my wrist.
“Petula, you never told me why we were having this discussion,” she commented.
I smiled. “No reason. Just wondering,” I replied.
The look on her face told me she didn’t believe me. I avoided her eyes and just went back to my bunk to get dressed.