Kevin Harris later learns her name is really Francesca Parker, but her name badge reads Fran. The last place he would ever picture her working is an auto part store. Her curly black hair frames her soft round face, her sweet blue eyes, and those lips around the whitest of teeth; they all say any place but an auto parts store.
The thing he is the most fixated on now is the nearly empty right sleeve of her tee shirt. Not even the super short cut off jeans resting tight over her small hips or the tee shirt that bulges over what is obviously a pair of breasts with no bra and her nipples that are rock hard, can entice him from that sleeve. She slips one can of oil after another across the scanner and the missing arm now has him in a catatonic stupor.
"Twenty-three ninety-five. Will there be anything else?"
Those words roll off her tongue like a soft summer evening. She is turned just enough for him to see the outline of her missing arm hidden inside the sleeve and that is all he can think about.
"Sir, that will be twenty-three ninety-five."
Poor Kevin is shocked back into reality like the zap of the paddles on a defibrillator.
"Whoa, sorry about that," she almost moans as if she just had an orgasm. He hands her a twenty and a five and glances back to see if anyone else is in line. There is not. Fran scoops a nickel and a one-dollar bill from the till with her long slim fingers and hands it to him. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone go that deep into shock." The smile that fills her face is even bigger than before. Her single hand pushes the brown paper bag towards him.
His fingers grip the bag so tightly that they poke though one side of the bag. "Will you have dinner with me?"
"What if Big Daddy will wipe up the garage with your ass?" She drawls as if the year will end before she finishes.
"It would be worth it. Is there a Big Daddy?"
"Shucks no. I get off at five. Meet ya out front."
They sit nearly alone in the pizza restaurant, she next to him. "Just cause I work at the auto parts place, they all think I'm just a dumb chick. I have a master's degree in history. Worked in the museum of natural history for a year." Fran pushes her sleeve up over her shoulder. "I did this and moved here. Pretty, isn't it? I know you think so, I saw you staring at it so hard a meteor could have struck you dead and you'd not known it."
Kevin's mouth dangles open.
"Forgive me for talking like a piece of white trash. It is part of the act to fit in around here."
"Your arm, did you really want it amputated?"
"Yes Kevin, for all my life I wanted that. I found a doctor and she amputated it a year ago. Now I live in the wilds of Edgerton County and I am starting my life over. In private, you can call me Francesca of you would like. I find it is too big a word for around here." She giggles.
