A/N: inspired by a craptastic day, including the running mishap *grin* At least something good came out of the rottenness.
Jessie entered the kitchen with a sigh of disgust. The day had steadily gone from bad to worse as the hours ticked away. She flopped into one of the chairs and buried her head in her arms for a few moments. The chime of her phone brought her head up and she saw a text from Bo: Jessie- have to work about an hour extra tonight. It's been a day. Won't be home for dinner. Let me know if I can bring you anything.
Jessie made a scoffing noise, "Seems like it's been a crummy day for everyone." She set her phone down and rummaged in the cupboards for food. She settled on a tomato sandwich, cutting the home-grown fruit into thick slices. She emptied the bag of potato chips onto her plate and poured a large glass of sweet tea. She sat back at the table and bit into her food, enjoying the explosion of sweetness the tomato released over her taste buds. Closing her eyes, she sighed again, this time a bit more happily. She reached for her phone and sent a reply to Bo, Grabbed a sandwich. We're out of chips, FYI. Sorry you've had a rotten day, too. See you later. A few minutes later, she got a reply, On a quick break. What went wrong for you?
Nothing huge, just lots of little things all added up, Jessie typed. You?
Too much to text. Will tell you later tonight. Hope it gets better.
Jessie opened up a new message thread, this time to Buzz, Think you'd get kicked out if you went AWOL to come give your wife-to-be a much needed massage? She punctuated the text with a winky face, but thought of how much she missed him on days like this. What she really wanted was for him to be home, to wrap his arms around her; his hugs had a way of making any negativity fade completely away.
Well, if I can't have his hugs, maybe there is ice cream, Jessie thought hopefully. She dumped her dirty dishes into the sink and opened the freezer door. It was well stocked, but sadly not with any ice cream. "Figures," she muttered. Her eyes fell on her running shoes, left by the door. "Well, why not?" She went to her bedroom and changed into a pair of running capris and a fitted shirt. She tucked her phone into the shirt's pocket, laced up her shoes, and headed out down the lane.
The evening air was cooling off and Jessie felt optimistic about her choice. She thought about taking all of the stresses from the day and letting them fall under her feet where she could pound them into the dirt. She had barely made it a quarter of a mile when something darted out from the tall grass that lined the road. She tried to stop, and had the sensation of stubbing her toe. Instead of continuing to run, though, she found herself tumbling onto the dirt, her right knee and left palm absorbing the brunt of the impact. She looked up in time to see the critter disappearing into the grass on the other side of the lane.
Jessie rocked back into a seated position and examined her hand. The heel of her palm was freckled with dirt and blood. Pulling back the fabric of her pant leg, she gave silent thanks she did not choose shorts. Her knee was slightly skinned, but she knew that a bruise was not far from coming. She stared down the road, musing over whether to continue her run or to return home. Tears suddenly sprang to her eyes and she felt an almost overwhelming urge to weep as yet another thing had gone wrong. Instead she laughed and flicked away the tears as she stood up and headed back towards the house.
She plodded back into the kitchen and retrieved the first aid kit from one of the cabinets. As she drew an alcohol pad across the scrapes, Jessie sucked in air through her teeth. The sting lasted only a moment and then she turned her attention to her knee. Better put something on that, just in case, she thought. She rummaged through the freezer and found a bag of cranberries. Wrapping that in a towel, she went to the living room and propped her right leg up, balancing the towel over her knee. She turned on the television to pass the time. She texted Bo, Tried to run. Don't know why I thought that should work when nothing else has today. I need to take a shower, but I'm frankly afraid of what might happen. She added a smiley face so her sister-in-law would know Jessie was in a good humor about the whole thing. After several minutes had passed, Jessie returned the cranberries to the freezer and went up to take a shower.
Mercifully, nothing further went awry and Jessie came back downstairs and found Bo in the kitchen. "Hey," she greeted.
"Hey, yourself. I guess no pipes burst?" Bo grinned.
"No, thank goodness!" Jessie laughed. "So, how was your day, dear?"
Bo smiled and handed Jessie a spoon. At the quizzical look on her face, she then produced a pint of triple chocolate ice cream. "Come on, let's sit soft and drown our sorrows. Woody's working graveyard with Andy."
Jessie listened as Bo told her all about the mishaps at the diner and then told her own story of the day. She smiled at her sister-in-law, "Well, at least the diner gig is only for the summer, right? Just makes you look forward to when school starts back up." During the summer, Bo helped at the local diner but come August, she was one of the teachers at the Sunnyside Preschool.
Bo laughed, "I guess it does. Sometimes it's trading one set of trouble for another. Always an adventure," she took a spoonful of ice cream and held the container out to Jessie.
Just as she was about to dig her spoon in, the Star Wars theme played from her phone and she smiled; that was Buzz's ringtone. "I think I'm done. Hey, Space Boy," she answered the phone and headed to the back porch.
"Hey, Cowgirl. Got your text; what's wrong?"
"Oh, it was just a crummy day. Little stuff like reins snapping and then a feed sack split when I was trying to lug it to the stalls. Some of the horses today were just so ornery; they would not let me clean their hooves or anything, no matter HOW many carrots I promised. Then I went for a run," she filled him in on her spill.
The concern in Buzz's voice filtered through the phone, "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just some bumps and bruises. It'll be a good one on my knee, too. Bo and I have been using ice cream to turn the day around."
"Has it worked?"
She shrugged, "It's worked enough. Why? You gonna try and top that?"
"I might. I mean, I WAS going to tell you that I'll be home on Friday, but if ice cream is all you need…"
Jessie let out a delighted whoop and heard Buzz laugh. "Ya mean it?"
"Yeah. We're about done with all we can do, and until Star Command gets it all implemented up there, we're at a stand still. Is that acceptable?" he teased.
"I s'ppose it'll have to do," she scoffed, but smiled happily. She and Buzz were able to talk a few more minutes before he had to end the call. Jessie went back into the house and joined Bo on the couch where the two women enjoyed a quiet girl's night for a change. For all that had gone wrong, Jessie was grateful that it took only one or two things going right to make the day seem better; and that was the best consolation there was.