Plot Summary Of Spare Change By Teresa Zsuffa
In “Spare Change”, Teresa Zsuffa, the writer, has an encounter on the underground subway with a complete stranger, who could have possibly changed the way Teresa judges other people. The complete stranger is a woman who Teresa describes in the passage, “She must be about twenty-nine. Her orange track-pants are worn and faded, her T-shirt is far too big, and her powder blue sweatshirt is tied around her waist. Her face and teeth are stained, hair greasy and unkept. ” The two women has some differences such as their views on life and where they’re heading but one thing they have in common is their ability to trust each other.
Teresa is a student traveler, who at time of being on the subway is reading a Nicholas Sparks novel, as the women was asking people on the subway with stop she needed to take to get to Old City Hall. Teresa who gets off a Dundas Station, which is one stop before Old City Hall, gets annoyed that the women gets off and then proceeds to follow her. The women asks Teresa where she going and Teresa tell her, Greyhound Station to take the next bus to Niagara Falls, where he dad lives. The women then tells Teresa that she’s looking for Old City Hall, and Teresa offers to take her. Teresa founds out from the women that she is going there to get her boyfriend who is supposed to be getting out of jail.
As Teresa takes the women to Old City Hall she offer to get her something to eat at a McDonalds in a mall. Teresa ignores the stares that she gets from strangers. She begins to ask the women questions to get to know her. She ask where she from and what she's doing in the city. She also tells Teresa that she just had gotten out of rehab because of crack and how her grandmother put her out for being a hooker. Teresa was shocked out how open the woman was with her business but Teresa just figured the women trusted her. As they sat and ate, Teresa tells the women a little about her life and ask the women about hers. The woman tells Teresa that she has been cleaned for months and wants her boyfriend to quit and hopes her grandmother lets her back in. Looking at the time, Teresa realizes that she must go and so should the woman, or she’ll be late for the hearing. Pointing her in the direction of Old City Hall, Teresa gives the woman “two TTC passes and some spare change. ” Although never getting a thank you, Teresa hopes the woman will be okay and wonders if her boyfriend will get out of jail.
