Characterization of the narrator

The narrator is the main character of the short story “Appointment” by Olivia Parkes. The narrator is a middle-aged woman who used to work “taking calls on the pesticide hotline”) and is currently unemployed. She is shabby-looking and does not take care of herself. For example, she is wearing “crumpled clothes” that look “like something you’d find under a bridge.” She has a “bald patch” at the back of her head, and her hair makes her look as if she has been staying in “a cloud of bad weather” for years. 

At the hair salon, the narrator asks for champagne, even though she most likely has drinking problems: “I wanted to quit drinking and call Paulie…” The narrator’s drinking problem seems to have been the main cause of a house fire that she started and failed to put out: 

‘So what I didn’t put out the flames? I remember the acrylic bedspread in our temporary digs looked finally alive, dancing hot as merry hell. So I liked a drink. So I liked to heat what happiness I had and watch it burn.’ 

The narrator’s description of her reaction to the fire also shows that she is aware of her faults, even though she does not initially seem to want to take any actions to repair the damage she has done in her life.

The narrator is a troubled woman who...