Chapter Two
Present Day
They say old habits die hard. Which was why I wascurrently biting my thumbnail and trying to talk myself out of grabbing thetwenty-ounce bottle of Cherry Coke from behind the refrigerator glass.
Soda was bad for me.
I believed that.
I told myself that every day.
And yet here I was, in a Mexican standoff with the gasstation cooler. “No, Caroline. You don’t need it.” Talking to myself wasanother bad habit I couldn’t seem to break. At least mumbling under my breathdidn’t lead to cavities, cellulite or cancer.
“One Coke isn’t going to give you cancer,” I whisperedargumentatively. I opened the cooler door and reached inside, my fingersbrushed over the smooth plastic of the beverage I wanted so badly. It had beena rough day. I was tired and bone-deep exhausted. Two separate symptoms thatshould go hand in hand but had totally different origins.
One came from a fitful night’s sleep. The other from alifetime of waking hours that never seemed to go like they should.
Slamming the cooler door, I ripped open the next one andgrabbed a Vitamin Water instead. Coke probably wasn’t going to give me cancer,but it was for sure going to give me cellulite and my ass did not need any helpin that department.
Making my way to the checkout counter, I glancedaround the small space, noticing the cameras behind the clerk’s head thatshowed squares of the store, the gas pumps and all the various people in bothspots.
I got in line behind a middle-aged woman with a coffeein one hand and her cellphone in the other and a kid trying to pay for his gasin change and ripped dollar bills. Both of them were so self-absorbed withtheir purchases that neither of them noticed me step in line behind them.
Not that I wanted them to. But how people stood inline said a lot about what kind of people they were. For instance, the teenagerat the counter needed to stop spending all his money on weed and take a shower.He was also $2.47 short if he wanted to put an even twenty dollars of gas inhis tank.
And the woman in front of me had two kids, or at leasttwo kids she was willing to brag about on Instagram, a cheating husband, andeczema. She also had a six hundred dollar fall collection Marc Jacobs pursehanging over her shoulder. She had no idea how easy it would be for someone tobrush by her on their way out the door and snatch the wallet half hanging outof her flashy handbag.
Not that I would do that.
Not anymore at least.
But like I said, old habits die hard.
To be honest though, these days I’d rather have herpurse than her identity.
But not the cheating husband. From the text messages Iread over her shoulder to her friend Sherry, he was a real piece of work.
Weren’t they all?
When it was my turn, I placed my Vitamin Water, thesmall bag of pistachios I’d grabbed last minute, the big pack of Swedish Fishand white cheddar popcorn on the counter. “Thirty dollars on pump six too,” Itold the clerk.
He started to ring me up while I kept my eyes glued tothe security monitors. Lucky for me, they even clearly displayed myself and thepeople behind me.
Old instinct burned through me and I fought the urgeto duck my head and hide my face. Innocent people didn’t have a reason to hide.The normal, everyday American woman walked around with a smile on her face,totally oblivious to how many times she’d been caught on camera. She didn’tsnarl at Big Brother. She blissfully went about her day unaware of all thedifferent ways her life was recorded.
That was me now. Blissfully unaware.
Or maybe willfully ignorant was a better way todescribe it.
“Credit or debit?” the kid behind the cash register asked.
I swallowed down the constant anxiety that followed meeverywhere. “Credit.”
Pulling out the card from my less expensive but better-securedwallet than the lady before me, I read the raised words, Caroline Baker, withthe same kind of accusatory disbelief I always did.
The machine processed the card and blinked that mypurchase was approved in understated victory. A gentle breath of relief puffedout of me.
I had a good job and a steady paycheck, but I wouldnever be able to stop the anxiety that came alongside every purchase.
