“Or I, you,” I tell her when she hides her face from me. “It could have easily been me needing the reminder to cool off.” She nods, the corner of her lip turning up, as if she needed to hear me say something that seemedsoobvious. “All right, Killer, it’s my turn. Truth.”
“Have you ever been handcuffed?”
“Prudence!”
“I didn’t mean it like that!”
Fourteen
Prue
The day startedwith the battle of two hangovers. Me, whose birthday itactuallywas yesterday, versus my father, who forgets he is not as young as he once was and got a little carried away.
He won. I left him lying on the couch with a cool cloth on his head and a bottle of ibuprofen next to him.
Dad’s being punished in a uniquely torturous way, however. Mom decidedtodaywas the day she needed to search through all of the kitchen cabinets and downstairs closets to find the breadbasket her great aunt had gifted her twenty-odd years ago. Because, apparently, my great-great aunt Edith is coming over for dinner.
She is not. Edith is, in fact, very dead. And the basket was donated long, long ago.
Still, it’s keeping Mom busy as Dad attempts to rest and I keep the store running.
It’s been a relatively slow morning, with the handful of retired locals who come in to check one item off their daily to-do list, a few geniuses who cannot figure out why the gas pump doesn’t take cash, and two kids who stop in for ten-cent candy accompanied by exhausted yet chic Torontonian parents who’ve spent upward of two hours in the car with them already.
They’re no doubt headed to their luxurious home on the lake that they humbly callthe cabin,when it’s the furthest thing from it. I spend the long gaps between them and the next customer designing every room of their lakeside palace with a limitless budget in mind.
When I worked in the store every weekend in high school,thiswas my favorite part of the job—the people watching that let my imagination run loose. It all starts with someone new coming in. I never know upon first glance if they’ll be the right type of person to craft a story around, but I am able to most of the time—especially when bored.
The key to it is improvisation following observation. For example, the middle-aged man who’s taking his sweet time looking at each andeveryapple might, to some, just be nitpicky. But, to me, he’s a lovesick fool buying time.
Is it possible that he’s just looking to find a perfectly ripe apple with no bruising? Sure. But, maybe, he’s not really looking at the apples at all. Perhaps, the apples are just the task for his wandering hands and absent mind to focus on as he plans his opening line for when he reunites with his college sweetheart this afternoon.
Her name is Daniella. She’s recently divorced and has never stopped wondering whereJames,I’ll call him, ended up.
James still makes her favorite snack, the one she introduced him to when they’d study together in their dormitory lounge—apples dunked in peanut butter and honey.
So, as James holds up another apple to a keen eye, I hear his thoughts aloud. Should he bring her one, as a reminder of their history? Would that be strange? He’d never stopped wondering about her either. He’d never married.
James places two apples in his basket and wanders off to the next aisle. Meanwhile, I craft him and Daniella a beautiful life in their sunsetting years. They take their engagement photosoutside of their old college dorms. They adopt a golden retriever. Actually, two. They live a long, bliss-filled, happy life and I’m happy for them. They deserve it.
“Here.” James drops the basket filled with items in front of me without so much as a polite nod. Taking a look inside, I’m disappointed when there’s no peanut butter or honey in sight. Unfortunately, the customers will often ruin the experience.
I cash him out, send him on his way with an unreciprocated smile, and hope that Daniella—if she’s out there—can handle his grumpy attitude.
The good observations, the unpopped bubbles, or the ones untainted by a bad attitude, used to make it into the journal Dad and I shared. I reach under the cash register, pulling open the green leather-bound book that my father and I have written in since my teen years.
The last entry was written two Augusts ago by Dad.
“I have watched her grow for seven summers now. She once brightly told me, pigtails bouncing, that she and her mother come up to visit her grandfather every year. She used to tug on her mother’s hand, begging for candy and attention. Now, she waits in the car outside the shop, her nose stuck in her phone. Next time she comes inside, I will remind her that her mother is getting older too.”
—TN
The one before that was written by me, over three years ago.
“The gray-haired man with the bright yellow boots comes through once a year at the end of May. He buys a pack of cigarettes, a tub of worms, and beef jerky from the endcap next to the cash register. He jokes that his wife only allows him tosmoke when he goes fishing by himself. He tells me that the smell of cigarettes bothers her. That she worries too much about his health. I smile politely, wondering if he knows how loved he is. The significance of someone hoping to keep you alive as long as possible.”
—PW
For the rest of the day, I hold my breath as the bell chimes above the door, hoping for someone worth writing about and breaking our long, but hopefully not permanent, hiatus. But the day passes in numbing monotony.
