“If you don’t keep it continually watered, the grass will die as soon as it comes up,” Granny warned. “You really should have planted Bermuda grass last month when the temperatures were down in the eighties. It’s probably too hot now.”
“Yeah, I know.” She’d read the planting instructions off the same display sign as I had, but it didn’t hurt to hear it twice. Granny had so few people to lecture these days; it might as well be me.
Granny cruised ahead in her motorized shopping cart to the hoses. “You should have measured your yard so you know what length to buy.”
“I’ll go long to be safe.” I threw a 100 foot hose in my cart and continued down the aisle to the sprinkler section. A professionally installed sprinkler system would have been nice, but then, so would a backyard pool with a rock waterfall and a swim-up bar. Neither of those things would be happening on a receptionist’s salary, but a girl could dream.
I grabbed a couple of twenty-dollar metal oscillating sprinklers off the shelf and dropped them in the cart on top of the hose.
“We should have gotten the grass seed first, Melissa. The biggest and heaviest items should go on the bottom of the cart.”
“I’ll rearrange. It will be my workout for today.”
“Well, all right.” Granny scootered ahead to the outdoor section where the grass seed was, and I hurried to follow with my cart. Knowing the grass seed bags needed to go in first didn’t stop me from being distracted by all the flowers and succulents on display. I’d have to come back for them. I wanted some taller shrubbery to flank my front door.
I reluctantly continued on, but my attention caught on the back of a guy’s head as he strolled down the next aisle. His cart had a couple of plants in it. Was it Connor? He turned to look at something, showing me his gorgeous profile. Shoot. It totally was him. I needed to find Granny before she spotted my neighbor and gave him the third degree about the yard again. The last thing I wanted was another altercation, this time in public. She’d probably try to make him pay for my purchases and become my indentured servant boy. Not that those were bad things…. But no.
Staying low, I darted off towards the grass seed display. Granny had abandoned her motorized scooter and stood poking at the bags, making harrumphing noises at the ones that were leaking seed. I was pretty sure she was the reason they were leaking.
“Sloppy packaging,” she muttered.
I loaded a fifty-pound bag of grass seed in the cart, right on top of the sprinklers, at the moment not caring about order, or weight, or anything else.
“That bag has a hole. You need this one.” Granny pointed at a seed bag, the third one down in the stack.
“This will have to work for now. My back can only take so much lifting.” I glanced behind me, tracking Connor’s progress. He was headed our way, but in no hurry, and thankfully, he wasn’t looking in our direction.
Granny, for once, gave up her side of the argument and got in her scooter to follow me towards the registers. I took off at a jog and slid my cart in line ahead of a guy juggling tomato plants, earning me a glare. Whatever. It would all be worth it if we could just get out before Granny spotted Connor.
The attendant scanned the hose and grass seed, and with a quick swipe of my card, we were done. I hurried off with Granny at my side. Mission accomplished.
“Ma’am. Wait, ma’am. Ma’am, hold up.” It didn’t register that the store clerk was hollering at me until the steady whoosh of grass seed and the quickly approaching footsteps put it all together for me, along with one pesky detail I’d missed in my hurry. She hadn’t scanned the sprinklers buried under the seed bag because I hadn’t told her about them. And they’d just pierced the underside of my grass bag, which was now leaving a trail along the parking lot.
“The bag is leaking,” Granny so helpfully pointed out. “It’s leaking a lot.”
The clerk who had followed us stared at the grass seed all over the ground and then at my cart, clearly not sure what to do now that she had my attention. She’d been running on pure instinct, as had I. “Uh, ma’am, are there items under the bag of grass seed? If so, you’ll need to pay for them.”
“Yes. I’ll come back and pay for the sprinklers,” I said. “I forgot about those.”
The clerk nodded. “Sorry about your grass seed.”
No offer to swap it out, I noted. That was sixty dollars only the birds would get to enjoy. And all so I wouldn’t run into my stupid neighbor.
I turned my cart around and stopped to flip the bag over, careful not to put it down on top of the sprinkler heads this time. It wouldn’t save all of it, but better to keep what I could.
“I have some duct tape,” the clerk offered with a shrug.
I followed her back to the counter where several other customers watched me run my card again and tape up my grass seed bag. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar profile duck around, grab something from behind the counter, and dart out again.
“Was that—?” Granny began to ask.
“Don’t say it. I don’t want to know.”
“Okay. I won’t say it was your handsome but useless neighbor.”
“Thanks, Granny.”
“Are you going to make him plant this grass seed for you?”
