“Whichever one you’d recommend, of course,” Emmy told him, and got a chuckle in response.
“The ’89. Can’t go wrong.”
He led the way, winding around shelves of books in various conditions, children’s toys, gag gifts, novelty mugs, and license plate frames. The back wall caught Emmy’s attention, and she stopped in her tracks.
When Will had spoken of discontinued candy, she’d imagined a little display by the register with a couple of spiral lollipops and a box of Bazooka bubblegum. Instead,she saw shelves upon shelves of confections, many of which she’d never heard of. Yes, there were giant rainbow lollipops in various twirling shapes. Yes, there was Bazooka—by the jar and by the tub. But there was also so much more. Chiclets, Fun Dip, Abba-Zaba, Payday, Pixy Stix, Walnettos, M&Ms bags that looked like they predated the Civil War, twenty-three different flavors of licorice, Warheads, Airheads, ring pops, push pops, baby bottle pops… not to mention the myriad shelves of bulk-buy candy in their individually labeled jars with attached plastic scoops.
“Jesus Christ. You’re Willy fucking Wonka,” Emmy breathed. Then slapped a hand over her mouth as she realized she probably shouldn’t curse so blatantly in front of the jolly grandpa.
“If you’re going to stock candy, you gotta do it right,” Grabby said with a proud smile, clearly unfazed by her blue language. “My old man said it was like selling nostalgia.”
“I’ll say.” Emmy was already selecting a colorful bag from the bulk buy shelf. Their picnic dessert was going to be handfuls of random candy.
“I’ll just grab the board game and meet you up front,” Will said, his tone a mix of exasperation and amusement.
“Sounds good,” Emmy told him. “Prepare for a wait. Candy mixing is a science that can’t be rushed.”
“I’ll stay strong for you.”
She ended up filling two bags—one with chocolate and chocolate-adjacent flavors, one with fruit flavors. The sour candy was at the bottom of the second bag with a buffer layer of wrapped candies in the middle, so the sour flavor would have the least chance to adulterate the unwrapped non-sour candies on top. She carried her packages tothe register where Will waited with a Scrabble board and Battleship. Grabby weighed the candy and bagged everything for them.
“You kids have fun,” he said as he handed Will the receipt.
Emmy couldn’t help feeling she was going to miss Grabby if—when—she and Will made it to the real world. Sure, there were novelty shops in her reality, but it would take her a while before she found one owned and operated by an adorable old man with an appropriately cute name.
They stopped at the grocery store to buy tubs of potato salad and coleslaw, the makings for sandwiches, and drinks.
“Should we get a bottle of wine?” Will asked. “Isn’t that traditional for a romantic picnic?”
Emmy couldn’t help the little tremor that went through her at the question. How could she tell him she didn’t want alcohol anywhere near them?
“This isn’t a romantic picnic,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice her hesitation. “For Scrabble picnics, we need pop.”
His brow furrowed. “Pop?”
“Yes?” It took a second to figure out the source of his confusion. “Oh, for crying out…Soda. We needsodafor our picnic.”
“Ohh!”
“Wipe the smirk off your face, Massachusetts. In the Midwest, we buy pop.”
“No problem.” He continued smirking. “Thepopaisle is right over here.”
Emmy stuck her tongue out at his back and followed him. She thought the little linguistic hiccup had saved her from any uncomfortable beverage-related questions, butWill stopped her in the middle of the aisle with a hand over hers on the handle of the cart.
“You didn’t want me to buy wine.”
She let out a long breath. “No, I didn’t want you to buy wine.”
He kept his eyes focused on hers. “You’re that worried about me.”
“Yes.”
“God, what a wakeup call.” He thought back over the past couple weeks, remembered all the times he’d restocked the liquor on the fridge, how often she’d seen him with a glass of something hard and strong in his hand. “I told myself I could destroy my liver because I wasn’t real, so my liver wasn’t real,” he said quietly. “I told myself a fictional character can’t develop a substance abuse problem.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a fictional character.”
Will laughed weakly. “I guess you’re right. I never thought that an unexpected dependency on alcohol would be the thing that convinced me, but here we are.” He reached over and snagged a twelve-pack of soda at random, plunked it into the cart. Then, thinking about the sudden change in his future beverage choices, he grabbed two more. “If I’m going sober from here on out, we’re going to need a lot more pop.”
