Only You

top grocery

Describing the town of Bedford is like dancing to no music. Everything looks like it's been frozen in time since something happened, something big that shocked everything into motionlessness. There's the Dairy Barn, the elementary school, Bedford High. The mall on the interstate, the laundromat, the McDonald's. The fields of wheat and grass, the forest behind and the sea ahead. Nothing like New York City, where I come from. New York City is still my home. Bedford is like my place of exile for a crime I didn't commit.

And then there's Top Grocery, where I work. There's nothing Top about it. But it's been here since 1887, and that stands for something in towns like this. The owner Mr. Reed inherited it from his father, who inherited it from his father, and so on. I like Mr. Reed alright. He's too old to know anything about me that matters. He's going into retirement soon, and he's going to give the store to his nephew. By then I'll be long gone.

I'm usually stocking up the racks, but today Mr. Reed put me in charge of the cash register because he had some business to talk over with the guy bringing in the dairy products. 

We meet eyes the same instant she comes in, and I look up. For a second of foolish hope I think she doesn't recognize me. But those eyes, like thunder and lightning, like the lustrous glaciers of snow after a blizzard, I can see them hone in on me in sharp focus. I know she remembers, that she's thinking, there's that broken girl from the bus, like I'm thinking there's that beautiful lost woman from the bus.

She holds the gaze, but I look down, pretending to rearrange some packs of gum behind the counter. The Lost Woman meanders through the aisles; I can hear her heels clicking on the freshly waxed floor. But I can't picture her looking at the racks of food, like an ordinary person...even though that was indeed what she was doing this moment. 

I can't picture it, even when she comes around to the counter again and sets down a jug of milk, a loaf of bread, a carton of eggs,  and a bag of apples for me to ring up. I stare at them dumbly for a second, because I keep imagining them to be cups of nectar and cakes of stardust instead. 

"Oh, and I'll have a pack of Marlboros with this, please," the Lost Woman says. Her languid voice, low and rich like honey, wakes me from my trance. 

I take the pack of cigarettes from the shelf and lay it on the counter. Then I ring up all her things, print the receipt, and hand it to her. I can feel her eyes on me the entire time, but thankfully she doesn't bother to engage me in small talk. I can tell she's above that.

She looks at the receipt. "You forgot the cigarettes, it seems."

"I didn't, they're on me."

She cuts her eyes at me, blades of larimar jewels. "That's very kind. But I really should pay."

"No, no," I say quickly, meeting her eyes for the first time since she came in. How could I tell her I would have bought everything in this store for her if she'd wanted it? "First time customer's policy."

The Lost Woman laughs, and Aphrodite would have been made jealous. "Well, then. Thank you, Jude."

She's almost at the door when she turns around and adds, "oh, by the way...you aren't a student at the high school here, are you?"

My hands freeze from where they were working at the cash register, but I force them to move again as I answer, "I am."

"That's nice," she answers. "I'm going to be teaching twelfth grade English this fall. Maybe we'll see each other."

Something begins to twist inside me, an unnamed creature that feels cold in my hands but hot in my face. I bite my tongue in an effort to keep my face blank. "Yeah, maybe."

"See you soon, then." And with another smile that could have made all of Heaven crumble down to its foundations, she's gone.