Gretchen

by Shannon Kirk

  “Everything,” they sang out in a chorus.

  One of the deli guys belted, “New girl does everything!” He smiled and winked at me, but not in a letch, awful way, rather in a kind, I’m your friend kind of way. I averted my fake blue eyes. I’ve learned his name is Dali, and he works the deli, so the staff has lots of play-on-words jokes about that.

  It’s been a week since that overwhelming moment, that high. I recall beaming and my heart flooded with blood. Compared to all the other moves before, life this time with this move is the most quickly drastically different. Within one and a half days of seeing the bearded man and his Frisbee-catching son in our tenth state, we moved several states east, rented a ranch house, and I got a job at the gourmet organic grocer. The journey on a bike, I know now, is eight entire minutes between Dyson’s and the ranch.

  It’s true, in my first week at Dyson’s, I’ve worked the cheese case, the meat station, and the deli with Dali. I’ve helped roast the turkeys, which involves a ton of brushwork and basting. I’ve swept, mopped, stocked, and watered the red petunias and geraniums hanging from the outside eaves. Everything except the center-of-store registers by myself, which I finally get to do today, one week after moving here. Whiplash. Mental whiplash from these drastic changes.

  Ah! Today! I’m trusted to run one of two registers by myself. Yes, I’m excited. Perhaps I’m weird. I stand on my side of the circular counter. Above me is the highest-pitched cathedral ceiling, the ceiling made of barn board. Two giant beams, salvaged from an old mill, cut the open ceiling in a wooden equal sign. Hanging from the apex and between the equal-sign beams is an octopus constructed out of painted reclaimed furniture. So cool. Dali said the wooden octopus is Jabo, named after a drummer who played with James Brown. Sandra, the owner, plays funk and blues from the opening minute to when she locks up at night. All in all, Dyson’s is a super-happy place, and I love working here.

  What I love about sliding items through the scanner is the hypnotic rhythm. With Sandra’s blues thumping low in the background speakers, the music and the scanning feel timed with my heartbeat.

  I’m feeling really chill. I have a line eight deep, and the other register is unmanned during the other counter girl’s lunch break, which means I can slide and scan, slide and scan, scrape and beep, scrape and beep, for a good long while. The motion and the sound calm me, and since I’m required to be cordial to tourists but not necessarily the townies (following Sandra’s lead, who trades friendly barbs with them), I’m concentrating on my slide-scan-scrape-beep-smile routine. No other worries on my mind. A cool breeze is just right, swirling in from the open door and spinning in the column of the center circular counter, around me, and up to Jabo the octopus hanging between the wooden beams. A bagger boy assists me, so I’m free to limit my motions to sliding and scanning, scraping and beeping, and smiling.

  My next customer steps up with her basket of stuff. I slide her bag of apples over the scale embedded in the counter. Punch, punch a few keys. Beep. Next up, beef broth, beep. Locally made tomato sauce. Beep. A pound of Dyson’s famous shaved turkey, typical. Beep. She’ll go next door to Scheppard’s for rolls. Everyone does. I nod. Recycled paper towels, red wine, baby Boston lettuce. Beep, beep, beep. I total her up, beep. Scan her card, ting. She’s on her way. ’Bye.

  I smile.

  Next.

  I look up.

  I lose my smile.

  I pause too long, holding his gaze.

  I inventory my eyes. Yes, I’m wearing my blue contacts.

  It can’t be him. No. No way.

  The familiar awful pattern drops writhing snakes in my gut, kills the hypnotic calm with just one look. At him. It’s him. The bearded man with the Frisbee kid in our tenth state. The same one from a week ago. The same one who made us run here. He’s at my register at Dyson’s in Milberg, New Hampshire. He stepped from my tenth state into my eleventh. He’s looking into my fake blue eyes. And as if I can read minds, I know he knows I’m a total phony fake.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Whoa! Are you following me?” the bearded man asks, a lame joke to him, a life-altering announcement to me.

  “Um, excuse me?” I say, lowering my head. I’ve only been here one damn week. I’ve got a whole line of people stacking up. I can’t stall. Can’t run. Can’t take a bathroom break. My heart is racing at the realization that in the past, had this scenario presented itself, I would have dropped everything and run to Mom. And we’d leave, like right now. But I remain.

  He’s looking over his shoulder. “Thomas, come here,” he says. He waits for Thomas, who I see is the boy from the lake in my tenth state. The bearded man keeps looking between me and Thomas, who’s way over by the deli and making his way to my register.

  I should stop. I should walk through the notch in the circular counter. And then out the front door.

  But.

  I don’t.

  I surprise myself, because I don’t.

  I grab a package of spaghetti from his basket. Slide. Scan. Slow. Like giving in to a sip, a glazing taste on the lips, a pucker of a puff, just one, just one more hit of a bad, bad addiction. I slide. Another. Just one more. This feels like the time Mom coated my fingers in Vaseline and wrapped them in gauze so I’d stop sucking my fingers. Feels like those three months last year when I sneaked out to smoke cigarettes after Mom fell asleep. I did eventually stop the sucking and the smoking. I did. I should stop. Stop now. I should stop scanning this man’s items. Stop. I slide one more. A jar of almond butter. Beep. And now another. A bouquet of daisies. Beep. I should stop. Stop now. I should run to the back room. Run. I should race on my bike to our rental ranch. Go now. I should tell Mom. Pack. Run. Leave. I slide a can of tomato soup. Beep. One more, slow. Beep. Another two. Beep, beep. Just one more.

  Why am I glued here? Don’t look up. But I look up.

  The bearded man shakes his head when he sees Thomas stopped to join a conversation between another teen boy and Dali at the deli.

  “Ivan, man. Whatcha up to?” Thomas says to this Ivan. I tune out their conversation and sneak a peek at the bearded man, who is still shaking his head at his son’s failure to join him at the register to interrogate me.

  He abandons hope of Thomas.

  “I saw you in Indiana,” he says to me. “At the lake, just last week. I was playing Frisbee with my son. We were there for a family wedding. You were eating ice cream, on the bench. Then you, snap, up and vanished. Remember me? That was you, right? Had to be you.”

  I contemplate saying no. I justify to myself that denying I was indeed at the lake in Indiana a week ago would cause more alarm bells for him, if I were to so blatantly lie. I say nothing and do not answer one way or the other.

  “What a coincidence!” he says.

  I pause, bounce my eyes up to meet his and quickly look away.

  “You look so much like this—”

  “Lucy,” Sandra interrupts. “Line’s stackin’ up. You havin’ trouble?”

  “Whoops, sorry,” the bearded man says to Sandra. “Sandra, all my fault. Sorry. I’m jamming up the new girl. She’s new, right? You’re new, right?”

  “Whateva, Doc. All you townies just standing round chattin’ all day,” Sandra says with a kind smile. “Lucy’s tha new gahhl, Doc. So stop buggin’ her.”

  Doc?

  Stepping up to Doc, Sandra says lower, “I do love ya business, Nathan, but have ya chats ova at that scoundrel Scheppard’s.” The bearded man, Doc Nathan, laughs. And Sandra is smiling at him like he’s her very own son.

  “Sandra, you ever going to be at peace and play nice?” Doc Nathan Bearded Man says.

  Sandra walks off laughing and swatting the air as her answer. Some other customer I’ve seen here almost every day, a regular townie, as Sandra calls him, shouts from deep in the middle of my line, “Sandy Crampy, such a grump. Always got the grumps.”

  Sandra waves them all off by continuing her whatever swat of the air.

  During all this distra
ction, I’ve been working fast scanning Doc Nathan Bearded Man’s items. I push bagger boy to quit with his obsessive organization of items and just stuff everything in a bag, whatever, as I total up. I have my mind back, my head down, and I’m intent on Doc Nathan leaving without asking any more damn questions.

  “So, Lucy is your name?” Doc Nathan says once Sandra’s gone off behind the deli. “Welcome to town. I’ll make sure Thomas introduces himself sometime this summer, before school. Thomas, come on. Hi, Ivan.” He’s looking toward Ivan and Thomas.

  “Fifty-four twenty-nine,” I say.

  He hands me three twenties. I give him his change. He grabs the handles on the very sturdy, old-school paper shopping bags and walks to the door. I continue with the next customer and pretend to ignore Doc Nathan stalling in the doorway. He takes two steps back toward me, apparently intent on pursuing more questions. But Thomas swoops up to him. “Dad, Ivan and I need you to take us back to his house ASAP. His dad got box seats to the Red Sox tonight. We need to go, like, right now. Come on.”

  “But your mother’s grave. I bought the daisies.”

  “We’ll visit Mom on the way to Ivan’s. You know Mom would want me at the Red Sox.”

  “She was a fan.”

  Doc Nathan pauses, looks at me, which I catch because I gather the guts to look up at him, and his face is so serious. But he takes a step back as Thomas pushes him out of the store. The kid Ivan follows, blocking Doc Nathan’s line of sight on me, and mine on his.

  The other counter girl whips by on her way outside for part of her break.

  “Hey, can you cover me for one second, please? I need to use the bathroom,” I say.

  She groans but agrees to cover for “two minutes.”

  I escape through the notch in the circular counter and fast-walk to the staff bathroom. When I’m clear of the main part of the store, I hear Dali’s voice behind me.

  “Hey, was Doc Nathan bothering you?” he says.

  “No, nope. He just thinks he knows me,” I say, averting my eyes because I’m so obviously lying, and I’m trying to decide whether to run to Mom or keep quiet.

  “Hey, okay, just, like, if you need help or anything . . .”

  I hold up a hand, look him in the eyes. “No. I don’t need help.”

  “Okay, cool, cool,” he says. Dali smiles at me in way that seems really kind. Too bad he starts college in the fall. I imagine he might make a good friend at school. He turns and heads back to the deli.

  I decide to not tell Mom. This time. Maybe because I don’t want to be wrong in the battle of wills we have going on. But maybe, could be, maybe because I don’t know why. But I know in the very center of myself, something nobody else could ever know, I will not tell Mom. I cannot tell Mom. She’d make us run. And I’m not ready to run again.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I’m at my two-week mark working at Dyson’s, and I feel I’ve got the groove. Break time means I select one of the cheese-and-rice-cracker packets Sandra Dyson makes up for Great Katherine Lake beachgoers. They sell like hotcakes. So with my packet and a bottle of Fiji, I head to the tree out back where I lean the vanished renter’s bike, which is mine now. The sky is super blue, and the day is warm with warm breezes, so it’s perfect. I plan to sit in the shade of a big, draping willow tree on the grassy edge of the unpaved gravel parking lot out back—where all the delivery people go to unload and the staff who drive here park. Beside the willow is Dali’s tiny red Toyota truck with a big weatherproof turkey on the roof. Apparently Sandra agreed to buy Dali this truck if he agreed to advertise for Dyson’s with the ornamental turkey. One of the wings says DYSON’S.

  On this break, I’ll read Word Freak for fifteen minutes—another book on my rental bedroom shelves. This one is about people obsessed with Scrabble. Gretchen obviously read this one multiple times, based on all her highlighting and pencil notes and the dog-eared pages.

  I step within the willow’s canopy umbrella, and my heart flutters happy to pretend the leaves and limbs knit nets of sunlight lace to throw upon my warmed body. But this joy scatters, because I hear a shuffling behind the knobby trunk.

  “I’m back!” Gretchen blurts while jumping out from behind and scaring the literal life out of my body. My invisible shawl of light lace obliterates. I shriek and jump-stumble-fall-on-my-ass backward, causing my crackers and cheese to explode from the packet and scatter in the gravel; my water bottle rolls to the grass. As I’m collecting myself, I notice she doesn’t reach out a hand or apologize. She stands by the tree and my leaning bike with her head cocked, watching, her eyes wide and round. I determine to never flinch for her again.

  “You’re coming to my house tonight. BLTs and puzzles, friend!” she says when I’m standing straight within the shade of the canopy.

  Like she had when I first met her two weeks ago, she’s wearing the same ivory sundress with the repeated apple print. She hasn’t tanned during her two weeks in North Carolina. Standing by the dark brown of the tree trunk, she’s a contrast of stark white, her face flush with pulsing spots of red. Her breath is fast and smells like yeast. Her strawberry-blonde hair is thin and loose. Sweat dots her forehead.

  “How long were you standing behind the tree? Were you going to hide until I got out of work?”

  She bites her bottom lip and averts my gaze, like she’s embarrassed to answer or unwilling to answer.

  “Hello, Gretchen, hello, were you going to wait all day?”

  “Lucy, I just got here. Came to tell you to come over after work for dinner and a puzzle.”

  “Can I tell you after I’m done with work? I need to check with my mom,” I say.

  “I already asked your mom! As soon as you’re done with work, my house. ’Kay?”

  “O . . . kay,” I say. “I need to go back inside.”

  I collect my trash in the gravel and my water in the grass and go back inside Dyson’s. I shove the book and my backpack back in my cubbyhole. This break is ruined. I nose around the corner from the staff hall to ensure Doc Nathan doesn’t also appear to stress me out. As I do, Dali comes around the corner with a new packet of cheese and crackers. He hands me the packet.

  “Sorry, but I was about to chuck the trash and I saw what Gretchen Sabin did. Saw you freak and lose your snack.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look. Um, do you know her well?” He scrunches his face in a wince, like he’s not sure he should say more—likely negative news given his face—about Gretchen Sabin. Dali is a townie, which means if there’s scoop, he’ll have it to share, but I need to be careful, because I can’t give him scoop to share on me.

  His question, Do you know Gretchen Sabin well?, translates to: How the hell do you, new girl, know Gretchen Sabin? I look away and bite my bottom lip. I lied on my employment form, gave a totally fake address. Mom says it’s best if fewer people know our address—cuts down on pop-ins and such. So far, nobody knows I live near Gretchen, and I know she hasn’t talked with anyone in town.

  “That’s fine. You don’t need to tell me. I get it,” Dali says after I don’t answer, and now the silence is awkward.

  What does he get? How could he possibly get what I’m living, my life until now, and my weird acquaintance with Gretchen Sabin?

  “I mean, I don’t know what you got going on in your life. I didn’t mean that,” Dali continues. “But I’m sensing you don’t want people prying. I respect that, truly.” He looks at me dead-on with a worried and honest expression. “Look, I just want to be your friend.” He shrugs and steps backward, about to turn and leave.

  “Thank you, Dali,” I say, and smile. He nods and doesn’t push anything; I thank him in my mind for leaving this scene and allowing no answers. I have zero creep-factor vibes from him. I know in my bones he’s sincere.

  Once he’s gone, I rifle several cracker-and-cheese combos down my throat while leaning against the hall wall. Refreshed, I again check the store to see if Doc Nathan has appeared.

  Still no Doc Nathan in sight,
so I relax a fraction. He hasn’t returned during any of my shifts since last week. But Dali did say at the beginning of today’s shift that Doc Nathan came in last night asking about me. Apparently this Nathan knows everyone in town, since he’s a clinic physician and has tons of family, brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, in town. Dr. Nathan Vinet is his name. And his son’s name is Thomas Vinet. So. That’s them. The same ones from my tenth state, same ones with the red Frisbee, same ones who made us run here. I still have not told Mom, and at this point, it’s impossible to even think of telling her.

  When I get home from work tonight, I find Mom in our red-turquoise kitchen. She’s pulling a single-serve pot pie from the red oven; she is decidedly not eating the beef-and-barley soup I made her from scratch before I left for work. We really haven’t talked much at all in two whole weeks and counting.

  “You should go up to Gretchen’s tonight. Would be weird if you didn’t” is her greeting. I notice she doesn’t even attempt to discover if I want to go or if I’d rather eat prepackaged pot pie with her. She turns her back and carries the pie to the dining table, where she’d already set a poured glass of wine, sits, props the Incarnations book I was reading against a napkin holder, and starts to eat and read and drink her wine. I become a thing in her periphery.

  I’m alone. She won’t look at me. This is the longest of any of her cold-shoulder spells.

  I take a shower and change to go up to Gretchen’s. I think mostly because I need someone, anyone, anyone at all, who wants me around and in a place where the oxygen is not girded in steel.

  So here I am, walking to Gretchen’s, and as I hit the circular parking area, the grounds flood with light. I squint as I continue on to Gretchen’s black door and knock. I’m checking out these three weird metal shields above and on the one side of the door, one bolt in one side of each shield. The air is so much colder at the top of the hill, even though these floodlights should be baking me, geesh. I look along the edge of brick on the front face of their brick fortress and note again the odd smallness of the window slits and newer bricks around the casings. It’s the end of June, so the days are long. It’s not pitch-black like it probably is during winter at this time. Beyond the dome of stadium lights around the house, the sky is the light blue of summer dusk, backdropping the towering pines, which appear as black silhouettes.