7 Clues to Winning You

by Kristin Walker

  “No kidding,” Luke said. “There are three more cases in here.” He handed each one down to me and I lined them up on the dirty pavement.

  “Why did the grocery store throw them out?”

  “I told you. The sell-by date was yesterday. They have to throw them out, even though the eggs aren’t bad yet.” He disappeared into the Dumpster and resurfaced a few seconds later with four unopened boxes of cereal that he handed to me.

  “They just throw all this stuff out even though it’s still good?” I asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Why don’t they donate it somewhere?”

  “Bingo,” was his answer.

  “Bingo what?” I asked. He handed me a full bag of pre-washed spinach.

  “Bingo, that’s the question: Why don’t they donate it somewhere?” He ducked down and popped back up with four loaves of perfectly good bread in his hands. “It’s too much of a liability for the grocery store. If someone at a shelter got sick or hurt, the store could get sued. Here, can you reach these?” He dropped the bread into my hands.

  “So you’re picking the stuff out of the trash and then, what? Take it to a shelter or somewhere yourself?” I asked.

  “Bingo,” he said again. “Garbage is public property. I do the dirty work and take the food that’s still good to a soup kitchen and a food bank over in Ash Grove. They decide whether to use it or not.”

  “Why don’t you go Dumpster-diving in Ash Grove, then?”

  He stared down at me and pushed up his glasses. “I do. The grocery stores there switch stock on Fridays, though. This store gets new shipments on Sundays and clears out the old stock. So I hit this one every Sunday afternoon before stuff gets too gross or freezes or gets too hot if it’s summer. I’ve gotta book, though, because the garbage truck comes at five to empty the Dumpster.” He checked his watch.

  Hold on a sec. Luke Pavel had been Dumpster-diving for charity for months? Maybe years? How could this be the same Mr. Charming who strung me along when he already had a girlfriend?

  I glared at him. “So, what do you get out of it?”

  He paused with a huge, lumpy, clear plastic bag in his arms. “Me? What? Nothing.” He tossed the knotted bag over the side and it landed on the ground. It was stuffed with leftover bagels and buns from the bakery section. “Why would you think I was trying to get something out of it?” he asked.

  Because you’re a two-faced jerk, that’s why, I said to myself. All I said out loud was, “It just seems kind of extreme. For charity.”

  “Isn’t that the point of charity?” he said. “A hardship for you to ease someone else’s struggle? I suppose you’re more used to the check-writing form of charity.”

  “No …” I tried to say.

  “You probably think charity only extends ‘so’ far.” He squeezed an inch of air between his forefinger and thumb.

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “You’re all for charity, just as long as you don’t have to get dirty doing it.”

  “NO,” I said. “Stop putting words into my mouth. That’s not what I meant at all. I just meant that … this is kind of … an enormous job. Especially for one person to be doing all alone.”

  He chuckled and tossed me a case of instant noodle soup. “You’re right, it is. So climb on up and help.” He examined the contents of a black garbage bag, cringed, tossed it aside, and grabbed another bag.

  I opened my mouth to decline politely but instead blurted, “Why doesn’t your girlfriend help?” It had come out too quickly for me to muffle the twang of jealousy in my voice. Lately, my brain wasn’t acting faster than my feelings.

  He paused again with a bottle of ketchup in each hand and was silent for a few seconds. Then his expression softened and he handed me the ketchup. “Ex-girlfriend. As of yesterday.” He passed a few boxes of croutons down to me.

  “Yesterday?” I said with plenty of sarcastic disbelief in my voice.

  He glanced at me but kept talking. “It’s been over between us for a while.”

  “It didn’t look like it was over between you two on Monday,” I said. “It didn’t look like there was anything between you two. Including oxygen.” Luke laughed. I scowled at him. I didn’t think it was so hilarious.

  He folded his arms on the rim of the Dumpster. “Karly and I were together for almost a year. I care about her. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I felt terrible about stringing her along too. I guess I was just waiting for a reason to actually do it. To make the break.”

  “So why did you?” I asked.

  He set his chin on his arms and stared fixedly at me. “I found a reason.”

  I didn’t show it on my face, but inside, I turned into warm honey. Could he … did that … did he possibly mean me? Could I dare to trust my feelings for him? Or should I listen to the levelheaded reasoning that said Luke Pavel was a selfish jerk?

  As if he could read my thoughts, Luke reached out his hand. “Get in here with me, Blythe. Come on. It’s not as bad as you think. Trust me.”

  I couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t figure out what to do. I needed time. I muttered, “I’ll get filthy.”

  “So?” Luke’s smile was wide and inviting. I wasn’t getting any suspicious signals from it. It seemed honest. I couldn’t possibly be that bad a judge of character and he couldn’t possibly be that good a liar. Right?

  “I’m wearing linen,” I said, stalling. “And two-hundred-dollar shoes.” Gran had bought them for me when I visited last month. In three different spring colors.

  Luke nodded like a bobble head. “Oh, sure. I understand,” he said teasingly. He held up his hands in pretend surrender. “Of course you shouldn’t help the poor if it means soiling your designer clothes.” I let out a laugh. He kept rolling. “Or maybe you’re just chicken.” He flapped his elbows a few times and then beamed at me like I was the most captivating thing he’d ever seen. His eyes were steady on mine. Daring me to join him. Wanting me to join him.

  Should I?

  I collected myself. I reminded myself to inhale. “I want to see what’s inside first.” I strode over to the grungy green Dumpster, where there was a series of shallow ledges up one side I could use as a ladder. I set the toe of my $200 shoe on a ledge and reached up to grab a higher one. “Just so you know,” I said in a snooty voice, “I happen to be an extremely charitable person.”

  Luke chuckled. “Is that so?” He stretched his hand down, grasped my wrist, and pulled me up. I climbed until I was face-to-face with him over the rim of the Dumpster, perched on one of the ledges. Our eyes met, inches away from each other. We were close enough to breathe the same wedge of air. Close enough to do more than just breathe together.

  “It’s true,” I said. I forced myself to look at the color of his hair, the curve of his collarbone, the muscles in his forearm. Anywhere but in his eyes, which was the only place mine stubbornly wanted to go. “In fact, I volunteer every week at a nursing home.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Luke’s grip was snug and strong around my wrist. I could feel every millimeter of where his skin touched mine. “Yes,” I said. “I’ve been doing it for years.” It was barely a whisper.

  “I’m impressed,” he said, and I locked eyes with him again. He held my gaze for a few seconds, then glanced at our hands. “Have you got a good hold?”

  I snapped back to life and gripped the rim of the Dumpster. “I’m good.”

  Luke released my wrist and stepped aside. Behind him were piles of cake mixes, potato chips, baked goods, sacks of flour and sugar, pasta, salad dressing, taco shells, cookies, crackers, juice boxes, pre-sliced cheese, mayonnaise, bags of rice, and more. Most of it was still sealed in unopened packages, cans, and jars.

  “There’s so much,” I said, trying to turn my face to avoid the stink rising from the Dumpster. “Just thrown away.”

  “Pretty crazy, huh?”

  “This shouldn’t be legal,” I said. “They shouldn’t be allowed to trash all this food when so
many people go hungry.”

  “No kidding.” Luke took off his glasses and cleaned them on his T-shirt. He slipped them back on his face and scooped up a canister of cake frosting. “Every week, I think it’s not going to shock me how much food is in here, and every week it does. People care more about covering their asses than anything else.” He dropped the frosting into a half-full cardboard box beside him.

  “Well, aren’t you a journalist? Write about this,” I said. “Do a story and submit it to a newspaper or magazine. Make people aware and all that.”

  Luke picked up a bottle of apple juice and put it in the box. Then he stooped down to collect an armful of soup cans. “I have. A few times.”

  I waited for him to go on. He didn’t. “And?” I asked.

  He sighed. “And it was rejected. The feedback I’ve gotten is that the piece sounds too opinionated. Too angry.”

  I widened my eyes and feigned surprise. “What? Captain Impartiality is opinionated? Shocking.”

  He stood up and stepped onto a sheet of thick cardboard. “But when I take a more objective track, I feel like I’m not stressing the importance of the subject enough.” He rolled a can of peas back and forth in his hands.

  “Maybe you’re underestimating your readers. I bet the facts would speak for themselves. Besides, you’re supposed to be impartial, right?”

  “Yeah.” He dropped the can into the box. “I know.” He straightened up, and suddenly his eyes were on mine again. “It’s hard to rein in your feelings when you care about something so much, you know?” We stared at each other for a few charged seconds. Then Luke squatted down and turned his attention to stacking a pile of dry gravy packets. “You think everyone else will feel as passionately about it as you do, but they don’t. It’s hard to distance yourself enough without feeling like you’re a cop-out.” He set the neat stack of gravy packets into the box with the cans.

  “So revise it,” I said, flicking a dead bug off the Dumpster rim with my thumbnail. “Or write a whole new piece.”

  Luke snorted. “Write another piece? Sure. No problem. Do you have any idea how much time and work goes into it?”

  “WELL, isn’t that the point of journalism?” I said dramatically. “Hard work for you to ease someone else’s struggle against ignorance?”

  “Huh?” he asked.

  “I suppose you’re more used to the Facebook-update format of news reporting.”

  “What? Hey. That’s not …”

  “I mean, revealing truths and injustices only extends ‘so’ far.” I pinched an inch of air just like he had.

  He finally caught on. “Very funny,” he said, half-smiling.

  “You’re all for being a journalist, just as long as you don’t have to work to do it.”

  “YEAH. Got it.” He winged a bag of mini-marshmallows hard into the box. “Message received.”

  He was silent for a while, and I thought I might have struck a nerve. And by struck, I mean stomped on it with a $200 pair of designer wedge heels. I decided to make a peace offering. “Okay, Luke, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll climb down into that disgusting pit and help you sort out the food today if you’ll write another article about all this and try to get it published somewhere.”

  Luke shaded his eyes from the sun behind me as he peered up from where he was squatting. “You’re actually going to get in here?”

  “I am.”

  “And really help?”

  “As long as you’ll write the article.”

  He pushed himself to his feet and crossed his arms tightly on his chest. He shifted his weight. He looked up and down the alley as if the answer was about to come running up the street.

  “Come on, Luke,” I said. “It’s a win-win for you. For me, it’s a lose-lose. First I have to live through this nightmare, then I have to read about it in Time Magazine.” When Luke heard the last part, he blushed and smiled and got all embarrassed-looking, so I tried to make him laugh by saying, “Or maybe you’re just chicken,” and moving my elbows up and down like he’d done to me earlier, while still holding the Dumpster in my death grip.

  It worked. He laughed lightly and smiled in the direction of his shifting feet. He unfolded his arms and rubbed the fronts of his thighs vigorously. He straightened up, arched his back, shook out his arms, and sighed extra loudly so I’d know he was giving in under duress. “Okay,” he said. “Deal.”

  “Good,” I said. “I want ten pages by Tuesday. Just kidding. Now watch out.” I turned and gasped one last breath of half-decent air, then I swung my leg over the side of the Dumpster and toppled inside. Luckily, I landed on a gigantic bag of expired hamburger buns.

  The putrid stench inside the Dumpster almost knocked me out. It hadn’t been nearly this bad above the rim, where an occasional breeze blew by. I tried breathing only through my mouth, which, I realized, was equally disgusting. Luke pulled me to my feet as I covered my nose and looked around. “Don’t even think about bailing on that article,” I said nasally, “because it’s unholy in here.”

  “I know.”

  “You made a deal, and I’m going to hold you to it.”

  His lips parted and stayed open half an inch until he spoke. “Sorry, I ‘made a deal’ and what?”

  “I’m going to hold you to it.”

  He stepped closer and turned his ear toward me. “Pardon?”

  “I’m going to hold you to it,” I repeated, getting frustrated.

  He shook his head like he still couldn’t hear. “You’re going to do what to me?”

  “I’M GOING TO HOLD YOU,” I enunciated loudly. “TO IT.”

  One side of his mouth curled up. Then the other. A sly look came over his face again. “Well,” he said, “I didn’t realize you were that kind of girl, but okay! Sounds like fun. I guess after today I should’ve known that you had a trashy side.” He threw his head back and chuckled to himself with great enthusiasm.

  I smacked his shoulder. He pretended it hurt. “Whoa, wait a minute!” he said. “You didn’t say anything about rough play. Are you into that? Like whips and chains?”

  “No!” I cried, and swiped at him again, barely catching him with my fingertips.

  He clutched his arm and turned away. “Ow! What’s my safety word? Pancakes! Bathtub! Gorilla!”

  “STOP!” I squealed, pummeling him with my girly fists. Laughing, he grabbed my wrists and held them to his chest. I tried in vain to wrench them free, which made us both crack up even more. Finally, I gave in and stopped struggling.

  He didn’t let go.

  He held me against him, his hands on my skin, his face so close. I could feel his heart pounding against the wall of his chest. Breathe, Blythe. Inhale. Exhale. Look at something other than his lips or his chest or his perfect blue eyes. Think about garbage.

  Garbage.

  Something warm and wet began to seep through the fabric of my right shoe. I screamed and leapt into the air, jerking my foot out of the gunk. A strip of brown slime hung from my toe. “Oh my God, EW!” I flicked my foot and it shot across the Dumpster.

  “Um, yeah, celery gives off a lot of liquid when it rots,” Luke said.

  I tried to wipe my toe sideways on the cardboard box, but that just rubbed the gunk in more. “Ugh,” I said. “I’m going to vomit.”

  “At least now you don’t have to worry about ruining your shoes,” Luke said.

  “It better be a good article.”

  “Then you’d better get to work,” he teased.

  I didn’t know where to start sorting through the food because I didn’t want to touch any of it. With the very tips of two fingers, I picked up a bag of pretzels by the corner and flung it toward the box. Except, I missed and hit Luke in the leg. Startled, he stepped on the bag, popping it open and crushing everything inside.

  He shot me an amused look. “Blythe, I know it looks gross,” he said, “but you’re going to have to touch it.”

  I stuck my nose in the air and shook my head. “Too late. You already said the
safety word.”

  Luke cracked up. He caught his breath and said, “Well played.” Then he pointed behind me. “Hey, there’s a can of powdered baby formula over there. The food bank always needs that. Can you reach it?”

  I spotted it. “Sure.”

  We started sorting through the food in earnest. Every once in a while, we caught each other’s eye or brushed up against each other. Nothing huge or obvious, just the occasional hand across hand or shoulder grazing shoulder. Once, when I lost my balance, I grabbed his arm and instantly flashed back to the school parking lot where I’d done the same. Just like then, it felt as if an electric circuit had suddenly closed, releasing kinetic jolts that buzzed and zoomed throughout my body. Did that happen to him too? Did he get excited when we touched? I desperately wanted to believe he did. Desperation was a scary, foreign feeling to me. I wasn’t accustomed to being desperate. Probably because I’d never been in danger of not getting what I wanted.

  I checked the seal on a jar of pickles and placed it in the box followed by two cans of tomato sauce. “Maybe you shouldn’t write a fact-based piece,” I said. “I mean, don’t make things up, but instead of writing a newsy-type article filled with statistics, write a story about this.” I waved a bottle of soy sauce around the Dumpster. “About how you go from store to store every week, salvaging groceries from the trash and taking them to the soup kitchen and food bank. Present it like a documentary. Interview people who work at the soup kitchen and even some of the people who eat there. Just tell a story. Not a list of facts. Readers would draw their own conclusions about it.” I set a jar of Spanish olives in the box. “Like I did.”

  Luke pulled himself up and stared out over the pitted alley. The orange, sinking sun reflected off the lenses of his glasses and turned his face bronze. I stood up too.

  He said, “You’re smarter than most readers, though, Blythe.”

  Sparks erupted all over my skin. Heat flushed through my neck and cheeks and my pulse jumped forward. I couldn’t remember a compliment affecting me like that before. Usually I fielded them easily. Not this time. I tried to distract myself by sorting good pre-wrapped blueberry muffins from ones that had gotten smashed. “Well, you’re smarter than most writers, Luke, so you should be able to manage it.”