“Broccoli gives me gas,” Gran says too loudly.
“Yeah?” I smirk at her.
“Why are you buying broccoli? It’s not on sale.”
“Mom has it on the list.”
“I don’t like broccoli.”
I shrug. “You like that broccoli salad Mom makes.” I toss a third bag into the basket just to see what Gran will say.
“That’s because it has mostly bacon in it.”
I heave a sigh. “Gran, it’s mostly broccoli. You just only eat the bacon.”
“Because broccoli gives me gas, Patricia.”
“And bacon doesn’t?” I turn the basket toward the other end of the produce section.
“Bacon gives me the runs, but at least it’s worth it.” Gran shuffles past me and starts thumping on watermelons.
Mom’s list requires green peppers, onions, and radishes. Ugh. Why she wants radishes, I don’t know. Nobody eats them.
The next stop is the meat counter. If Dad were here, he’d insist on going directly up to the employee behind the counter and asking for cuts of meat specifically. Personally, I find that to be a waste of perfectly good interpersonal energy, as what’s already wrapped and out for the taking is exactly the same.
Mom wants an arm roast and a three-pound chub of ground beef. And a package of bacon.
Mom must be making broccoli salad. Gran will be thrilled. I throw a second pound of bacon into the cart.
“You’ve got no idea how lucky you are, Patricia.” Gran pats my elbow. “You can just walk up and grab bacon out of a case. When I was your age, if I wanted bacon, I had to kill the pig.”
I start to reply, but a soft gasp catches my attention before I can.
Oh, fantastic.
Kids. And they’re listening.
Two girls, elementary school age, and a boy barely more than a toddler stand at the meat counter with their mouths hanging open in horror. And Gran, dear sweet compassionate woman that she is, immediately decides to educate them on the particulars of slaughtering pigs.
Oh boy.
Chicken. Get the whole chicken and get Gran away from those kids before she scars them for life.
Chicken?
I glance in the case.
Chicken?
I look in the other case.
There’s—no chicken. Why is there no chicken? There are tenders and breasts and thighs and gizzards, for pity’s sake, but where are the whole chickens? Mom wants a whole chicken, and if I don’t come home with one I’ll never hear the end of it.
“After you drain all the blood, you’ve got to boil a giant tub of water and dip the pig carcass in it,” Gran is saying. “That’s the only way to scrape all the hair off.”
One of the girls is already crying. “You killed Wilbur?”
“Honey, I’ve killed dozens of Wilburs.”
Oh, Lord.
So much for conserving interpersonal energy. I flag the man behind the counter, and he smiles at me over a stack of raw steaks.
“Have you got any whole chickens?” I ask. “There are none out here.”
“Sure. One sec.” He ducks out of sight.
Gran is leaning over the kids. “The head is the hardest to get off.”
Even the toddler is crying now.
“Hey, Gran.” I turn to her. “How about we talk about something else?”
Gran stands up. “No, Patricia. Kids these days are soft. Eating bacon without knowing where it comes from? Shameful!”
Butcher-Guy shows back up with a whole chicken, which I take from him with a smile. I dump it in my basket and hook my elbow around Gran’s.
“Time to move on.”
“But we’re just getting to evisceration.”
“I guarantee those kids can live without knowing how to gut a pig, Gran.”
All three kids are sobbing.
So much for not scarring them for life.
Oh, well. Gran scarred me for life too. They’ll be fine. Look how I turned out.
I pull Gran into the canned vegetable aisle.
“Oh, Patricia, you’re not getting canned tomatoes.” Gran wrinkles her nose at me.
I hold up the list.
“Your mother wants store-canned tomatoes? What is wrong with that woman?”
Gran launches into a detailed explanation of how to can tomatoes and why home-canned tomatoes are superior to store-canned ones. Sure. Whatever, Gran. Why couldn’t she explain how to eviscerate tomatoes rather than a pig to those kids? I’m convinced those kids will cry all over their mom pretty soon, who will come running after us and give us a piece of her mind.
I mean, if she does, Gran will whack her with Cordell.
It would probably be a good fight. Gran will totally win.
Canned tomatoes. Canned green beans. Canned corn. I dump them all into my basket and check the list again. Gran is still ranting and railing about the salt content in garbanzo beans when motion at the far end of the aisle draws my attention upward.
Standing at the end of the row, just across from the soup broths, is a guy in his mid-twenties. Narrow build. Thin arms and legs. Dressed head to toe in black, from his greasy black hair to his goth boots. Skulls everywhere.
Grant. Grant Layton. The ghost hunter.
I scowl.
What is he doing here?
I mean, that’s probably a dumb question. He’s grocery shopping. Even weird goth ghost hunters have to eat. I just didn’t expect to see him in a normal store. I sort of figured he’d be the type to get his groceries at a health food store. The kind that sells hemp and oat milk.
He is focused on his own list and doesn’t notice me.
Gran elbows me.
I glance down at her. “What?”
“Why are you staring at that weasel in the skinny jeans?” Gran shakes her finger in my face. “Patricia Leigh Lee, how could you find that shrimp attractive when you’ve got that hunky Guinness boy drooling over you?”
“Gran, stop.”
“What’s wrong with you?” She smacks my arm.
“Ow!”
“Serves you right, you cheap hussy.”
“Gran!” I throw my head back. “His name is Grant, and I met him at the house we’re fixing up. He’s a ghost hunter.”
“Ghost hunter?” Gran makes a horrible expression. “Oh, those people are evil. Chasing wicked spirits and talking to the air. Not natural. I’m shocked that you’d associate—”
“Gran.” I set my hand on her shoulder. “We’re not associates. He just came to the house and looked around. I didn’t want to let him in.”
Gran doesn’t look convinced.
“Come on.” I shake my head. “Mom needs flour.”
I push the basket around the corner of the aisle and head for the baking row.
It’s probably shouldn’t be a shock to see Grant at the store. It’s not like he’s a ghost or a supernatural being of some kind. He’s got to eat too, and there isn’t a whole lot of variety in grocery stores in Tonkawa.
There’s a few natural food places. Some organic grocers. But I guess that’s a stereotype I foisted on the guy. I don’t really know anything about him. I just assumed that he’d be into the whole organic lifestyle sort of thing since—well—he looks like an organic kind of guy who talks to crystals and plays with Ouija boards. That he would live on a diet of hemp milk and chia seeds just seemed like a logical leap.
I reach the baking aisle and lift a five pound bag of flour off the bottom shelf to set in the lower part of my basket. Strange. Gran isn’t complaining about the price of flour and sugar. That’s her normal line in this aisle.
I look up to make sure she hasn’t had a stroke and freeze.
She isn’t there.
Gran didn’t come with me.
Where had she gone?
“Oh no.”
She wouldn’t have.
Would she?
Who am I kidding? It’s Gran. She totally would.
Fleeing the baking aisle with my basket o
f groceries, I return to the canned vegetables where I last saw my curmudgeon of a grandmother. Still no sign of her.
I make it down to the end of the aisle before I spot her. The next row over. Tailing the ghost hunter like some kind of octogenarian ninja. The tennis balls on Cordell’s front legs squeak on the tile flooring, and the basket hanging on his front rattles. Gran is bent over the arms of the walker, focused on the ghost hunter with a fierce light in her eyes.
Layton, for his part, hasn’t even noticed her.
Okay.
How am I going to handle this?
It’s not as though I need to hide from Grant. I mean, the dude creeps me out, but that’s not his fault. Well, technically it is his fault. If he wasn’t into ghosts and spirits and the like, I’d probably be a little more willing to have a real conversation with him. As it is, I really don’t want to be in the same store with him.
Obviously, Gran doesn’t feel the same way.
I snatch a box of beef broth off the shelf and hold it up in front of my face while I puzzle out how to manage the situation.
I don’t really know why I don’t want Grant to see me. The guy just gives me a weird feeling. Maybe it’s the ghost hunting thing. Maybe it’s something else.
As I’m standing there, an obnoxious rap-style phone ringer screams across the aisle, and Grant pauses to pull his phone out of his pocket. Poor guy has to do a bit of a hop-skip dance to wiggle the phone out of his too-tight skinny jeans.
He lifts the phone to his ear and starts talking.
Gran is still creeping toward him. She grabs a bag of cookies off the shelf and starts reading the ingredients. I applaud her choice of using something off the shelf to conceal her true purposes, but she has turned the bag of cookies upside down. So much for not being obvious.
Of course, if Grant wonders what’s going on, Gran can just pretend to be senile. He won’t think anything about it.
Suddenly, Grant goes pale, shoves his phone back into his pants with another hop-skip, and races out of sight, leaving his basket behind.
Gran doesn’t move. Neither do I. And Grant doesn’t come back.
I replace the box of beef broth and push my basket to where Gran is standing.
“You have no business being attracted to that greasy-haired weasel, Patricia.” Gran slams the bag of cookies back on the shelf.
I wince and hope nobody is watching, otherwise we’ll be adding a bag of crunched cookies to our basket.
“I’m not attracted to him, Gran.” I shake my head. “I told you. He just came by the house we’re fixing up. I was surprised to see him here. That’s all.”
“Well. He’s weird.” Gran straightens over her walker.
“Yeah, I got that.”
“A bit sexy though.”
I choke.
“Gran, what?”
“He is.”
“I thought you said he was a weasel?”
Gran shrugs. “He gets better looking the closer you get.”
“Gran.”
“But he left his basket.” Gran hobbles over to his basket and paws through the items inside. “And that’s just irresponsible.”
“Gran.”
“Off-brand sandwich cookies.” Gran scoffs. “He’s buying the store brand sandwich cookies, Patricia. Those things taste like cardboard.”
“Gran, stop.”
Gran starts down the aisle again, and I follow her, leaving Grant’s abandoned basket behind us.
“He was talking to somebody named Jerry,” Gran says. “Got real upset. That’s why he ran off.”
“Who knows, Gran? It might have been a ghost.”
“Over the phone?”
“Why not?” I shrug. Best to get Gran talking about nonsense. Hopefully that will distract her long enough that she doesn’t try to run off and stalk other people in the store. “Ghosts need a way to communicate, don’t they?”
Gran scowls deeply. “Suppose they use those smartphones? I’ve always said those smartphones are from the devil.”
“Could be, Gran.”
She pauses and peers into my cart. “Why are you buying that much flour, Patricia?”
“It’s on the list.” I hold it up so she can see.
“Ridiculous. Your mother should know better.” Gran moves ahead of me. “Do you know how much flour costs nowadays? When I was a child, we just ground it ourselves. It was much cheaper, and we got a workout too.”
Five items left on the list.
Barring any more encounters with ghost hunters, that shouldn’t take too long.
“Patricia, why are we going down the rice, aisle?”
“Because Mom wants rice.”
“Rice stops me up, Patricia. I’m not eating any rice.”
On second thought, the ghost hunter should come back.
Aaron and I Need to Talk
I should have smuggled myself into Laurel’s luggage, because Tahiti would be so much better than this.
Sweat dribbles down my back in uncomfortable rivulets that tickle. I’m sweating in other places too, but I don’t like thinking about that. Maybe someday I will sweat politely.
Some women glow with exercise and activity. Not me. I sweat like a horse. Or like someone who’s been locked in a tin shed on a 100-degree day and left to spontaneously combust.
It’s 105 today.
Without the heat index.
If you count the humidity and all the other factors that affect what the temperature actually feels like, it’s pretty much like standing on the surface of the sun drinking hot tea and wearing a wool sweater.
It’s miserable, and since we’re cleaning windows today, we can’t have the air conditioning on. I mean, we could, but it would be a waste since the only area of the house we’d be climate-controlling is the back yard.
I eye a large box full of papers that’s sitting at my feet. The best way to handle it is to carry it outside, but there hasn’t been an official decision about where paper goods are going.
A bang sounds behind me, and the door to the second floor opens. Keith steps out, sweat-drenched and red-faced.
“What’s the word upstairs?” I wrinkle my forehead. “Please tell me it’s pristine and untouched.”
Keith snickers. “Hardly. It’s packed full of junk.” He walks to the table and picks up a few trash bags. “I went through a few rooms up there, but from what I can tell—honestly, Trisha, I don’t think there’s anything on the second floor worth salvaging.”
“Really?”
He bites his lower lip, hesitating. He glances back at the stairwell and fidgets with the hem of his shirt.
Odd. Keith isn’t much of a fidgeter that I’ve noticed. Something must be making him nervous.
“I think, on balance of timing and the actual value of the stuff in the house.” He shrugs. “I think we’d be just as well trashing everything upstairs. Let’s just get a big dumpster. We can toss things out the windows upstairs. I think it’ll save us some time.” He glances at the calendar on the table. “Time we need in order to get this house ready for the auction.”
I frown at him. He’s leaving something out, but I can’t tell what it is.
“Hey, you’re the boss here.” I say. “You make the call.”
He nods and looks at the box. “What was the decision with paper goods?”
“There wasn’t one.”
“Is that all that’s in there?”
“I think so.” I nudge the box with my foot.
“How about I bring my truck up and we put that box inside?” He gathers two other trash bags full of papers Prisha had gathered yesterday. “I’ll take them down to the recycling center.”
“Works for me.”
He stares at me blankly for a moment. “Can you lift that box?”
“I sure can.” I flex my arms at him.
He chuckles. “I’ll go get the truck. Meet you out front.”
I nod.
He dashes away, and I turn my attention to the big box of unopened
mail and sticky-covered magazines. With a grunt, I heft it into my arms and point my feet in the direction of the front door.
I ache for autumn. For at least some semblance of relief from this heat. When October arrives every year, the very air in Kansas experiences a mood shift. Throughout the beginning of the year, in the late months of winter, Kansas weather behaves like a passive aggressive church lady. The weather in January and February is chilly and unrelenting and totally unpredictable, as though you were found sitting in her pew and she vowed never to let you forget it but never actually says anything about it.
The spring months are unpredictable too, confused, varying between frosty and muggy in equal measure, but always with the sense of threat and foreboding. Some people find spring hopeful, and it’s true, there is a sense of new life in the first few weeks of spring. But here in Tornado Alley, the hope in green grass is usually replaced quickly with the fear of green-tinged skies. May is usually when we get the worst of the storms, although that has been changing in recent years. Now the threat is just as real in June and July.
Summers are lazy and indolent, as though the atmosphere just doesn’t have enough energy to try cooling down. It’s easier to boil us like new potatoes.
But October? October is a breath of fresh air, crisp and restorative, a brisk reminder that even though everything changes, some things do stay the same. The taste of apple cider. The joyful chaos of the holiday season. The rough texture of chunky sweaters.
The furnace of the outside world hits me like a blacksmith’s hammer as I step out onto the porch and set the box of letters and magazines down.
Is it autumn yet?
I crack my back and stretch my neck, feeling every one of my 35 years in the twinge of my over-used muscles. My tendons creak and pop.
Movement at the RV makes me glance toward the driveway, and I smile as Aaron comes into view. He waves at me with a grin. He’s coated in a thick layer of dirt and grime, and he’s sweating as much as I am. But it’s okay for guys to sweat. Guys don’t look like wrung-out washcloths when they sweat. Sweat on guys seems to just add to their overall guyishness.
Or maybe that was just Aaron.
The porch steps rattle and groan under his boots as he walks up to the porch and leans on the railing.
“More mail?” He digs through the box on the porch with his gloved hands. “And travel magazines.”
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