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by James Hynes

  Whoa, thinks Kevin, who am I kidding? Who the hell do I think I am? Let’s be honest here, he reminds himself, I was just another suburban counterculture dilettante. Doing blow at the Rubiyat and going to nuclear freeze rallies to meet girls didn’t exactly make him Walter Benjamin. Because it’s not like he was ever actually a member of the Food Co-op, basically he only ever shopped there to get close to the girl in the painter’s pants, who stood out mainly by virtue of being surrounded by squat lesbians in overalls. With a knowing, karmic nudge, Gaia’s escalator deposits him abruptly at the top and he nearly stumbles to his knees. Luckily Joy Luck’s looking the other way, as she and the Gaian gesture in the same direction. Kevin turns his back and shrugs on his jacket again, glancing back at them. So this isn’t Ian, she obviously doesn’t know the guy, she’s just asking for directions. Kevin hangs back a bit, pretending to read the label of a bottle of wine as he watches Joy Luck stride away in the mellow light up the wide aisle behind the checkout lanes, past giant stacks of organic popcorn and pesticide-free apple juice and jars of chipotle ketchup.

  “Are you a fan of Chilean wine?”

  “Sorry?”

  “That’s a really nice Merlot.” It’s the kid Joy Luck was just talking to. “From Curicó province?”

  But Kevin’s not even looking at the bottle in his hands, but gazing dumbstruck across the vast interior of Gaia Market, from the high ceiling like a forest canopy where every conduit and AC duct is painted the same sylvan green, to the woody labyrinth of custom shelving below. In between are bright constellations of track lights as far as he can see, which makes the store look like a lavish modernist set for the fairy wood in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a faux forest full of mysterious, twinkling lights, and beautiful and slightly alien creatures. (Almost an English major, was Kevin.) And music—not pan pipes, exactly, but something light and airy and subtly engineered to appeal to the better instincts of the boomer clientele. It’s the high, elven voice of Joni Mitchell, the Canadian Galadriel, singing in harmony with herself, “Hellllp me, I think I’m falling… in love with you…”

  “It’s got subtle highlights of black pepper and sour cherries and beeswax,” says the Gaian, clasping his hands before him like a New Age sommelier. “It has a good attack with a roundish body, and a hint of tannin.”

  Kevin rolls his eyes: this is why he’d rather shop at Wal-Mart, where none of the harried minimum wagers is likely to treat him like a rude mechanical, where the only question they ever ask him is “Paper or plastic?”

  “Thanks anyway,” he says, and replaces the bottle with a glassy clank. The boy shrugs, and Kevin edges past him, deeper into the magic forest, after Joy Luck. He sees her swaying up the aisle, which isn’t as crowded as it would be on a Friday evening or a Sunday afternoon. One thing you have to say about Gaia is just how good-looking its clientele is. Even in Ann Arbor, in the gloomiest months of winter, when everybody’s swaddled in bulky parkas and padded boots and ugly woolen caps, the women and men Kevin sees at Gaia are clearly an order of magnitude more attractive than the wide loads he walks behind at Kroger. And here in sultry Austin, where everybody dresses year round like they’re at the gym, Kevin passes a svelte young woman with a midriff like a gymnast; a guy his own age with the bulging calves of a bicycle racer; and a couple of fantastically fit women, anywhere from thirty-five to fifty, in capri pants and tank tops, whose upper arms are better defined than Kevin’s—and Kevin works out twice a week with the free weights at CCRB. With a guilty pang he realizes that Stella would love it here. She drags him to Gaia once a week at least, dressing for the occasion like he’s taking her to a restaurant. At Kroger she wears sweatpants and wraparound sunglasses like a movie star hoping to go unrecognized, but to Gaia she wears her work blouse and skirt, her earrings, her heels. Stella loves where she shops. When he launches involuntarily into his I Hate Gaia rant, she rolls her eyes like an impatient teenager.

  “Yadda yadda yadda,” she says, waggling her fingers. “Who cares, if everything here is so yummy?”

  But it’s not just Gaia, she’d love Austin, too. She’d settle into the subtropical heat like a sauna, she’d shed her Midwestern pelt and show off her own firm midriff and muscular calves, she’d drag him every Friday to happy hour at Molotov. She’d be in Gaia two or three times a week asking for samples from every flirty young Gaian at every specialty counter. Suddenly Kevin’s wondering if he’d even be able to hang onto Stella in a town like this, full of fit, yummy guys her own age or younger who make ten times more money than he does, who drive the high-performance automobiles in the garage below, and who could chat knowledgeably for hours on end about Chilean fucking wine. Of course, if he gets the job he’s interviewing for today, he’s planning on leaving Stella. Though he hasn’t said it out loud to a soul, hasn’t even formulated it in so many words in the privacy of his own head, leaving Stella is half the reason he wants to move from Ann Arbor. But still, the frisson of guilt he feels sparks into a little flare of righteous anger, that she would dare follow him here, even if only in his imagination, and then dump him for a younger, richer, fitter guy! The nerve! That bitch! No way that’s happening to me twice, Kevin thinks, and just for an instant, the mellow sylvan light of Gaia turns a little red at the edges. It doesn’t help, of course, that the last time he saw Beth was in the Gaia in Ann Arbor, when he was with Stella.

  It was the only time Stella and Beth have ever met—after work one frigid February evening. Gaia’s lot was nearly full, and everything glittered under the halogen lights: the luxury cars and SUVs where they weren’t streaked with slush; the gouts of exhaust from salt-rimed tailpipes; the heaps of plowed snow; the twinkling motes of new flakes; the air itself. Even their streamers of breath glittered as Kevin and Stella crunched across ridges of refrozen slush. They held hands like schoolkids, her trim leather glove in his vast Gore-Tex mitten. Stella’s woolen cap was jammed like a helmet over her hair, and Kevin breathed from within the hood of his parka, the opening cinched so tight that Stella said he looked like Kenny from South Park. But inside the hood Kevin felt like Darth Vader, seeing only through the narrow aperture of his helmet, hearing only the rhythmic rasp of his own breath. On the sidewalk in front of the store the crunch of their steps became the Styrofoam squeak of packed snow, and inside the Gaia airlock they performed the Michigan clog dance, stamping the snow off their boots on the squishy entry mat.

  As always, Kevin pushed the cart while Stella tapped up and down each aisle in her high-heeled boots, her quilted coat billowing after her like a cape. By now he had learned to keep his mouth shut—“Would it kill them to sell a little Diet Coke? Some fucking Ruffles?”—and to admire instead Stella’s consumer ruthlessness. He had no doubt that if civilization collapsed and they were reduced to living like australopithecines, it would be Stella who’d pluck up her spear and go out hunting, while Kevin tended the fire and sewed together the skins of the animals that she dragged back to their cave. Leaning wearily on the handle of the shopping cart, he had to admire the way Stella rocked on one sharp heel and briskly peeled off her leather gloves a finger at a time, the better to squeeze a kiwi fruit or an avocado, or spear a sample ball of marinated mozzarella. She’d offer him one first, putting it right in his mouth, then expertly spear another for herself with the same toothpick, watching for his reaction with a raised eyebrow. If he nodded, she’d brighten at the kid behind the counter and order a pound of the stuff, and if he didn’t, she’d crinkle her nose and waggle her fingers ta-ta and they would march on to the next counter. And even when she raced ahead of him and he ended up stranded with the cart, feeling simultaneously like an abandoned child and old enough to be Stella’s father, she often surprised him by coming up from behind and slipping her hand through his elbow, nuzzling him, ruffling the hair at the back of his neck. Right there in the condiments aisle, she’d kiss him on the ear.

  “Love you,” she’d whisper, and then, “Oh! Capers! I love capers!”

  That night, though, the bit
ter cold had chilled her effervescence somewhat, and she left her gloves on in the store. She moved a little more quickly than usual, and Kevin found himself hustling to keep up with her. Finally, at the prepared foods counter, she squeezed his wrist and said, “Wait here, okay? Don’t move,” and then marched away. Luckily the young woman behind the counter was busy with other customers, so Kevin propped himself on his cart, sweating in his parka, and surveyed the astonishing heaps of glossy foods under the glass: Grilled chicken breasts marinated in lemon. Mushrooms stuffed with spinach and feta. Smoked salmon crostini. Squares of pecan-encrusted tofu like Rice Krispie treats. Turkey meatloaf with hatch chilies, sliced crosswise for easy service. And none of it for under twelve bucks a pound. In his head he writhed with mixed emotions like a gaffed fish: Who can afford to eat like this? and I could make my own salmon crostini for half that—assuming I knew what salmon crostini was and Don’t they know there’s a war on? and And a recession? and I’d kill for a Blimpy burger right now and Okay, the salmon really does look yummy. He thought of McNulty, laughing his ass off at the sight of Kevin, middle-aged, middle-class, docile as a neutered spaniel, waiting to pay $15.99 a pound for salmon on behalf of his much younger girlfriend. He saw his mother, dipping her pinky into her highball glass and licking it, then looking at him over her half-glasses. Pecan-encrusted tofu?

  “So, what looks good to you?” a woman said to him.

  Kevin looked up, but the girl behind the counter was scooping curried chicken salad into a plastic takeout shell. He turned to see a mother in a parka, holding a bundle in a snowsuit in the crook of one arm and a small wire basket full of groceries hanging from the other. She was watching him wryly, like she knew him, but out of context he couldn’t place her at first—her hair was longer than she’d ever worn it for him, and she’d put on a little weight. The smile she was suppressing crinkled the corners of her eyes. God help me, thought Kevin, my younger ex-girlfriend is middle-aged.

  “Beth,” he said.

  The crow’s feet crinkled deeper. “You had to think about it, didn’t you?” Still she didn’t smile.

  “Sorry.” He pushed himself erect behind his cart.

  Now she did smile—mostly friendly, with a hint of I’ve-got-your-number. “How are you?”

  “Good!” A little high-pitched, a little too loud. “Great! How are you?”

  She mimed a shudder. “Cold.”

  “Me too.” His heart was hammering, which surprised him. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already run into her several times the last couple of years, in Shaman Drum or Zingerman’s Roadhouse, or on line at the Michigan Theater. There had even been some stilted e-mails back and forth. When her son was born he had sent her flowers. “You look good,” he said.

  “Really?” He could tell she didn’t believe him, but she wanted to. And he was being mostly honest. She was all bundled up in her parka and sweater and scarf, so he couldn’t really check her out, but the way her face had filled out suited her. He even felt a stab of guilt, remembering how gaunt she’d looked in those last months they lived together. Was that my fault, he wondered—her hollow cheeks, the dark skin under her eyes? After all this time he still went back and forth: was he a selfish bastard, or was there no making that woman happy? After all, Kevin thought, Beth couldn’t blame him for her own scary combination of intensity and indecision. But now, flushed in the heat of her winter clothes, she did look good, really, truly. She used to crop her hair boyishly short, but now it fell to her shoulders. Her cheekbones weren’t as sharp as they used to be, but neither were her nerves right on the surface anymore, radiating every tremor of emotion. Her eyes were brighter, warmer.

  “Really,” he said. “You look… calmer.”

  This he regretted immediately, but she only smiled and hefted the snowsuit bundle. Kevin glimpsed a little spheric section of pink forehead; Beth’s son appeared to be fast asleep inside the cinched hood of his suit.

  “You hear that?” she said. “Mommy’s perfectly calm.”

  He nearly repeated Stella’s joke about Kenny from South Park, but in the nick of time he remembered that Kenny dies at the end of each episode.

  “How’s he doing?” he said instead. What do you say about the four-year-old kid of your ex, who left you to have him after thirteen years together? Especially if you can’t remember the kid’s name?

  “It’s a she,” Beth said.

  “A she?” Kevin’s brain ground to a halt. He was certain Beth had had a son. Dear God, he thought, how could I misremember that? Okay, so I spaced on his name, but I’m too young to have forgotten the kid’s sex.

  “Naomi,” she said, enjoying Kevin’s confusion way too much. “My second child.”

  “Whoa.” He couldn’t disguise his surprise. “I didn’t know.”

  She shrugged. “No reason you should.”

  “How old… ?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “Huh.” Kevin’s geriatric brain sparked and sizzled uselessly. “Well, she looks very relaxed.”

  “She’s like her father that way.” She was looking at the child when she said this, but then she glanced at Kevin.

  “Huh.” That name he did know: Noah. A junior professor in… something. A much younger guy than Kevin, younger even by a couple years than Beth. And already the father of two children. Huh.

  “Not to bring the conversation to a screeching halt or anything,” Beth said, smiling.

  I mean, who’s the injured party here? Kevin wondered. As miserable as I may have made her, in the end she left me. I’m the one who got the push.

  “How is he?” he said, slipping about on the high ground. “Noah,” he added. She wasn’t going to do that to him again.

  “Busy,” said Beth, still watching him closely. He knew that look, and even now, when it shouldn’t matter anymore what she thought of him, he hated it and feared it. It was the look she gave him when she was measuring him against some private standard in her head. It was a look that already held the expectation that he would disappoint her. The problem was that he never knew what the standard was, and she wouldn’t tell him. It was a look that still made him angry—not the implied judgment itself, but the fact that he still let it get to him.

  “I’ll bet,” said Kevin. He had no idea what he meant by that.

  “Sir?” The girl behind the counter was speaking to him.

  He and Beth nodded at each other, a couple of sparring partners separated for a moment by the ref, catching their breath, gauging each other’s stamina.

  “Sir? What can I get you?”

  “I think she’s next,” he said, gesturing to Beth, who stepped right up to the counter. “I’d like a couple of slices of the turkey loaf,” she said, lifting her chin at the girl. The bundle on her arm shifted, and through the deep-sea diver porthole of her hood, Kevin could see that young Naomi, daughter of Noah and not-as-young-as-she-used-to-be Beth, younger sister of whathisname, was awake and watching Kevin with cool, blue, unblinking eyes.

  Kevin looked quickly away, then back into the kid’s gaze. You don’t know me, Kevin thought, but for a while there, I was supposed to be your father. The child just stared at him, and Kevin thought, Jesus, even the kid’s judging me. He started inching away, without saying goodbye, but then something rattled into his cart—a box of couscous—and he felt a squeeze in the crook of his elbow.

  “What looks good to you, sweetie?” Stella twined her arm through his and looked up at him calmly, then let her gaze drift slowly across the platters of chicken, salmon, and tofu. Nothing, he wanted to say, not a goddamn thing. Waiting for you, I’m a stationary target, a sitting duck, a great big bull’s-eye for any ex-girlfriend and her second kid who happens by. But before he could edit this for actual conversation, Beth turned away from the case, where the girl was lifting slices of turkey loaf with a pair of tongs, and Kevin’s ex narrowed her eyes at the young woman who had appeared beside him. She shot Kevin a look that made him blanch, a look that said (and Kevin ought to know) I wa
nt you dead, and not just dead, but crusted with pecans, stuffed with feta and spinach, and mounted on a platter with an organic apple in his mouth, sliced crosswise for easy service. Then she smiled and caught Stella’s eye.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Stella blinked, and said, “Hi” in her professional voice.

  Beth looked at Kevin. By now Kevin had recovered enough to give Beth a look that said, You dumped me, remember? When Stella noticed the two of them looking at each other, she looked at Kevin, too.

  “Um,” said Kevin.

  “He’s too embarrassed to speak,” Beth said, hefting her child to show that she couldn’t shake hands, “but I’m Beth.”