After the Leaves Fall

by Nicole Baart

  “I know,” I replied without blinking.

  She watched from the door as I drove away, but the sun was already a memory on the horizon—a thin ribbon of purple, little more than a bruise left by the imprint of orange—and I’m sure all she saw of my departure was taillights. It was better that way. I hated the thought of her seeing how I strangled the steering wheel.

  Value Foods was far from the worst place in town to work. There was the packing plant, the egg plant, the paint factory, and a wide assortment of hog farms, cattle farms, dairy farms, and goat farms, where my skin could absorb a variety of rancid smells that stayed with me even after multiple showers with lye soap and industrial-strength hand cleaners. The grocery store was tame compared with the rest of the job market in Mason, and in truth, I was lucky to get the job. I needed something full-time, with benefits, and as much as I hated to admit it, Mr. Durst, the manager, was from out of town and wouldn’t mind that my pregnancy would progress like a neatly drawn life cycle in a full-color science textbook before the entire town. What was my personal scandal to him? In fact, when I warily mentioned that I was almost four months pregnant in my job interview, Mr. Durst looked at me as if to say, So what? He did ask, “Will it interfere with your ability to perform your job?”

  I assured him that I would be able to scan boxes of cereal and bag oranges well into my third trimester if not up to the day I delivered.

  He grunted and handed me a uniform from out of a stack on the desk behind him.

  “Do you want to know my size?” I wondered out loud, holding the standard issue pants, shirt, and apron gingerly.

  “Small, medium, large, extra large,” was his only comment, and indeed, when I located the tag inside the shirt it read medium. For a while at least.

  “Start with that,” Mr. Durst instructed. “We’ll get you more later.”

  Training was an evening job since, for most people, the hours after suppertime were reserved for baths and play and television, not grocery shopping in our conservative little town. When I drove into the parking lot at seven o’clock, it boasted only a dozen cars or so, and though I was tempted to pull close to the door and save myself the trek through the below-freezing temperature, I dutifully drove to the back of the lot, where the employees were supposed to park. I yanked my hood up over my head and stuffed my hands into my pockets, running the whole way across the empty parking lot with my apron flapping against my knees.

  The store was overly bright, and someone had turned the elevator music just a tad too loud. A little grocery cart corral at the beginning of the first aisle was stacked with carts, and only one checkout lane was open.

  The cashier, someone I didn’t recognize, was sitting on the counter right beside the red-eyed scanner and blowing a green bubble of fluorescent gum so big I was afraid it would pop and get stuck in her eyebrows. She sucked it in when she saw me and gave me a bored wave, beckoning me over with a flick of her wrist.

  “You’re Julie, right?” she asked, and though there was no hint of unfriendliness in her voice, I cringed when she called me Julie.

  “Julia,” I corrected, trying to sound upbeat.

  She just stared. “Okay, whatever. You’re late, by the way.”

  I twisted my watch on my arm and consulted the face again, though I had already checked it twice since driving up. “It’s a minute to seven,” I argued.

  “Clark—he’s the assistant manager—insists that we be at least ten minutes early for every shift. Better if it’s fifteen minutes; he’ll forgive you if it’s five. But you’re late.”

  “Nobody told me that,” I said and regretted how whiny it came out.

  She shrugged. “He’s waiting for you in the back room.”

  “Thank you,” I said and started off past the registers. It was a small thing, the thank-you, but it endeared me to her the tiniest bit.

  As I was walking away, she offered, “Never sit on the counter.” She drummed her fingers on the laminate surface beside her thighs as if to illustrate her point. “But if you’re going to, make sure that Clark is in the back room. He’ll kill you if he catches you.”

  I smiled and made a mental note of the name on her tag. Alicia. And below that: 2 years of faithful service.

  The back room of Value Foods was little more than an extended storeroom. The walls were cold, concrete blocks, and the shelving was stark and unattractive, the ugly sister of the sleeker, more appealing units that graced the aisles of the store and made things like Ho Hos actually look appetizing. There was a dingy bathroom near the loading dock and a sprawling metal desk that served as a break room at the far end of the elongated hall. Both locations were barely illuminated by naked lightbulbs that fought valiantly to dispel the dismal shadows and lost miserably.

  When I used the bathroom after my interview, I’d thought about telling someone about the one burned-out bulb above the sink. But standing over the corroded fixtures and browning drain, I acquiesced. Crummy lighting actually improved the overall impression of the entire back room.

  Thankfully, I knew I wouldn’t find Clark amid the boxes and gloom. Opposite the break area at the far end of the passage was a duo of glass-fronted offices. The one on the left—the office with two actual windows to the outside world—was Mr. Durst’s. The other office I had been told belonged to the assistant manager, Clark Henstock.

  The light was on in his office, and he was looking at me through the glass.

  I walked briskly toward him, trying to hold a capable look on my face that was both professional and eager yet not at all forced. Though no reflective surface played back my features and told me so, my face felt like it was locked in a grimace. I licked my lips, tried again, and finally abandoned the feeble attempt at confidence. The door to Clark’s office was open, and I stepped up to the threshold, stopping in the doorframe to say, “I’m Julia DeSmit. You must be—”

  “Clark Henstock,” he said, clipping off each separate syllable with a virtually militaristic accuracy.

  I almost said, “I know,” but I managed to hold my tongue and was grateful for it when he tossed a pen at me. It came out of nowhere, and my hand shot up almost of its own accord. Against all odds, and probably for only the second or third time in my life, I made the perfect catch. The Bic thumped satisfyingly in my palm, and a grin unpredictably and embarrassingly sprang to my lips. “Caught it.” I laughed and immediately felt like an idiot. Wagging the pen lamely, I shrugged one shoulder as if to shake it off and dropped my arm to my side.

  Clark assessed me for a moment before stating coolly, “I need you to sign a few papers.” He turned to the table against the glass wall overlooking the storeroom and arranged three documents in a perfectly straight row. “Here, here, and here.” He pointed when I stepped up to the table.

  I signed my name three times, and each signature looked different from the last because I had to lean closer into Clark to reach the far papers and my body couldn’t help avoiding his as if we were propelled together magnetically.

  Although I half expected him to comment on it, he merely swept up the documents when I was finished and sank in his cushy chair. Swiveling toward a paper-laden desk, he tucked my papers into an open file and dropped it in a box by his feet. Then he looked at his watch and said without turning to me, “It’s 7:04. You’re late for work. Next time make sure you arrive on time.”

  It was impossible not to cringe, but I forced myself to bite my tongue and stay put, awaiting further commands. Clark remained with his back to me, and I determined to be as quiet and enduring as the sweetest of saints. Clasping my hands in front of me, I studied the back of his head while I practiced patience.

  His hair was dark brown and noticeably thinning. On a man with a deeper skin tone, Clark’s hair loss might not have been so pronounced, but Clark was white in a way that excluded any speculation of diversity in his family tree. The chalkiness of his scalp peeking through sad little patches of scraggly hair was unnecessarily unattractive. Not that Clark was ugly. He
was just trying a little too hard to maintain the coif of his youth when he was obviously pushing forty. Shave it off, I thought. Embrace your age.

  Almost as if I had spoken aloud, he whipped around to face me. “What are you still doing here?”

  I managed to mumble, “Waiting for instructions.”

  Clark’s sigh was a barely concealed groan. “Take a little initiative, Miss DeSmit. Be a problem solver. I’m not here to babysit.” And he spun back to his computer.

  I melted out of the office and wandered over to the break area, where I shed my coat and hung it over a folding metal chair. It was suddenly very cold without my winter parka, and I wrapped my arms around myself, hurrying out of the storeroom lest Clark turn to see me dawdling and fire me on the spot. Deciding my best course of action would be to ask Alicia what to do, I cut through the aisles and nearly collided with a boy who was almost a full head shorter than me.

  “Oops!” He laughed a little too heartily. His yellow tie was crooked at his throat, and his stiff apron was stained with what looked like darkening blood from the meat counter. The thought nauseated me. “Sorry!” the boy exclaimed, wiping his hands on his apron and extending an arm to me. “I’m Graham. You must be the new girl.”

  “Julia,” I muttered, taking his hand though it was almost painful to do so. His fingers were warm and soft.

  “Nice to meet you, Julia. You’ll like it here. It’s a good job!”

  While he looked too young to be working anywhere and his enthusiasm was slightly overkill, it was hard not to smile back when he was grinning in my face. “Glad to hear it,” I commented vaguely, hoping that a response wouldn’t encourage him too much.

  “Alicia is the shift manager,” Graham went on as if he intended to take me under his wing.

  I rolled my eyes at the thought of yet another person on the rung of managerial staff at Value Foods.

  “No, no, she’s nice,” he hurried to explain, misunderstanding my expression. I started to explain myself, but he continued, “Denise is a bit of a bear sometimes, but Alicia lets us leave early for our breaks sometimes.”

  I gave him a little nod and took a small step back to disengage myself from his unsolicited conversation. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, slowly backing away.

  But Graham followed. “Hey, I’ll walk you to the front. It’s almost my break time anyway, and I can introduce you to people as we go.”

  “Graham, I—”

  “Oh, it’s okay, really. I don’t mind at all.” And though he could just barely peek over my shoulder, he took my elbow and steered me down the aisle as if he were some elderly benefactor and I a little girl.

  I tried not to sigh as I allowed myself to be led through the store. Graham would release me long enough to let me shake the outstretched hands of my coworkers, but as we continued to the checkouts, he would manage to take up his paternal position again. There was nothing malicious or inappropriate in his gesture, and because he elicited genuine warmth in everyone we met, I did everything I could to be friendly and fine with whatever social particulars made him comfortable. I couldn’t escape the feeling that much of my life from now on would be molding myself to fit snugly against other people’s ideas and ideals. It was safer there where I could blend in, where I could be smooth and seamless and hidden—predictably contrite for my situation and newly flawless in my efforts at virtue. It made my head ache with inadequacy.

  Value Foods wasn’t an enormous store, but by the time we passed nine packed aisles and started through the produce section to the front, I had met half a dozen employees. All of them teenagers. None of them particularly enthused to see me. I was just the new girl—and an old one at that.

  I peeked at my watch when we got to the front and waited patiently while Alicia finished with a customer.

  An older man with what looked like a brand-new overcoat paid for his bottle of wine with a crisp twenty-dollar bill while Alicia grinned at him as if he were the single most interesting person she had ever met. She waved and watched him walk away, and he was halfway through the first automatic door when she finally turned to focus her attention on Graham and me. The easy turn of her lips sunk immediately, and she clicked her tongue as if to chastise us. “It’s quarter after seven,” she said.

  “I know.” I didn’t offer any more because I was already becoming well aware of how things were done at Value Foods. Arrive on time, do your job, and stay out of Clark’s way. I was just about to add Alicia’s name beside Clark’s when the sternness left her face and she shrugged.

  “Whatever.” She pointed to a mop bucket waiting in the sectioned-off lane beside hers. “We mop the store every few days on a rotating schedule. You’re new, so you get the honors tonight. Produce section and freezer aisle. Just remember to put up the Wet Floor signs. We don’t want a lawsuit.” Alicia craned her neck for a moment and scanned the store. Seeing the coast was clear, she hopped back up onto the counter and squeezed a little dab of hand sanitizer into her palm, working it in as if it were a luxurious cream. “And, Graham,” she added, looking up, “you only have ten minutes left on your break.”

  “Yup,” he said cheerfully and waved exuberantly at us as he started away. “Have a good time, Julia! It was nice to meet you!”

  I gave him a halfhearted flick of my fingers and ducked under the plastic chain to grab the mop bucket. “Is he always that happy?” I asked Alicia.

  “Yeah, 24-7,” she confirmed. “He’s fourteen, you know. I don’t remember being that cheerful when I was fourteen.”

  It occurred to me that I should banter, keep up this little conversation and make a friend. But the apron strings were cutting into my waist, and my head was already beginning to throb from the fluorescent lights and the music that must have been standard issue in the eighties for every doctor’s office, elevator, and shopping store in the country. Maybe an instrumental version of some Michael Bolton or—heaven help us—Chicago song. All I could think was, I have to listen to this for four hours?

  “Start at the back and work your way up to the front,” Alicia instructed. She watched me unhook the chain and pull the mop bucket out into the aisle. “You know how to work that thing, don’t you?” Her hand pulled an imaginary lever. “Just put the mop head in that slot and pull—”

  “Yes, thank you.” I quickly nodded, though I had never used a mop before in my life.

  “Okay. Have fun.” Alicia returned to rubbing her fingers.

  I began to back slowly down the aisle past the fruits and vegetables and bins of nuts. The bucket was heavier than it looked, and I was so focused on maneuvering it that when the mister started over the lettuces I jumped out of my skin and knocked a grapefruit from a mountain of Ruby Reds. It plopped right into my bucket and splashed dingy water on my shoes. Had I a foul mouth, the moment was ripe for a string of curses that may have actually been deemed warranted by most people.

  But I bit my lip instead and rolled up my sleeve to fish the grapefruit out. It was slick with brown water and probably bruised, and because I didn’t want anyone to buy it, I stuck it in my apron pocket intending to pay for it later. I almost laughed in surrender when I saw the caricature of pregnant roundness protruding from my belly.

  Mopping wasn’t as bad as I first imagined it would be, and the monotonous motion actually felt more like a workout than a menial task. Sweep to the left, sweep to the right, swish in the bucket, squeeze. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I enjoyed it, but the solitariness of such drudgery was a definite bonus. None of the other employees approached me even once.

  With my hand on the grip of an oversize mop and the smell of dusty water at my feet, I had a few stolen moments of indulging in the what ifs-of my life. What if I had stayed in college? What if I had never gotten pregnant? What if things were different between Thomas and me? The list could go on forever—past recent mistakes and on to long-ago losses—and though I wanted to indulge in a little self-pity, I didn’t because Grandma expected more of me these days. I pushed those
thoughts out of my mind and, with a self-deprecating smile, mopped with all the heart of a born grocery store employee.

  The store itself was dead, and the occasional customers who did brave the abandoned aisles walked quickly and clutched bulging coats around them as if this was the last place they wanted to be. Often they carried just a single item—a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk. At least two people besides the man in the overcoat stopped to peruse the wine section.

  When a woman walked past me, I only looked up because her footsteps were so heavy. Her back was toward me, and she was wearing a jean coat with faux fur at the wrists and collar. Long, dirty blonde hair hung in a ponytail, and though I couldn’t see her face, there was something about her that seemed too old for such youthful hair. She glanced over her shoulder, and I quickly dropped my head, not wanting it to seem like I had been staring at her. I heard her leave then, and because there was something about the sad slant of her back that tugged at something deep inside me, I watched her approach Alicia.

  I had made it almost to the end of the aisle, and I could see and hear everything that went on between the two of them. The woman laid a half gallon of milk, a bag of pretzels, and two carefully chosen Braeburn apples on the counter.

  Alicia barely looked at her and didn’t even bother to smile, much less flatter her the way she had wooed the man with the wine.

  For her part, the woman kept her head down and her hands in her pockets as if she was almost apologetic about her presence in the store.

  “Four dollars and three cents,” Alicia said when the last item had been scanned. She turned to put the groceries in a plastic bag while the women dug in her pockets.

  She produced four crinkled one-dollar bills and spread them out self-consciously in front of her. Passing them to Alicia, her hands returned to her pockets to find the change. She probed and poked, and though I was supposed to be looking at the floor, I could see her fingers thrusting at the fabric and coming up empty.