Live it Again

by Geoff North

  Hugh and Heather sat out on the small deck facing west and enjoyed an evening coffee. They waved to Cathy as she pulled back in from her run into town, and watched the sun set.

  “It’s good having you home,” he said between sips. “Braedon’s a nice place to raise a kid.”

  “It’s been wonderful…I just wish we didn’t have to live off you and Cathy.”

  “We don’t see it that way. There aren’t any good jobs in town, and we don’t want to see you waitressing again.”

  “But I’ve wasted my life, Hugh. I should’ve gone to university, I should’ve done more.”

  “Don’t look at it that way. You’re a great mom and our kids love you. We never want to see you leave. It’s not what you do with life, it’s all about--”

  She laughed. “Please don’t give me any sappy speeches. Save it for your next story.”

  “Good point.” He set his empty cup down. “Speaking of stories… I promised my agent the next manuscript before the weekend. Better call it a night.”

  Hugh slid the patio door open and reached for his coat from a hook inside. An envelope fell to the floor. “Shit, I almost forgot.”

  “What’s this?” She asked as he presented it to her.

  “Happy birthday.”

  “My birthday was last month. You guys got me the china set, remember?”

  “We forgot the card.” She started to open it but he stopped her. The wind was picking up. “Not here, do it inside. And don’t lose the fucking thing.” He gave her a kiss and went home.

  Hugh grabbed the bottle of champagne and a single wine glass from the kitchen and headed into the study. The computer was still on; a screensaver collage of family vacation pictures was fading in and out. Cathy and Hugh in Punta Cana, Julie and Dana posing in front of a Scottish castle, Colton giving a double thumbs-up in front of the Great Pyramid.

  He wiggled the mouse and the screen snapped to its Google News home page. Of all the twenty-first century innovations he’d left behind, the internet had been the most sorely missed. He scrolled down his favorites list and clicked on the lottery website he’d bookmarked in the morning. The winning numbers had already been posted.

  8, 12, 20, 23, 34, 36

  One winner.

  Hugh popped the cork off the bottle and champagne bubbled over onto the desk. He poured until his glass was full and took a good long taste.

  Not worth thirty-eight bucks.

  He’d have to get Heather to buy him a better one. He touched the keyboard where the champagne had splashed. She could replace that too.

  Chapter 28

  This was the day.

  The day Hugh’s hours had been cut in half. The day Hugh had been cut in half.

  “Pick up some more garbage bags, were almost out.” Cathy called from the kitchen.

  He looked out the living room window and saw his car waiting in the driveway, a smoky grey Audi, very expensive and very new. He couldn’t even remember the model of the old clunker he’d driven into the fuel truck thirty-seven years ago. It was blue. And rusty.

  “Did you say something, honey?”

  She came up behind him. “Garbage bags and this.” She placed the grocery list in his hand. “I still can’t believe you’re going to the grocery store. How long has it been?”

  Never.

  “Too long I guess.”

  “Well say hi to Billy.” She patted his bottom and pushed him through the front door. “See if he would like to have Caroline over this weekend. We haven’t gotten together with them in a while.”

  “This weekend?”

  It seemed strange to imagine a future so close now that he had no knowledge of. What would happen tomorrow? He had no idea. The feeling frightened him, like losing a familiar old sense.

  “Yes, this weekend. Colton’s going to a friend’s on Friday night and the girls are hanging out over at your sister’s. See if they can make it over then.”

  “What…what will we do?”

  “Play some cards? Rent a movie? How should I know? Just get going, will you? It’s already after five and the store will be closed soon.” She left him standing outside with a perplexed look on his face.

  Clouds were building in the west; it looked like it might snow.

  It will snow.

  Hugh sat in the Audi and started its engine. As it warmed up, he thought back on the last three and a half decades. Round Two he sometimes liked to call it. Had it been worth it? Sure, he’d gotten back what he’d missed the most, but a lot of other people had suffered dearly. He clicked on the stereo for company and started down the twisting lane. He glanced to the left without slowing and rolled onto the gravel road without slowing.

  He’d forgotten to say goodbye to the kids. The girls were helping mom with supper, and Colton was locked away in his bedroom playing his Xbox. Should he go back? No, it wouldn’t make a difference. The stop sign was less than a mile ahead, a little pink smudge on a grey horizon.

  Hugh accelerated. The sun was blocked in the overcast sky but he knew it was getting low. He had to get to town and finish this off.

  The tires slowed on cold gravel and the Audi came to a complete stop. He checked both ways, crossed the highway, and went into Braedon. He slowed down by the elementary school out of habit, even though its playground was empty this late in the afternoon. A glance to the left revealed the empty lot where his first son had died almost twenty years before. Mounds of uneven, brown grass grew over the spot where the McFarlane-Nance house once stood.

  Where to first, he wondered? He only had two stops to make. The grocery store came into view on the right hand side of Main Street, making the decision for him. He pulled into the almost empty lot and put the car into park.

  He looked out his windshield toward the front entrance of Little City Food Store and after a moment’s consideration, turned off the engine. He got out and pulled the collar of his coat up around his neck. The wind was cold, the clouds low and fast moving.

  The double doors slid open and he stopped in his tracks three feet short of entering the store. It looked just the same as it had thirty-seven years ago. The two check-out counters straight ahead, four rows of shopping carts to the right, the magazine rack beyond.

  The young cashier at the closest counter looked up at him as she ran goods past the scanner. Her look said ‘the door won’t close until you step through, and it’s cold outside, dimwit’.

  Hugh smiled apologetically and entered. It smelled of produce and baked bread. He’d missed that smell. Should he grab a cart? The grocery list had been forgotten on the front seat of his car. Should he go back for it? No…he never planned on picking anything up.

  Sorry Cathy, but I hate grocery shopping.

  He wandered down the first aisle. It consisted of cookies, snack crackers, microwave popcorn, potato chips and bottled peanuts. All the bad shit. The second aisle wasn’t much different, just more sugar content. Hugh looked at the description label beneath each item. He couldn’t recall somebody’s name he’d met on the street last week, but he remembered the price of everything here. He knew pack sizes, he recognized family groupings; he even remembered individual UPC codes, those ten digit numbers below the funny series of black bars. The human brain was a funny thing, he thought. If you pound enough boring data into it every day for eight hours straight, for five days a week, and for over twenty years, there’s no way you’re ever going to forget.

  Some things never changed.

  But there was something fundamentally different. What was it? He nodded to another customer and made room for her to push her groceries by. A snotty-nosed little kid stared at him from his strapped in position on the cart. Hugh didn’t recognize either one of them. There was a girl in the pet food aisle facing cans to the front as he rounded the next corner. He didn’t know her either.

  That was it! A few customers he did know, but none of the workers seemed familiar. The pretty, sullen-faced cashier never worked here when he was an employee, nor was the pet food
facer. The girl removing over-ripe bananas from a produce stand in the distance definitely never worked here before, Hugh would’ve remembered tits that big.

  He wandered down another aisle and finally saw two male employees working the dairy cooler. One was young, on his knees scrubbing out the crud that had built up during the week. The older one, whom he recognized instantly, stood above and pointed out spots the kid had missed.

  “How does Caroline feel about the number of young females employed here?”

  Billy Parton looked up and his jaw dropped. His eyes almost popped out of his head. “Hugh Nance? In my store? Is the place burning down?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  He clapped Hugh’s shoulder and grinned widely. “My wife trusts me completely! She insisted I hire all girls just to prove it to me.”

  “I bet.”

  “Mikey here is a guy,” he indicated the teen with a tilt of his head. “He’s one of Calvin Wilkinson’s boys.”

  Hugh nodded politely. “Hi Mike, how’s your mom doing?” The boy grunted something in return, hard to tell what it was since he wouldn’t lift his head from his work to look Hugh in the eye.

  “So what is the special occasion, buddy? Why pop in here out of the blue for the first time in what, ten, twenty years?”

  It was a simple question, so simple in fact that he didn’t have an immediate answer.

  What am I doing here? Saying hello? Saying goodbye?

  “I’ve never been in here…why don’t you show me the offices in the back? I’d like to see where all the big decisions are made.”

  “Yeah, that’s a happening place alright. Lots of food gets ordered there--huge business moves--should we order a fifteenth type of shredded cheese? Is there going to be another recall on Romaine lettuce? Sure you can handle it?”

  “Just show me the back, smartass.”

  Billy led him past the fresh meats counter and down a narrow hallway into the warehouse. A couple of kids, one a boy, the other a girl, were checking through stock on a pallet of boxes over eight feet high. They were talking and giggling while they worked and didn’t seem bothered by their boss’s presence. His old friend must have been good to work for. Another girl, a very stout girl, was sweeping the cement floor beneath them with a monstrous push broom.

  “That’s Scott and Sally Harder’s daughter,” Billy pointed out. Hugh could see the resemblance. “And this here is my office.” The door was open. The desk was littered with invoices and time schedules. A security monitor in the corner showed a split screen with half a dozen different store locations constantly being recorded in black and white.

  Bob never took security that seriously.

  “You have a lot trouble with shoplifting?”

  “Shrinkage hasn’t been much of a problem since the cameras were installed a couple of years ago.” Shrinkage. A dumb retail word Hugh never cared for.

  He looked back at the desk and saw the time bouncing around on Billy’s computer monitor. It was 5:29. Time was running out. “Do you have a file maintenance office?”

  “Well sure,” Billy looked a little puzzled. “All the pricing, all the sales are set through there. Is this one of your book ideas?”

  “Can I see it?”

  Billy scratched his head, now downright perplexed. “I guess so, its back through there.” They left his office and went to the far end of the warehouse. Hugh could’ve found it himself, blindfolded. It was next to the compressor room, hot in the winter, hotter in the summer, and louder than hell all of the time.

  A female voice sounded over the intercom system, Billy was paged to the front of the store. He swung the file maintenance door open. “Probably some old lady thinking she was overcharged on prunes and denture cream. I better go check it out. Poke around all you want, just don’t touch the computer.”

  Hugh waited until his friend was out of sight and then stepped into darkness. He reached for the light switch to the left without having to look. The pale fluorescents flickered on and Hugh’s breath caught. It was the same tiny room with the same windowless pale green walls. That’s where the similarity ended. The desk was up against the north wall, not the south. It wasn’t even the same desk. His had been small with barely enough room to space to accommodate a fifteen inch monitor and keyboard. Hugh sank into the comfortable office chair and swiveled around.

  Jesus Christ, it’s as nice as the one in my study.

  There were family pictures on the wall amongst the certificates and work calendars, a pretty woman in one, a guy smiling with two kids in another. The one boy looked hauntingly familiar. Handsome little guy.

  “No one was overcharged, but it was an old lady. Said her cereal cream was sour.”

  Hugh spun around. “Who works in here?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Why should I?

  “You really don’t get out much, do you?”

  “Who, Billy.”

  “Glen Richards.”

  “Bob’s older brother?”

  “The one and only. He’s been here for almost twenty years.”

  The same kid that bust out the stain glass window in the McFarlane house in my first life.

  “These are his kids?”

  “Can’t you tell?” Billy’s voice softened. “Little Eric there looks just like his uncle… Do you ever think about that day at the bridge?”

  Hugh stood up and looked away from the pictures. “I try not to. Some things you can’t change so it’s best not to dwell on it.” He ran his fingers along the top of Glen Richard’s computer monitor. “Nineteen inch?”

  “Twenty-one. Only the best for my guys and gals.”

  “You’re a good boss, Billy, and an even better friend.”

  He stepped back and grinned. “You don’t want a fucking hug, do you?”

  They went back through the store and stepped outside into the windy evening. Wet snowflakes had just started to dampen the asphalt parking lot. “Don’t be a stranger, come on back soon, and next time buy something!”

  Hugh was halfway back to his car when he remembered Cathy had wanted him to invite them over for Friday night. He turned back but Billy was already gone. It didn’t matter.

  He got in the Audi and started it up, turning the heater to maximum and setting the fans to defrost. There was no buildup of ice and snow on the windshield, and he would make sure the field of vision remained clear. He wanted a good view of what was to happen next.

  He drove a little too quickly for Reynolds Liquor Mart, but he had to hurry, it was almost completely dark out. He ran to the door and got clocked on the forehead as it swung out.

  “Oh, Hugh, I’m so sorry!”

  “Not your fault, Suzey. I should’ve seen that coming.”

  The pretty woman reached out to see if he was okay and he opened the door all the way to let her through. “I-I read your last book…actually I’ve read them all. You have such a wonderful style.”

  Hugh didn’t rub his sore head. He didn’t want to make her feel any worse.

  Damn, she’s pretty.

  “Well thank you, that’s very nice of you to say.”

  “I’m not just saying it, I mean it.”

  “Take care, Suzey.” He watched for a few seconds as she hurried to her car.

  Gary Reynolds was reading his newspaper, the sports section. He barely paid any attention as Hugh half-jogged to the counter, the bottles in their displays clinking lightly with each step.

  “I need a pack of cigarettes, Gary, Player’s King Size.”

  “Well, well, what have we here? Our resident author is about to take up smoking.”

  “Please, Gary.”

  “Maybe you already smoke, I wouldn’t know ‘cause you never buy them here, or booze for that matter.”

  “I’m kind of in a hurry here.”

  “I’m just jokin’ with you, Hugh. Ever since your sister won her jackpot my lottery sales have tripled.”

  Hugh glanced up at the pictures on the wall
behind the cash register. The same people with the over-sized cheques and shit-eating grins he saw thirty-seven years ago smiled down at him. Heather was a new addition. Her picture was in the middle, and her shit-eating grin was wider than all the rest.

  “I really have to get going, please--just give me the smokes.” He slapped a twenty dollar bill on the counter.

  “Would be nice if she came in once in a while, you know, support a fella’s busin-”

  “And a lighter.” Hugh turned and looked out the store window. It was black, grey sleet pelted against the plate glass. When he turned around again Gary was still whining, but at least the cigarettes had found their way onto the counter. Hugh grabbed them up and started to tear into the cellophane wrap.

  “You must need one of those pretty bad,” Gary said placing a pink lighter down.

  Once inside, he removed the silver foil and took out a single cigarette. “That’s right, one is all I need.” He tossed the remainder on the twenty and started out.

  “Wait a minute, Nance, what about your change?”

  “Keep it.”

  “What am I supposed to do with the rest of these goddamned cigarettes?” He was almost shouting. “I can’t re-sell an open pack!”

  The time for small talk had passed.

  “Then shove them up your ass, you miserable old fuck.” He hadn’t said anything that terrible to anyone in years, perhaps never. It felt good. It felt Hugh.

  He’d left the car running and it was toasty-warm dry inside. The windshield was wet, not frozen, and the wipers swooshed it noiselessly clean. The snow continued to fall and build so he turned the intermittent up a few clicks. No surprises this time. The all-wheel traction found the pavement below a thin skiff of ice and he was away, bound for Highway 16 and destiny, a half mile ahead. He put the cigarette to his lips and tasted tobacco. Wrong end. He fumbled with it, almost dropped it between his legs. A car horn blared coming the other way. Hugh pulled his own vehicle back to the right side of the road. Too much. The Audi performed admirably on the ice and stopped fishtailing immediately. Slow down, you still have time. He took his foot off the gas, lit the cigarette, and lowered the window in one smooth move. Bad habits were hard to forget.