Doug glances at it briefly. “Yes, Number 11, what can I get you?”
She points at the deli case. “One pound of this Becker’s bologna.”
“How would you like it sliced?”
“Medium.”
Doug adjusts the slicer and cuts a piece.
“How’s this?”
Eleven shakes her head. “Too thick.”
Doug goes back to the slicer and tries again. “How about this?”
“Still too thick. Like this.” She pinches her thumb and first finger together.
Poor Doug, I think. How can he measure that?
He readjusts the slicer and holds up bologna so thin, his green shirt is visible through it.
“Ma’am?”
“Too thin,” she says.
Someone behind me coughs, a polite, disingenuous cough that’s meant to remind the woman she’s not the only customer.
Doug says nothing. He gives the slicer’s thickness gauge another infinitesimal turn. “Okay?”
“Yes. Make sure you don’t put those wrong pieces in my order.” Her voice is a thin, flat line.
“No ma’am. Anything else?”
“One pound of this smoked turkey.”
“What brand is it?” Doug asks.
Eleven shrugs. “How should I know? The tag’s fallen down.”
Doug comes around the counter and tries to open the deli case, but 11 is standing in the way. She doesn’t move until he says, “Excuse me.”
Another customer and I lock eyes in a mutual silent question: What is it with this lady?
“It’s the store brand,” Doug says, replacing the label. “How much do you want?”
“No, I don’t want that crap. I want Becker’s. One pound.”
“I’m not sure we have it, the Becker’s.” He closes the lid, looks around, then sighs. Customers are rocking on their heels, staring up at the ceiling, or glaring at him, each a portrait of strained patience. He looks at the woman again.
Number 11 puts the basket in the crook of her arm and pulls a store flyer from a coat pocket. She unfolds it and shows him the deli advertisement.
Doug darts back and forth, searching the deli case. When he straightens up, he tells her, “We’re out of it. I’ll have to go to the back—” He doesn’t say it like a statement, he says it with a question in his voice, the inflection an unspoken plea for latitude, with hope she will choose something else.
Eleven’s silence is palpable.
“I’ll be right back.” He smiles. I think he’s relieved to get away for a few minutes.
Shoppers scurry around the aisled maze of the store. Some don’t have a shopping list and give the impression of indiscriminately dumping anything into their carts. Evidently I wasn’t the only one who didn’t believe the weatherman.
The loudspeaker blares. “There’s a green Dodge pickup, license number 18D745, in the east parking lot with its lights on.” The announcer repeats the information.
I check my watch. Ten minutes have passed since Doug left. A few customers walk away. I count ten others milling about, complaining to each other. “Where’s the clerk?” someone asks. “Did he have to go to the Becker’s plant for that smoked turkey?”
Somewhere in the store a baby is screaming, and I appoint that child the spokesperson for all of us.
Number 11 shakes her head and puts her basket on the floor.
Then I notice her legs and feet. She’s not wearing hose or socks, and her sneakers have holes in the toes; the sole on the left sneaker is peeling away from the canvas; a Band-Aid holds it in place.
“Oh,” I say quietly. I feel a cheerless dissonance between anger at her lack of consideration and pity for the circumstances that sent her to the grocery store wearing clothes inadequate for the weather.
The woman turns suddenly and catches me staring at her feet. “What are you looking at?”
The hostility in her eyes catches me off guard. Discomfited, I look away.
Doug returns, out of breath. “I’m—I’m sorry. That was my truck in the parking lot,” he explains to the group. He turns to Number 11. “Here’s the Becker’s you wanted. Shall I slice it the same way as the bologna?”
“You are a very stu-pid boy,” 11 says, her emphasis of each syllable a cutting whiplash.
Doug blushes deep red.
Customers begin to murmur. A man shouts, “Lady, give the kid a break, and let’s get moving on your order!” Someone else hollers, “A-Men!”
Number 11 slowly pivots, then takes a few steps forward, scanning the crowd. Several customers step aside.
“Think you’re more entitled to service than me, do you? DO you?” She jerks her chin up, and her eyes widen.
“You wanted to call him stupid, too, for keeping you waiting—didn’t you?” She points a finger accusingly, jabbing it in different directions. “I bet you did! Holier-than-thou hypocrites!” Her voice is metallic.
Doug tries to intervene. “Please, ma’am, let’s get back to your order.”
Eleven ignores him and fires a last salvo. “Mind your own business while I do mine.” She takes her time going back to the counter.
“Please don’t ask her how thick she wants it,” I plead under my breath, but Doug, ever faithful to his job training, asks, “How thick?”
“Just a little. Not much.”
Doug inhales deeply, slices and holds up another piece. “Okay?”
“Yes,” she says. “Okay.”
“Anything else?”
“One pound of pastrami.”
Doug’s whole body slumps, weary and defeated. His voice is barely audible. “What brand? How thick?”
“I don’t care,” eleven says, “it’s for my husband.”
A few people snicker.
Doug slides the pastrami package across the counter, and we watch Number 11 walk away and disappear down a side aisle.
Doug calls my number. The rest of the customers begin to laugh. They make fun of the woman and mimic her words: “I don’t care. It’s for my husband.” They repeat this over and over; they speculate about her husband, express pity for the man whose lunchmeat is a trivial matter.
Doug’s face is still flushed.
“You were very patient with her,” I say, hoping to ease his embarrassment.
“I’m used to it. This weather brings out the worst in people.” He hands me my lunchmeat. “Have a nice day, ma’am.”
I finish the rest of my shopping and push the cart through the parking lot. More than an inch of snow has fallen, a weighted, determined snow that clings to the cart’s wheels.
I’m soon on my way, glad to be headed home, anticipating hot chocolate, and just as I’m about to turn into my neighborhood, I see her: Number 11.
She’s plodding along with a bag of groceries cradled in her arms. Her head is covered with a thin scarf, haloed in white. Her chin rests on her chest; the coat’s collar is pulled up to her ears; her bare legs are mottled and blue.
The notion comes to me unbidden and unwelcome: Give her a ride. Everything in me balks, but the thought returns, and like a bullet finding its mark, it strikes my strict Catholic conscience. I drive up beside her, turn off the ignition and get out of the car.
“May I offer you a ride?”
Number 11 raises her head slowly. Her eyes are wary. Judging me. Snow slides from her head into the niche between her neck and collar. I resist the impulse to scoop it away, though she seems past caring.
I tell her, as if this will make a difference, “I was in the grocery store with you.” I hesitate, then add, “At the deli. I’m headed that direction, I can give you a ride.” I hope she’ll decline.
“Okay,” she says.
I reach for her groceries. “Let me put those in the back seat for you.” The groceries are packed in a paper sack inside several plastic bags.
“Don’t squash my bread,” she tells me.
I rummage through my winter supply basket in the back seat and hand her gloves, knee socks and
a blanket. “Here. Please, put these on.”
She reaches to accept the bundle, but hesitates, then draws her hands back.
“Go ahead,” I urge her. “I keep extra things in the car this time of year. Where to?”
“Dietrich’s Mill Road.”
“Dietrich’s Mill? Did you walk to the grocery store from the mill? That’s almost five miles—”
“I didn’t walk.”
She checks the Band-Aid on her sneaker and smoothes it down, then puts on the socks. As she wraps the blanket around her legs, she shouts suddenly. “I know what you’re thinking—you and everyone else at the deli! You think I’m cruel because of that clerk, Doug. The fact is he drove me to the grocery store. Doug’s my son.”
“Doug’s your son?” I don’t want to believe her, but her face is blank, devoid of humor. “I wouldn’t humiliate one of my children in public,” I tell her.
Eleven crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows. “Now that’s interesting—and how many children do you have?”
“None, but—”
She throws back her head and laughs. “That’s rich. No children. Well girlie, then don’t say what you will or won’t do. I’m helping him. I had to learn the hard way, and he may as well too—better from me!” She snorts.
I concentrate on the road. The snow is coming in thick sheets, and the windshield wipers, even set on high speed, are inadequate for the task. I pull over and brush off the windows. The trees look like specters shrouded in gray-white cloths. I’m no sooner back in the car than the windows need to be cleared again.
As I turn onto Dietrich’s Mill Road, the woman says, “There—stop there.” She’s pointing at a lopsided mailbox, rusted and dented, fastened to a metal pole. A barely visible lane is to the left of it.
“Here? I don’t see any houses. We’ve come this far, I may as well take you the rest of the way.” But my tone is tentative, open-ended.
Number 11 gives me a piercing glance. Her answer is matter-of-fact. “Lane’s not plowed. Your car will just get stuck, and I don’t want a tow truck and strangers coming to my house. I’ll walk.”
I remove her groceries from the backseat. When I straighten up, my gloves are on top of the folded blanket; she’s still wearing the socks, and I don’t ask for them.
She takes her groceries, hesitates like she’s about to say something, but instead abruptly walks away.
“Bitch,” I mutter to myself as I clear the windows again.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Number 11 stop.
“Girlie?” Her voice is strong.
I nod, but continue to clean the windshield.
“Sometimes love isn’t pretty. Remember that. It’s the best piece of advice you’ll ever get.”
I start to tell her that love doesn’t need to be cruel, that hearts are fragile, but a sudden gust of wind raises a dense cloud of snow. When it settles, Number 11 is gone.
Maria McKee is a reclusive Virgo. Occasionally she ventures out to the grocery store or to a shoe store. If you happen to see Maria, speak to her at your own peril. Everything you say or do is fodder for her fiction.
The Things She Chose to Keep
By
Susan Pigott
When her heart stopped working Callie’s mother fell over to her right, clipped the corner of the old pine table with her head and collapsed in a puddle of blood mixed with the last egg she had been cracking. That was how Callie found her when she came down for breakfast, and she sensed in her surprise that her life was going to get very complicated.
The ambulance came, then left, carrying away her mother’s body. Family arrived. Her mother’s church friends brought salad, soup and a delicious oatmeal cake.
The funeral was lovely – normal – well-attended, flowers, favorite hymns, kind words.
Afterwards there was silence. The echo of her footsteps followed her as she walked from room to room, and the sound of running water carried throughout the house. There was no sound of doors opening or closing because she had no need to carve out private spaces in the big, open house that was now her own.
She was totally alone except for the glossy black cardboard container, about the size and shape of an ice cream carton, that held her mother’s ashes.
Callie set the box on the top of the kitchen pie safe. She needed to see it, not to remind her of her mother but to remind her that she had decisions to make and that she did not have forever to make them. Wednesday night was less than three days out, and she was three hundred and sixty-two miles from where she needed to be.
Her cell phone rang early the next morning. “Where are you? You were supposed to be home last night. Rehearsals begin in three days.”
“I’ll be there,” she said. “My mother died.”
“I thought your mother died a long time ago,” her roommate said. “You’re kidding.”
“No. Seriously. She had a heart attack in the kitchen Thursday morning. I was packed to leave. She was making me breakfast. The funeral was Friday. Think back. I never said she was dead. Do you ever remember me saying my mother was dead?”
Five years they had shared an apartment. What had she said during those years? Very little about her childhood or her family. When the topic came up, when family holidays rolled around, “I’m an orphan,” was all she offered, her voice slamming shut the door on further conversation.
“So, do you have a living father also?”
“No. He died when I was fourteen. Really. I was not close to her, and I hated him. It was easier just to say I was an orphan.”
“Are you okay? You don’t sound okay.”
“Yes, I’m fine, but I have things to do. Papers to sign to sell the house.” She looked at the box on the pie safe. “And a few other things to take care of. I’ll be there. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you at home Wednesday late-afternoon.”
“That’s cutting it awfully close. You can’t be late. You’ll lose your position for the season.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I didn’t plan on my mother falling down dead while she was cooking scrambled eggs. I’ll be there.”
She slid the phone closed, cut a large piece of oatmeal cake, and poured a glass of milk. The mist was starting to lift from the farm. It was going to be another hot South Alabama day.
Just before lunch Celeste, Callie’s cousin the real estate agent, came over with two sandwiches from Subway and a satchel full of papers. “Are you sure you want to list this place so quickly?” she asked. “You could rent it for a while. Or just let someone farm the land and keep an eye on the house. It is the old family homestead after all.”
“It’s not my home. Hasn’t been for a long time. It’s just the place where I was born.”
“Don’t be like that. It wasn’t all bad.”
Callie thought back. Yes, she thought, it was pretty much all bad as far back as she could remember. It got better when her father died, but by then her mother was an accomplished drunk with no intention of sobering up and Callie was already somewhere else in her mind.
“You didn’t live here. Trust me, it was all bad.”
Celeste went over each form, pointing out where to sign, where to initial.
“When are you leaving?”
“First thing in the morning. I’ve got rehearsal at six tomorrow evening. No rehearsal, no first chair this season.”
After Celeste left, Callie moved through the house choosing the things of her past that she would carry into her present. There was not much she chose to keep. A tattered photo of her grandmother as a girl in front of the now tumbled- down house across the road. An elegant green glass bowl with fluted golden edges. A wooden lapboard sized to fit over the arms of a rocking chair where she cut out “paper dolls” from a Sears Roebuck catalogue when she had the mumps. Two carnival glass goblets because they were pretty and she loved the pearlized orange of the glass. A 50’s era photo of her parents, newly married, martini glasses, cigarettes, her mother’s beautiful fingernails in dark polish. She put
them all in a box and loaded them into the back of her Toyota.
Her mother’s ashes still sat in the kitchen. “Let’s go down to the creek, Mom,” she said in the direction of the container. Box of ashes in one hand, cello case in the other, she walked down the dirt road to the old iron bridge. It was not easy to get from the bridge down the steep bank to the water. There had been a path once, and her family had used it often during the hot summers, her father shirtless and in shorts, her mother in capris and her bra, Callie in flowered cotton underpants. She thought about the photo she had selected. Her parents had been beautiful then and passionate about each other. Callie was both the result and the end of that passion.
It had not rained during her visit and the creek was clear as winter air. The shallow water riffled over rocks and spun a fringe of foam at its edges. As she played from Barber’s Adagio for Strings, she closed her eyes or let them wander along the creek bank opposite. It occurred to her that she had never gone beyond the bridge, didn’t know what lay on the other side. She searched for the water moccasins that had sometimes joined those summer swims with her parents. If they were there, she did not see them.
The music over, Callie untwisted the small tie sealing the bag of her mother’s remains. “Cremains,” the funeral home owner had called them. They were not what she expected – coarser, with a texture almost like sand, paler than the gray ash in her fireplace, more the color of bone. She stirred them with her index finger and scattered a pinch on the creek bank. The ashes dissolved into the wet earth, except for a solid bit the size of a baby tooth that remained.
She rolled the bit between her thumb and middle finger and for an instant remembered her mother’s smile from long ago. Callie’s fifth birthday when she charmed them all by leading a dancing parade of children and parents down the long driveway and up the hill toward town. Summer nights when she lay beside her on the bed, listening to the dark sounds outside, saying nothing, just running her hand in circles on Callie’s skinny little back until they both fell asleep. Christmas mornings and the Fourth of July.
A Community of Writers Page 8