Chapter 25
Alicia Skinner sat back from her desk and rolled her head in a slow circle, the muscles in her neck stiff from staring at her computer screen for hours on end. The end of term was rapidly approaching, and she had a couple of papers due, and then exams, and then she'd be done-home to Windsor and carefree for the rest of the summer. She'd been working on her philosophy paper all day, and she was going nuts. I need a cup of tea, she said to herself, going into the kitchen of her one-bedroom apartment and putting on the kettle. She opened the cupboard where she kept her tea, only to find the box empty-great. She checked the fridge in search of anything else, only to find a couple of pots of yogurt and a near-empty carton of milk-shit.
She checked the time: eight twenty-five. Okay, she could whip down to the Valu-Mart on Oxford at Richmond Street and get some things before it closed at nine. She'd been there before on a Saturday night and knew they stayed open until then. Tying her blonde hair back into a pony-tail, the second-year student pulled on her coat and grabbed the keys to her car. As she made her way outside, she was glad that her parents had given her the old Toyota Matrix her mother used to drive-a gift for doing so well in first year. She loved the independence the car gave her-not having to ride the bus like she had in first year, plus she was free to go out and get groceries anytime she needed-like right now.
The drive down Richmond from her second storey apartment on Regent Street took less than five minutes, and she grabbed a basket and started perusing the produce section, knowing she'd want some fruit in the house for the next few days. The pears looked surprisingly good for this time of year, so some of those went into her basket, along with some apples and a couple of mangos.
"Excuse me." Alicia turned around to see a man in a ball cap standing a few feet away, a pineapple in his hand, a basket like hers with a bag of oranges in it slung over his arm. She looked at him questioningly. "I wonder if you know, I mean I heard there was some way you're supposed to be able to tell if a pineapple is ripe, but I can't remember what it is. Do you know? Is it something to do with the colour, or is it something about these leaf things?"
The man was quite attractive, even if he was a fair bit older than her. He had a friendly smile and sweet eyes, and he seemed genuinely confused about what to do with the prickly fruit in his hand. She'd seen a tip about this on one of the cooking shows her mother always watched, and didn't think twice about sharing her knowledge. "It's supposed to be ripe if you can pull one of the inside leaves out easily-that's the trick," Alicia said. She watched as the man tried it with the one he was holding-the leaf holding firm. He set it down and tried another one, this time plucking the leaf out easily.
"Hey, that's great. Thank you. I'll remember that for the next time," he said, giving her a nod of thanks before putting the pineapple in his basket and moving off.
Alicia continued her shopping, picking up the tea she'd run out of, a carton of milk and some bagels along the way. She stopped by the snack aisle, debating between the white cheddar popcorn and the Doritos. "I'll go with the popcorn," she said aloud to herself. The same man breezed past her, smiling as he nodded towards the bag of popcorn in her hand before grabbing himself a bag and heading towards the front of the store. At the last minute she remembered she was low on toothpaste and shampoo as well, making a brief stop in that section before heading to the cashier. She made her way across the dark parking lot to where she'd left her car, spotting someone loading groceries into the trunk of the car next to her Matrix.
"Oh damn," she heard a familiar voice say as oranges tumbled to the ground, some even rolling under her car. As she walked up, she saw the man who'd spoken to her in the store crouch down and start gathering up the wayward oranges.
"Oh hi," he said as she opened the hatchback of her car and set her bags inside. "One of those cheap bags they gave me ripped. These stupid oranges went all over the place."
"Here, I'll give you a hand," Alicia said, kneeling next to her car and picking up a couple next to her rear tire. The man stood up at the same time she did, and she took a couple of steps towards him as she reached out to hand him the oranges, but saw his hands were already full.
"Great, thanks so much. There's a bin in the trunk there," he said, nodding towards the open trunk. "If you could just put them in there, that would be great."
"Sure, no problem." Alicia turned and leaned forward as she placed the oranges she'd picked up next to the pineapple and the bag of popcorn already in the plastic bin. She felt a sharp prick in her neck, and as her hand instinctively went to her neck, she felt herself start to black out. The last thing she remembered was being pushed into the trunk, the lid closing down on her, and after that, nothing but blackness.
Every Breath You Take Page 40