Chapter Four
It was a week later, while I was putting out packages of Tofu in the organic section of the produce department, when I saw her - the blonde woman from my first day at Little Red Hen. Today, she was flying solo - no little boy by her side. She dropped her purse into the top part of a shopping basket before walking up to a display of avacados and proceeding to start man-handling each one, looking them over and squeezing them, checking for ripeness. I watched her, my hands paused halfway through putting the Tofu away.
I'd spent the past week falling asleep staring at the picture of Los Angeles International Airport and doing up budgets for how many days working at Little Red Hen would be required before my paychecks could fund a visit to see the real thing in hopes of jogging some part of my brain that needed to be worked out in order to remember who I was. The closest a non-LAX-photo thing had come to making me feel that same thrill in my tummy as the picture was this woman.
She finally had selected an avacado and put it into one of the plastic produce bags before dropping it into the cart and moving along. She rolled her cart toward me, stopping about ten feet away at the bagged lettuce. I turned forward and started robotically stocking the tofu packages, trying not to seem awkward. She stood there, staring at the lettuce. I snuck a look at her. She was average height and at this angle I could see that she had faint lines around her eyes and her jowl was a little slack, revealing her age. She had on steep heels and a dark blue dress that matched her eyes. She had a wedding band on her finger.
And I realized, now that she was closer, that I definitely wasn't like attracted to her.
She looked at me, and I quickly turned back to the tofu, trying to appear like I hadn't been staring at her.
"Excuse me," she said, her voice lilting with a country accent. I looked up because she was addressing me. My mouth was dry, though, and instead of asking her if I could help her I made a feeble gurgling sound, which she luckily deciphered to mean that I was interested in assisting her. "I don't see any light Caesar salad kits," she explained, waving a perfectly manicured hand at the bags that lined the shelf - all faced, thankyouverymuch - "Do you have any outback?"
"Idunnoletmegocheck," I said the sentence in a single breath, popped out of the stool I'd been using while I stocked the tofu on a shelf that was knee-level. I high-tailed it to the produce backroom and looked around for the guy that worked in the backroom there. He was an old guy with a big bulbous nose and his name was Hank. I found Hank in the back washing bunches of carrots. "Do we have any bagged light Caesar salad kits?" I asked.
Hank shrugged, "How the hell would I know?"
"Where should I look?" I asked.
"Cooler," he answered.
I pulled the cooler door open and walked inside and searched around a bit. After coming up empty handed, I thanked Hank and wandered back out to the produce section, where the woman was still standing near the box of tofu I'd been unpacking. "Sorry," I said, "We're out right now."
She sighed, "I guess I'll have to get regular. Husband prefers the light, and so don't I, but oh well. We'll make do. Thanks." With that, she snapped a regular Caesar salad kit off the shelf and tossed it into her cart before walking away.
I watched her go and waited until she'd turned the corner at the end of the aisle before I turned back to the tofu.
On my way home that afternoon, I stopped in a Walgreens and bought a box of thirty-two Valentine cards with pictures of Daffy Duck on them and a bottle of soy milk. I walked to the cafe and up to the counter to find a different person working. It felt weird to not see Waitress there, and even weirder having to actually tell the person what I wanted to drink. I paid and was on my way out the door when I heard, "Did they put the right amount of nutmeg and everything in? I'm pretty sure I have it down to a science."
I turned around and Waitress was standing there with a nice brown plaid coat on and an off-white beret that made her curly brown hair stand out and her dark brown eyes glow. I took the first sip of my coffee to test and shrugged, "Ehhh," I said, shrugging, "It's okay. It's not quite as euphoric as when you make it, but I'll live."
"Always the charmer, aren't you Stock Boy?" she asked, laughing.
"Always, Waitress."
She walked out into the cool-for-Georgia air and I followed. I dawdled by the door a moment, as did she. After all, I couldn't very well walk along with her. I lived directly across the street and she lived - well, God knows where.
"Your coffee's made with love," I said, still in my charming voice mode.
"Love, huh?" She looked me over, a smirk crossing her face. "Do you even know my real name, Ben, or am I just Waitress to you?" she asked.
I wanted to swallow my tongue.
She winked. "That's what I thought." She turned and started to walk away. I let her get maybe ten paces before I remembered how to work my mouth.
"I wouldn't mind learning it," I offered.
She turned, walking backwards, "It's Kim," she said, "See ya later, Stock Boy." And she turned and continued walking away.
The next day, I put all the Valentines into the pouches in the breakroom before starting the day. I hadn't signed them so they'd be anonymous. I spent the morning putting out frozen pies and cool whip. At lunch, I sat and ate an apple and some peanut butter that I bought. The afternoon passed in the soda aisle, making sure the two-liters' labels faced out so people could see the pop brand logos from a distance. When the day was over, I pushed into the break room to find Marty standing by the bulletin board, looking at her Daffy Duck card with a smile on her face.
A week later, three other people had put Valentines in the pouches, too. Apparently they just needed someone to break the ice.
On the second Thursday that I'd worked at Little Red Hen, I got my first paycheck. For two weeks worth of work, I received a little under $500. At this rate it would take approximately the rest of my damn life to save money to get to Los Angeles. Plus I was determined to take over the housing bills sooner rather than later, although Dr. Needleman had said that I had six months before they'd re-evaluate my situation. I just needed to figure out how to make more money than being a stock boy at LRH, that's all.
I posted an ad on the bulletin board going into the store saying that I was interested in doing some odds and ends jobs - you know, like raking or mowing or whatever. I wasn't positive I knew how to do that stuff, but I figured how hard could it be?
"Nice ad," Marty said to me as she returned to the break room from a smoke break. She pulled off a sweatshirt she'd donned to go out in and shoved it into her locker. She sat down across from me at the table, grabbed the first aid kit, and started switching out a bandaid on her thumb.
"Are there any little arms missing off the bottom yet?" I asked, hopeful that someone had taken my number.
"Two," Marty said.
"One of them was me," I admitted. She raised an eyebrow. "I didn't want it to look like nobody was interested," I explained, "So I took one so people would see that someone else had taken one. Kind of raise my credibility level."
"I see." Marty looked like she thought I was nuts. She reattached her name badge to her apron. "Do you really need a credibility level to oprate a mower?" she asked.
"Maybe one of the riding ones," I said.
Marty laughed. "You're funny, kid," she told me.
I received a phone call about the ad exactly three days after I posted it. It was a woman who lived a little ways out of the city who needed someone to help out with a project repainting a trailer. "My husband thinks he can do it alone but I just don't think that's neccessary, plus he's leaving in a week and I just think he could use a couple extra hands on deck with it," she explained.
"Sure," I answered. She gave me the address and asked me to be there around noon on Saturday.
"Do you like sweet tea?" she asked. I wasn't sure, but I said yes anyways.
"I got a call," I told Marty the next time I saw her in the break room. She was looking through the Valentine cards in her pouch. Another four people had followed suit with the distribution of them. "For my ad," I added.
"Really?" she flipped over one with Sailor Moon on it and read the back before moving on to the next one, which had a red heart-shaped lollipop attached to it. She ripped the lollipop off the card and shoved them back in the pouch, pushing the lollipop into her mouth. "So what are you doing, Mr. Handyman?" she asked, "Mucking the horse stalls? Renovating the house? Building a deck?"
"Painting a trailer."
Marty laughed, "Well that's colossally boring."
"Lady wants to pay me almost the same amount for two days as I made in two weeks here," I said with a shrug, "I'll take boring for five hundred bucks."
"But does Boring come with a 401K to die for?" Marty questioned.
"Probably not," I replied.
"Then darling, I wouldn't suggest quittin' yer day job," she said with a wink.
After Self by Pengi
