She ignored the Jitterbug buzzing in the pocket of her forest green, polyester vest. She was still standing behind the customer who had, just inside the store entrance, homed in on Peggy, the only white-haired employee in sight. Both just a notch above five feet, Peggy resembled a string bean and the customer a dumpling. Dumpling clamped vice-like to Peggy’s bony elbow and whispered loudly enough to start the two stoned, teenaged cart attendants giggling. With a sisterly wink, Peggy patted Dumpling’s hand and silently thanked Jesus for her own still-operational plumbing. After she navigated to the appropriate aisle, Peggy stood for a minute to watch the other woman squint through ski mask-sized glasses in consideration of the many brands.
“I’ll leave you to it, hon. You come find me if you need anything else,” Peggy said to the back of Dumpling’s head. She checked her phone. The text read “2…Orange hat…Macaroni.” She deleted it and calculated enough time for the ladies’ room.
Precisely at 2pm, she walked out of the automatic doors and spotted a stick-thin, thirty-something woman in the parking lot crosswalk stamping out a cigarette. A few strands of jet-black hair hung from a crocheted, orange hat. Stone-washed skinny jeans, red crocs, and a royal blue sweatshirt with a peeling Superman symbol across the chest. No makeup. She squinted at Peggy and stuffed a lighter into a pink, knitted handbag. Peggy remembered. Joshua called her Supergirl.
“Hey,” Supergirl muttered, eyes darting left, right, and then over Peggy’s shoulder.
Peggy gave Supergirl a smile. “Macaroni today, right?”
“Sure, sure, sure,” Supergirl sputtered, her eyes scanning.
Macaroni days made Peggy nervous. Macaroni was at the end of the pasta aisle at the far side of the football-field sized store and that trek with Joshua’s customers seemed to take forever. Joshua had explained just how clever he thought he was to rotate through different blind spots. She still worried but the extra fifty bucks a week felt like a blessing.
At the pasta aisle, Joshua was rearranging boxes on the shelves, his clipboard tucked into his armpit like it was a regular inventory.
“Good afternoon, Joshua,” she said, knowing he preferred “Josh,” but still unable to forget the memory of the little boy Joshua playing with her son in the backyard.
As she watched the exchange with Supergirl, she thought he looked too skinny. His bright, blue eyes and thick, wavy, chestnut hair couldn’t make up for the mean smirk. Nature’s warning to a close observer. Growing up, he and her son looked so similar, people joked they were brothers. But, Joshua was too smart for rules and Erik wasn’t smart enough to avoid getting caught.
“Cain and not-so-Abel,” she thought. Shook her head. Blinked away tears.
When Joshua was done, he winked at Peggy and walked away. Peggy had to linger and follow at a discreet distance to make sure Supergirl didn’t use in the store. No bathroom trips. Supergirl looked up and noticed her still standing ten feet away.
“I know, I know,” Supergirl said, rummaging in her bag and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. She held them up in the air, squinting, with a wide, sarcastic grin. Peggy stood fixed in place and kept her thin-lipped smile. Supergirl shook her head, stomped towards her, brushed Peggy’s shoulder as she passed and hissed, “I know.” Peggy followed, smiling to other customers. She let the distance grow between them but trailed Supergirl all the way out the automatic doors until certain she was heading to her car.
Outside, Peggy headed down the sidewalk to the end of the parking lot and sat in the mulch next to a grove of arborvitae planted to hide the dumpsters. She pulled out her vape and took a deep drag. She studied the tan, Chevy Impala with no hubcaps and tinted windows all around parked in the lot of the diner across Route 27. At least two or three times a week for the last month, the hidden occupants had positioned their car with direct view of the store’s entrance and exit. She was sure she remembered that car on her street the morning they came to arrest Erik and she shook her head thinking Joshua was probably not as clever as he supposed. She thought, not for the first time, that perhaps she’d go talk to them. Maybe there was something to be done. Maybe they’d do something for Erik. But, she stayed there with the evergreens. She closed her eyes. She remembered cigarettes. She remembered smoking at the kitchen table, watching Erik and Joshua eating Oreos and drinking cold milk and laughing at little kid jokes. She tried to smile. She took another drag as the Jitterbug buzzed in her pocket.
Sean Burke lives with his husband and their grumpy little dog. When not writing, he works a day job to pay for a very small house with a yard to grow raspberries. Sean’s fiction has been published in 50-word Stories, Prime Number Magazine, Across the Margin, The Evening Street Review, and Brilliant Flash Fiction. His most recent stories can be found at seanpeterburke.com.
Image: “Kitchen Aisle” by Daniel Nester
Pine Hills Review 