over the bar code, clearing the frost from it. She felt, then saw, a thin line of hardened juice on the bar code: another container had leaked in the freezer case. She used her nametag, with its decade-of-service gold star, to scrape it off. She hated the star; to her, it felt like a tick, latched on up there, sucking the life out of her. She’d been working here since high school. Living here, since high school. Dying here, since high school. She’d imagined so much more for herself.
Her hand closed tightly around the can. She felt the blood surge up from her swollen feet, anger rising through her like a deep-sea diver coming up too fast, knowing it was certain death, but the need for air too great. A young man wearing a too-small business suit stood in the middle of her line, checking his watch, scowling.
Where was Tom? Or Shirley? Or Ting? Or Mr Fucking Knelbrecht? Was this some kind of April Fool joke? But she knew it wasn’t. It was business as usual.
Kathryn froze, closed her eyes, orange juice in hand. She wanted so much to hurl the can. She imagined it, spiraling upward, breaking through the narrow horizontal windows above the high shelves of charcoal briquettes, stacked above the bags of de-icer. Barbecuing season still seemed a long way off, but the de-icer hadn’t been needed for a while either. It wasn’t winter, but it sure as hell wasn’t spring yet in northern Iowa. The sun was shining only anemically today. Kathryn knew more snow would come before spring truly arrived. ‘Betwixt and between,’ her mother would say. ‘You’re just betwixt and between, honey. Wait a spell. Something’ll shove you one way or the other.’
Kathryn tried scanning the juice again, to no avail. She began punching in the numbers from the bar code, but found that her star had scratched through two of them. She pressed the intercom code again. ‘Price check on one.’ She kept her finger on the button, toying with the idea of announcing, ‘Naked woman on one.’ That would get Matt and Mr Knelbrecht, and the guys from the back, running up for sure. Tom would emerge from his break only if she said ‘Naked guy on one,’ and then he’d try to saunter by inconspicuously. She put the juice aside and returned to the basket, picking up item after item, not looking, not counting, not caring that this woman probably had thirty items in her basket.
Betwixt and between. Ding. Her mother. Ding. Just thinking of her made her blood boil anew. Ding. What she’d done was unforgivable. Ding. Kathryn was already pissed at her for just planning the trip, let alone actually going on it. Ding. Ding. Didn’t she realize how much Lucy would miss her? She wasn’t thinking about anyone but herself. Ding. Even when she’d shown that damn picture to those men in the restaurant, she’d been thinking about herself. Ding. Another example of C.C. Byrd dealing with that one messy corner left in her life: the embarrassing unmarried daughter situation.
Matt arrived just as she scanned the last item. Finally. Kathryn held up the juice, he nodded, ran to get another. Good kid. She sacked the woman’s groceries, then reached under the counter and grabbed the paper towel and Windex. She angrily scrubbed the scanner while she waited for Matt.
It didn’t seem right, her almost-fifty-year-old mom taking off on a road trip, like a college kid. And here she was, working overtime at the SavR King. Being the responsible one. One irresponsible moment with that handsome blackjack dealer in Las Vegas had determined a level of responsibility for her that would last her lifetime. She adored Lucy, and would do anything for her. But she battled the persistent feeling that doing anything for herself was at odds with doing something for her daughter. Not to mention what she made her daughter do. Lucy had tearfully begged yet again this morning not to be made to go to school. Pretty tough to take from a second grader.
She leaned on the intercom button again, knowing it would be more productive to try to get a response from deep space. ‘Checker needed up front, please.’ Was Matt squeezing the damn oranges to get the juice?
Standing there at register one, under the sign that, this morning, falsely advertised ‘EXPRESS’, Kathryn picked up the scratched can of juice. She closed her eyes, felt her fingers clenching around the can.
‘Kathy, honey? Are you okay?’
Kathryn opened her eyes. It was Mrs B. Sweet old Mrs Benettucci, standing there, still holding her basket, with maybe five items, but starting to sag under its weight. Kathryn reached over and took her basket. ‘Here, Mrs B., let’s set that up here.’
She turned to the woman waiting to pay. ‘Free juice today,’ she said, tossing the scratched can into her bag, smiling, punching the total key. The woman looked only mildly placated as she swiped her credit card. Kathyrn handed her the long receipt, far too long to be under fifteen items. ‘Have a good day,’ Kathryn told her. The woman silently took her receipt and left.
Mrs B. shuffled to the check-writing platform; it came only to her chest. She placed her knobby hands on top.
‘How are you today, Mrs B.?’ Kathryn asked, punching the numbers into her keypad so Mrs B. could swipe her SavR King Valued Customer card. As the old woman worked at threading her card into the slot with her trembling hand (Kathryn knew she liked to do it herself, and if anyone was to be indulged, it was Mrs B.), Kathryn smiled, looking at the top of Mrs B.’s head. She knew from long experience that Mrs B. had twenty-two silver bobby pins holding her eleven gray pin curls in place, her head a neat pattern of Xs so she could look nice for someplace other than the grocery store.
‘Oh, can’t complain,’ she said. They smiled at each other, an unspoken acknowledgement that Mrs B. had a lot she could complain about, but rarely did. Kathryn quickly scanned a small box of fiber cereal, two bananas, a small drum of old-fashioned oatmeal, a quart of milk and a tube of arthritis ointment. Mrs B. had pen in hand, poised above her checkbook, waiting to dole out a quarter of her weekly budget for, basically, breakfast. Kathryn wondered if Mrs B. ate cereal for two, if not three meals a day.
She looked at Mrs B., then suddenly was aware that only one very irritated man remained in her line, the guy in the ill-fitting suit. He was watching the remainder of her line following Ting toward register six, like little goslings with grocery baskets over their wings, following the goose. Ting, about as high as she was round, even waddled like a goose.
‘Oh, and this please,’ said Mrs B., after she’d checked the total on the screen. She handed Kathryn a small tin of mints.
‘Sure,’ said Kathryn. ‘Do you want it in your bag or your purse?’
‘Bag, please,’ she said to both Kathryn and Matt, who was now standing at the end of her counter.
‘Sorry,’ said Matt, almost breathless. ‘We’re, like, completely out of that kind of juice, so I went to the back to check and they spilled, like, a whole box of cabbages back there.’ He grinned. ‘They’re rolling all over the place. Tom’s back there imitating Knelbrecht, saying, “Heads will roll for this!”’ Kathryn thought Matt had a great laugh.
She smiled at him. ‘No problem. But in the future, if the item’s not up front, just come tell me right away, please.’
He nodded, then tucked the mints into one of Mrs B.’s two canvas bags. Kathryn made a mental note to thank him for remembering to use both of Mrs B.’s bags, even for just the few items. Mrs B. walked and bused everywhere, therefore liked the weight split between two bags. Plus, Kathryn knew, she liked getting double bag credit.
She took Mrs B.’s proffered check, stamped it, opened the register, slipped it under the drawer, and removed a dime. She placed the coin carefully in Mrs B.’s soft, wrinkly palm. ‘Here’s your bag credit, Mrs B. Don’t spend it all in one place.’
Mrs B. chuckled, and Kathryn fed on it like a transfusion. She knew it wouldn’t cure her disease, but it might help her survive one more day.
‘Y’all better pull over soon, Shel.’
Meg heard C.C.’s voice, understood her words, but they sounded hollow,