Chimera, page 2
The cheese shelf, not the cheese department, the cheese shelf, actually had two different types of cheese on it: white and yellow. Seems Dave was moving up in the world. I chose both. And while I was at it, since I was going all fancy, I dug out a carton of chocolate almond ice cream from the bottom of one of the coolers. It was rock hard and its expiration date was lost under a thick layer of ice crystals but I took it anyway. Maybe I’d get lucky and it would actually be edible. Placing the carton in my hand basket, I counted to make sure I still had under eight items. This was the only store I knew of that still had an eight items or less express lane. Others had raised the limit to fifteen or twenty. And since most people think you can round up to twenty-five or even thirty, or worse, that eight cans of green beans counted as one item, they weren’t really express lanes at all. Dave might be shifty, but he knew how to appease homebodies like myself. Get in, get out, the way shopping was meant to be.
If I were the humming type, I’d be humming right about now. I’d make it through the express lane in five minutes, and be home in fifteen. While the lasagna was baking in the oven, I’d take a hot steamy shower, turn off my phone (not that it would be necessary, I hadn’t gotten a call in days), and put on some comfortable pajamas. The weatherman said there was a chance of thunderstorms later on tonight and I had a good scary book to curl up on my couch with. It really doesn’t get any better than that.
This is the part of the story where the thunderstorm turns into a tornado and instead of burrowing into your sofa, you’re flying through the air with cows, cars, and barns circling around you. Only my disaster came, not in the form of 300 mile-per-hour winds, but a 300-pound man.
He was in the express lane placing a large amount of items on the conveyor belt, ready to be checked out. The small, nervous looking woman at the register hesitated, flicked her eyes at the next customer in line, then looked away and reluctantly grabbed a can of corn and scanned it. I know that look: I don’t have any real power here, and I don’t want any trouble, look at the size of him.
He was a big man. Not only heavy, but tall, so instead of fat, he looked like a linebacker. And not the kind with their stomachs hanging halfway down their legs, the kind with thigh-sized necks and waist-sized arms. His head, probably due to his flat-top crew cut, looked like a cinderblock, square and solid. His red leathery neck was heavily lined with white creases and shaving bumps. On his left arm was a faded, fuzzy, homemade looking tattoo of the Batman logo and written on top of it: SUPERNAN. Maybe he was a nanny, or it was a tribute to his grandmother, but more than likely, it was just an illiterate screw up. He stood spread-legged, his enormous feet covered by large clunky black boots, taking up a lot of space. I just knew he had a loud booming voice that he used to cow other people with, mostly women and weaker men.
When the cashier finally finished scanning all of his thirty-eight items (I counted the beeps) and gave him the total, he pulled a soggy toothpick from his mouth and told her he needed a carton of cigarettes. I was right about the voice. That voice rarely says “please.”
Taking a key ring from the counter beside her, the cashier walked over to the glass containers on the far side of the store. And instead of following her progress, the giant man turned to look at us, the other shoppers with the appropriate amount of items, defiant, daring us to say something, still picking at his large horse teeth with the chewed up toothpick. The woman in front of me looked away and fiddled with a bag of M&M’s on the shelf beside us.
I wanted to punch him in his stupid round gut, but I knew it would be like punching a bull or an elephant. So, instead of hitting him, I diverted my eyes, turned, and picked up a pack of gum from the shelf. Still under eight items.
chapter two
hannah and the pink phone
The fat lady, I thought. The fat lady of the circus wouldn’t let him get away with it.
I was still seething at the man and his total disregard for civility as I walked toward my front door forty minutes later. She would make him pay for his rudeness, his lack of manners. I pictured her spitting out course crew-cut hair from her liver colored lips as she pushed away from her messy, blood-splattered dinner table.
Completely lost in my satisfying revenge fantasy, I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me so I flinched when a hand reached up and tapped me on my shoulder.
“Hi there!” A young pretty woman wearing bright yellow short shorts and matching yellow flip-flops with large plastic white flowers glued to them stood behind me. In one of her hands was a bright pink cell phone. I disliked her immediately.
“Hello,” I said flatly, annoyed at the abrupt interruption.
“I’m Hannah,” she beamed, extending her hand for me to shake which I did. She had a weak handshake. (Another mark against her. The first being the pink phone.) It was one of my pet peeves, women who shook hands like that. Like they were handling a butterfly and were afraid your hand might disintegrate in theirs, leaving only a powdery residue behind. What exactly were they trying to convey anyway? That they didn’t have the strength of a two-year old? Did they think that made them appear more womanly? More feminine?
“I’m Emile, Emi.”
“Hi, Emi, I’ve been meaning to come around and introduce myself but you always seem so busy.”
Strike three. That was a lie. I’m not the busy type. I’m more of the leisurely, I don’t have a job to rush to, type.
There was an awkward five seconds, where she wrapped one of her ankles around the other, and then looked toward the parking lot when a car door slammed. I turned as well and saw Mrs. Busby, the apartment complex gossip, getting out of her car, already scanning the parking lot, seeing who was doing what.
Hannah turned back to me and said, “Hey, I have to go check on something right now, but we should get to know each other, we’re neighbors! Why don’t you and me go somewhere tonight and have a couple of drinks?”
You and I, I thought, then chastised myself. As if your grammar is so perfect. She’s just being friendly and you need to stop being such a judgmental jerk.
“Um. I don’t know. I think it’s supposed to rain later on,” I said, looking up at the sky, hoping it might all of a sudden turn dark and ominous, but it remained clear and blue. Not one helpful grey cloud.
“Nah, it’s fine,” she said, waving her hand through the air. “Besides, we’re going to be indoors silly, not in a barn.”
Technically, being inside a barn would be “indoors,” but again, stop it, stop it, stop it.
I scrunched up my face a little, dubious. “I have ice cream,” I said, lifting my bag up to waist level. “I really should…”
She reached out and placed her free hand on my arm.
“Aw come on! Pleeeeeease? It’ll be fun, I promise,” she cooed, smiling, head tilted to the side.
Is she flirting with me? Yes, probably. Women like her flirt. With men or women, it doesn’t matter. It’s how they get what they want. I’m sure it works, but I’ve never been able to do it. I’d feel like Chrissy from Three’s Company if I tried. Like a doofus. And I’ve never been a Chrissy, I’ve always been a Janet.
I really didn’t feel like going anywhere tonight, or most nights to be honest. Maybe, I thought, I can jangle something sparkly in front of her, distract her, open the door, and make good my escape. Back to a depression-era circus, and into the comforting dimply arms of a homicidal fat lady. But then I thought of Mr. Andersont. That sweet man with his immaculately groomed hair and suspenders. I’d made a promise to him. This was my chance to keep it. He wouldn’t know, of course, if I turned her down, but I would. And I wanted to be able to tell him, honestly, the next time I saw him, that I was keeping that promise. That I was making an effort.
“Okay. Sure,” I said. I even smiled a little when I said it. Extra credit.
“Great!” she said, removing her hand from my arm. “I’ll come get you at ten?”
I nodded and her phone made a little blip-blip noise. She turned, looking down at her phone and flip-flopped away.
chapter three
mr. anderson’s story
Once inside, I put my food away, except for the ice cream, which I placed in the sink to thaw out, then took a shower. It was still only seven o’clock but I needed time to let my hair dry. My old hair dryer, which had been at least five years old at the time, had finally buzzed, sparked, and then sent acrid smoke billowing through the circular meshed vent signaling its demise. I haven’t had the energy to go buy another one. It’s been a year.
I’m not good at getting things done. Not frivolous things, anyway. There are two spoons left in my cutlery drawer. Somehow I’d managed to lose spoons, and I had yet to replace them. My hair often grows too long because I can’t seem to drag myself out of the house for something as inconsequential as a haircut. I’ll go all winter long without a coat because winter seems to pop out of nowhere, right in the middle of the holidays and then Bam! too late. If you try to go to the mall for a coat, you’ll be mobbed, first by Halloween enthusiasts, then early Christmas shoppers, then desperate Christmas shoppers, followed by Christmas gift returners, and finally, Valentine’s Day nuts and by that time why bother?
This is also why I don’t have a job. Not that I think a job is frivolous, I’ve just never had the pressing need to go out and get one. My mother got sick just before I turned eighteen, so I put off going to college or getting a job to see her through appointments, chemo, radiation, and all the rest of the wonderful stuff cancer comes with. When she passed away a year later, I received the life insurance money, and even after a few medical bills insurance didn’t cover and cremation costs, I still had enough money to live off of for three years. I made it stretch by moving to this smaller apartment and selling some things. I don’t need much. And when I say I don’t need much, I mean it. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think I just moved into my apartment four days ago, not four years.
I’d seen a documentary on hoarders once, where a woman had died inside her house and hadn’t been found until a week later. The cleaning crew found a dead cat in her kitchen underneath a pile of rotting newspapers. It had obviously been there for years, it was flat as a board and all dried out, like cat jerky. I didn’t necessarily have tendencies to become a hoarder but better safe than sorry. My rule is, if I haven’t used something in over three months, it gets donated or thrown in the trash. My one junk drawer never even gets a chance to accumulate much junk. I don’t even go through it when I clean it out once a month, I just dump all of the contents into a bag and out it goes to the dumpster. To my mind, it’s just a short jump from having dried up markers in your junk drawer to living with a furry flat husk of a cat in your kitchen. Yes, my apartment isn’t what anybody would call “homey” – no clutter, no artwork on the walls, hardly any furniture – but I like to think of it as modern minimalist. Others might call it depressingly lonely. Still, no dead cats.
Anyway, when it seemed I was finally going to have to go out and join the real world, I received a letter from my mother’s insurance company informing me that there’d been a mix-up with some paperwork and I was entitled to another small lump sum. So it was a reprieve of sorts but probably not a helpful one. I’m the sort of person who needs a good swift kick in the ass to get them going. Being penniless would have been a good swift kick. What I should have done is get a job anyway and put that extra money in a savings account. But with that safety net, I once again let the days pass by, hiding out in my apartment. I’m good at burying my head in the sand. The remainder of the money is enough to get me through another two or three months and that’s it. Here I come big world, what can I do for ya? Carry those groceries to your car? Shampoo your dog? Sort your mail? Anybody for some crack?
Once my hair dried, I left it as is, it’s usually pretty manageable. I must get that from my father. Though, not knowing him, I couldn’t be sure. Getting a little long though, I need to take care of that. It’s down to the middle of my back and I don’t want to be mistaken for an auburn-haired 1960’s Cher. I’ll go get it cut this weekend. Or maybe the weekend after.
Instead of picking out clothes, I walked back to the kitchen, despondent, grabbed one of my two remaining spoons and the ice cream, and sat at my little rickety round dinette table. I tried to scrape away the ice crystals to see if it was still safe to eat but I scraped a little too hard and all that was left of the expiration date was an E and the number 4. Great. Oh well, if I start projectile vomiting, that will definitely give me an excuse not to have to go out.
I wasn’t looking forward to the night ahead. There’s something wrong with me. I’m twenty-three years old. A spontaneous night out for drinks is something twenty-three-year-olds love to do, but I was dreading it. I just didn’t see what this Hannah woman and I were going to talk about. I couldn’t possibly have anything in common with a grown woman who owns a pink telephone. A neon pink telephone with a glittery sticker on it (of a unicorn!). I tended to avoid anything pink or glittery, but pink and glittery? Good lord.
I have a bad habit of making quick judgments based on appearances, but I was trying to stop. Ted Bundy looked like a good enough guy. Handsome even, and charming. And he bit people. He bit women. For all I know, Hannah could be two months away from completing a law degree, she could be an avid reader, might even volunteer at a woman’s shelter on the weekends. I, on the other hand, have a big people phone. A no-nonsense-grey-free-of-stickers phone and I might be homeless in a couple of months. Appearances can be deceiving. Remember Ted Bundy. He bit.
And it’ll make Mr. Anderson happy.
Mr. Anderson, who’d earlier been shoved into their apartment by his dour, ungrateful granddaughter, is about the only person I saw on a social basis these days, and the most important person in my life. He’s a very tidy WWII vet who speaks only vaguely about his time in Europe – whether the memories are painful for him or he doesn’t think a girl my age should have to hear about “that whole dirty mess” is unclear, but I don’t push. We met when he came to live with his granddaughter and her two bratty kids after his wife passed away four years ago, about the same time my mother died. He says he got old when she died, his Barbara, and it bothers him that he now has to use his heavy cane when we go on our walks. I don’t know if it’s because it reminds him that he’s old or that it reminds other people that he’s old.
He is old. But I don’t think he looks anywhere near his eighty-eight years. Not that I’m the greatest judge of age. Sure, he has the liver spots, wrinkles, and loose jowls, but his back is mostly straight (the slight hump wouldn’t be noticeable if he weren’t so thin), his brown eyes are as clear as mine, and he still has a full head of greyish white hair. One of his trademarks, aside from his ever-present suspenders, was his hair. I’ve never seen a single strand out of place and I knew from pictures I’d seen, he’s had the same hairstyle since FDR was in the White House: straight part on the left, curlicue over the forehead, and always shiny with some sort of hair oil that smells like coconuts. I know he had to have at one point, but I can never picture him pointing a rifle at anyone.
I’ve always thought men must be taken to some secret room right around their sixtieth birthday and given a talking to about the old men they wanted to become. “Okay men, listen up, no more dilly-dallying, you’re going to have to make a choice and stick with it. All those who want to be the “get off my lawn!” types, form a line to the right. You’ll be given your high-powered binoculars, which you will use to keep an eye on all your neighbors. You will make sure that each and every lawn in your neighborhood is kept properly mowed and bikes don’t lie abandoned on the sidewalk for more than fifteen minutes at a time. You will also be given lessons on the proper way to frown and go “hmph” when you realize the pilot of the plane you are boarding is a woman. Those of you who will smile and pat children on the head and call them “little miss” or “young man,” to the left. A lifetime supply of peppermints will be handed out to you and you will keep them in your pockets at all times. A selection of small dogs and/or cats will also be made available to you should you want to pick one out but they are not mandatory.”
Mr. Anderson was definitely a left-line man.
I never knew any of my grandparents. My mother’s parents died before I was born. Her father never made it back from the same war Mr. Anderson fought in, and her mother passed away of breast cancer just like she did when she was only nineteen, the same age I was when she died. I never knew who my father was until just a few years ago, and now he’s dead as well. From the little I knew of his parents, they weren’t nice people and wouldn’t have wanted to know me anyway. So when I met Mr. Anderson, I fell in love with him almost immediately. He was the perfect grandfather. Which is why I couldn’t see why his own granddaughter treated him like a kid, like a nuisance, like he went around smelling like stale urine (which he doesn’t). He, of course, never says a bad word against her. The only imperfection he had, as far as I could see, was a missing pinkie finger on his left hand. A souvenir from the war.
Relating to people my own age is not my forte. I read too much, they read too little. I have little interest in celebrities and who they’re sleeping with and whether or not they have a “baby bump.” I don’t have a Twitter account or a Facebook page. I find it annoying when people check their phones right in the middle of a conversation and most people under thirty seem incapable of carrying on even a five-minute conversation without doing it. I don’t like drama. I don’t like backstabbing. I don’t like meddling questions about who I’m dating, when I’m going to get married, when I’m going to have kids.
Mr. Anderson’s company, on the other hand, is soothing and uncomplicated. We talk about books, we talk about history, we talk about current events, my mom, his wife. I only wished he’d talk more about the war. I love to hear first-hand accounts of it, but I never pressed him about it. I respected his desire to keep that to himself just as he respected my desire not to talk about marriage and kids. That is, he did respect it until last month, when out of the blue, he picked up the framed picture I have of my mother and me on my one bookshelf in the living room and asked “How long has it been since you went out on a date?”
