Chapter 21
— Chapter 21 —
I leave work with thirty-seven dollars and seventy-eight cents in tips. There’s another twelve bucks from my hourly coming at the end of the week. I don’t know how I’ll pay the insurance bill in a month, but at least I can buy groceries. Thankfully, I don’t need much. When I told Carlos I’d take my shift meal to go, he made me a turkey sandwich and packed it in a big paper bag with three servings of bone marrow, a few carrots, some celery, an onion, and a sprig of fresh oregano so I can make soup. I didn’t mention how desperate I’m feeling. I must be wearing it on my face.
“I can’t stand to waste food,” he said, shoving the bag into my arms. But he always finds a way to turn leftovers into something else. He wouldn’t have wasted any of it.
On my way home, I stop by Gristedes. Before I go in, I eat my sandwich in the car so I won’t be shopping hungry. But I’m still healing, and I spent four hours on my feet. Even after I’ve eaten every last crumb, all the cells in my body are still calling out for food. It’s hard not to grab everything that looks good.
I have a six pack of shrimp ramen, a box of ditalini, and three bags of dried beans in my cart when I hear “Well, hey, Carol!” from the next aisle. I would know that fake-smile voice anywhere, and I’m struck by the level of fear I’d have if there were a polar bear growling over in produce. I want to run, or hide, or lie on the floor and pretend to be dead.
“I was just thinking about you!” Steena says. “Charlie has a client looking for land, and I thought, ‘You know, Carol and Bob have that empty acreage over by Muscoot. I wonder how set they feel about hanging on to it.’?”
I can’t hear what Carol says, because she doesn’t talk like a television presenter, so her voice doesn’t carry over the sound of Blues Traveler playing on the store intercom.
“Why don’t we set up a lunch anyway? You, me, Bob, and Charlie? At the golf club? We’ll make sure you understand the opportunity before you decide for sure.”
I abandon my cart and walk away from Steena’s voice, toward the back corner of the store, which is also, tragically, as far from the exit as I can get. My armpits are drenched. Hands shaking. I worry I’ll vomit.
I’m near the meat counter, and when I look over, there’s Jam, back to me, wearing a white paper hat, sectioning a chicken with a cleaver.
“Jam,” I whisper, but he doesn’t move. “Jam!”
I scan the area and catch sight of Steena bent over a freezer case at an endcap five aisles away. She’s wearing a camel-colored wrap coat, black cigarette pants, and red heels. Her shiny shoulder-length hair is falling in her face. I don’t think she’s seen me. I turn away, ring the bell on the counter.
Jam stops hacking at the poor dead chicken. “I’ll be with you in—” He looks over his shoulder and realizes it’s me, waves his chain mail glove as he bellies up to the counter. “What’s a girl like you—Shit, you okay?”
I whisper, “Steena.”
“I gotcha.” He unlatches the door and lets me in. I duck down. The fluorescent lights are even brighter back here, and the floor is sticky from layers of old disinfectant. Ace of Base is playing on the intercom now, and I feel like I’m stuck in a surrealist nightmare.
Jam leans on the counter. “She’s—ope, nope, she’s not buying frozen shrimp,” he says in a hushed tone like a golf announcer. “Wait, wait… she went for the bigger bag. Someone’s making scampi.”
I smack his calf. “She’ll hear you!”
“Oh, she’s used to me fucking with her. She won’t think it’s because of you,” he whispers, then switches back to golf voice. “And now, in a stupid move, Steena Russo is grabbing the French bread from the endcap by the butter, even though that is clearly yesterday’s loaf.”
“Jam. Please. Stop.” My entire body shakes with each heartbeat. I can’t keep my balance and have to sit on the floor. Everything smells like death and bleach.
“Oooh, crap,” Jam says, in his normal voice. “Stay down. She’s coming this way.”
Her heels are clacking closer and closer. I touch my forehead to my knees. It feels like I’m five years old again, hiding from my sister in my bedroom closet. I never felt like this in Maine.
“Benjamin,” Steena says when the clacking stops, her voice high and saccharine.
“Augustina,” he says, because he knows Steena hates her full name.
“I’ll take three rib eyes, cut fresh. Half a pound each. Please. ”
When Jam opens the white sliding door at the back of the meat case, I look up, terrified she might see me, but Jam has angled his legs to block her view.
“Do you prefer one side or the other?” Jam asks, holding up the rib roast, showing her both ends.
“I trust you’ll take good care of me,” Steena says. She gets off on being performatively pleasant to people who hate her.
“Oh, you bet I will.” Jam shuffles his foot like a tap dancer, and I know it’s commentary for me. I can picture him staring down my sister, one eyebrow raised. He shuffle-steps his way to the cutting board in time to the music, slams the meat down, cutting quickly with confidence. Then he sheds his chain mail glove, drops the steaks on a fresh sheet of white paper, and brings the paper to the scale. He seems like his usual self, and I wonder if that means he slept it off or got what he needed to maintain.
“Pound and a half on the dot,” Jam says. “We good?”
“You’re a marvel.” Steena’s voice is laden with sarcasm, and I’m curious about the face Jam must be making.
It’s cathartic to witness Jam’s disdain for Steena. I spent way too much time as a kid hearing “Your sister is so nice !” from old ladies at church and girls in my class who only saw Steena when she was laying it on thick.
“All set then,” Jam says. “Done with your shopping?” He wraps the meat and slaps the price sticker on top.
“As a matter of fact, yes I am.”
“Well, I was just about to go on break. I can check you out up front before I go.”
Without giving Steena time to answer, Jam grabs her package of steaks and slips out the door.
I stay on the ground, listening to her heels clacking alongside the squeak of Jam’s sneakers for as long as my ears can follow the sound. My butt is going numb, but I can’t make myself move.
“She’s gone,” Jam finally calls over the top of the butcher counter. “Saw her leave the store with my own eyes.”
He meets me behind the counter and holds out his hands. His white smock is covered with almost-bleached-out blood stains, like a million little shadows, paper hat tucked in the chest pocket.
My scar stretches as I let him pull me up but doesn’t hurt as badly as I expect it to. “Thanks,” I say.
“S’what I’m here for. Hiding fugitives behind the meat counter is my kink.”
I give his shoulder a half-hearted punch. “I feel like an idiot.”
He hugs me. “Eh, I want to hide from Steena and she’s not even my monster. Let’s get you out of here.”
We recon my cart. Jam walks with me while I grab a head of garlic, three green apples, a carton of milk, toilet paper, tampons, hand soap, and a clearance-price bag of generic cereal.
“Bran flakes?” Jam says. “You’re this boring already?”
“Cheap calories.”
Jam signs in to an empty register and scans my groceries. He logs the apples as one apple and pretends not to notice when the cereal doesn’t scan, throwing it on top of the bag anyway. I would protest, but the bill comes to thirty-four dollars and forty-eight cents, so I couldn’t afford the true price.
“Thanks,” I say, handing over my cash.
“Don’t mention it.”
We hear the clacking again.
It’s too late to walk away.
“You rushed me, and I forgot stamps,” Steena says to Jam, planting herself at the end of the register stand.
Up close, she looks like the same old Steena, but better. Like someone made a bionic version. Her teeth are very straight and pearly white. Her face is luminous, uncreased, unmoving. The mole over her eyebrow is gone and I can’t even see a scar.
She stares directly into my eyes, narrowing hers—the look that always meant I’ll get you later . Steena never forgot to make good on that promise. Not ever.
“Three books of stamps, please,” she says, turning to Jam as if I don’t exist at all. She holds out a twenty and a five.
My throat tightens. If I breathe, I might cry. There’s still a small, stupid part of me that wants my big sister to be happy I’m here.
Jam hands me my change and receipt and gives me a nod.
I grab my grocery bag, gasping, walk fast to the door, then sprint to my car. I balance the paper bag on my bumper while I try to fish my car keys from my pocket. But my hands are shaking and my fingers are stiff.
I hear heels clacking on the asphalt, and when I look over my shoulder, Steena is walking out of the store. She holds out her key fob, squeezes, and the headlights on the white Range Rover next to me flash.
I lose my grip on the bag. It breaks when it hits the ground, making it impossible to scoop up the groceries quickly. I get my car open and toss things into the back seat as I pick them up.
The soap is leaking. The tampons fell from their box and are scattered around my feet like cellophane-covered bullets. I try to grab as many as I can, but my hands are slippery. One of the apples is under Steena’s Range Rover. I reach for the other two.
Steena walks up to me and leans forward, hands to her thighs. For a moment, I think she’s going help, but she shakes her head. “I hope you’re not planning to stay,” she says.
I hear the rattle of shopping cart wheels. Steena smiles and waves. “Hi, Pauline!”
A gentle voice says, “Do you need help, dear?”
I glance through my armpit and spot beige leather orthopedic shoes. I think Pauline could be my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Massey. My face is burning. I don’t want any of this.
“Oh, you’re so thoughtful!” Steena says, voice bursting with kind exuberance. “Don’t you worry. We’ve got it!”
As soon as the wheels trail off, Steena’s face falls to a sneer. She stands tall, brushes off her pant legs as if she’s done something messy.
“We were all relieved when you left,” she says, in her low, true voice. “Mom had the best years of her life without you.” She opens the door to her Range Rover and climbs in. Before she slams it closed, she says, “Your hair looks like shit, Freya.”
Then she peels out of her parking spot, turning sharply so I have to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit. There’s a loud pop under her tire and my bag of bran cereal explodes into the air like confetti.