Chapter 7 Levi #2
I follow behind other people to a line where there’s only machines and no workers.
I watch a minute and realize I don’t have a fucking clue how to ring up my groceries.
The last thing I need to do is draw attention to myself by being an idiot.
I back out of line and wander down the store until I spot one checkout with an older lady doing the scanning.
I pay attention as she scans each item so I’ll know how to do it myself next time.
The register says an even hundred dollars, and I pay it from the fold of cash riding my front pocket, feeling every bill go.
Feeding yourself costs a lot of money, and I add that to the list of things Nashville never taught me.
The fold is down to five hundred and seventeen dollars.
Dante steps out when he sees me coming and opens the back. I load the bags, and return the buggy.
“What did you buy?” he asks, when I return.
“Food.”
He reaches into one of the bags and comes out with a sub. He reads the sticker, puts it down, comes out with another one, and then a third.
“You bought six subs,” he says. “Why?”
“You going through my bags hunting for contraband, or just nosy?”
“Answer my question,” he says.
“I might get hungry. I bought them for the week.”
“Six subs won’t last a week. They might last two days in a refrigerator, and even then the bread goes soggy.”
“Then I’ll eat them all in two days,” I say. “Every one of them.”
“What happens on day three?”
“Day three is not today’s problem. Or your problem.”
He sighs. “You say that now.”
“You keep making my problems yours. Strange hobby for a man who wants me gone.”
“It’s not a hobby. It’s damage control.”
We get into the SUV and he pulls out onto the highway.
“Liquor store’s up ahead on the right,” I say, and he pulls in without a fight.
The lot is empty and the door doesn’t move when I pull it. I tug it again. There’s a hand-lettered sign taped inside the glass.
CLOSED SUNDAY MORNING. GONE TO CHURCH. BACK AT 1.
I read it twice. Just my luck the one thing standing between me and a resupply this morning is church. Somewhere down the road there’s a congregation about two hymns from letting out, and the clerk I need to open this damn store is in there singing his guilty heart out.
I’m sure I could still sing every word they’re singing too, all songs, all verses. That is not a memory I want to reminisce about today.
I hurry back to the car. “What time is it?”
“Ten-forty.”
“They open at one. I need you to bring me back here at one.”
“Why are they closed?” he asks.
“Clerk’s gone to church. Back at one.” I drop into the seat. “God’s timing.”
He glares at me through the sunglasses, and takes a moment to consider it.
“I’ll come back at one to get you,” he says.
“Swear on it.”
“I don’t need to swear on it, Levi. I keep my word. Be out front at one. Now get in the car so I can take you home.”
“One o’clock. I’m holding you to the word you wouldn’t swear on.”
He pulls up to the house and leaves the engine running, which is already its own answer, but I ask the question anyway.
“You could wait it out here in the house,” I offer.
“If you want. The two hours. The house has cold air, and I’m willing to split the key lime pie.
And the sandwiches since they’re going bad in two days.
According to you. Want to come in and wait inside? ”
“I have calls to make.” He’s already glancing at his phone. “I’ll be back at one.”
“Who are you calling on a Sunday?”
“Like I told you, I work every day. Especially on weekends.”
“Sure you do. Same way you were ‘checking on the house’ this morning.”
“Go inside, Levi, before you get more sunburned than you already are.”
The SUV backs out, and I carry my groceries in alone.
Truth is, I don’t even need the tequila. Or want it. It was mostly an excuse to see what I could get him to do. And to maybe steal a few more minutes riding around with him.
Trying to get under his skin is becoming my new favorite activity.
I eat the Italian sub standing at the big island in the kitchen, then a bag of chips, then start on the turkey sandwich out of momentum. The other four subs go in the refrigerator, which now is beginning to look like a real person lives here.
The sitting around, waiting on him to come back is hard.
Two hours with my head clear enough to hear everything, the AC working, the waves lapping against the sand.
I take the weed bag out to the terrace. The terrace is mine and his deal says so.
Outside only he said, away from the vents. I hold up my end.
From outside, I can hear the phone ding. I know without looking, it’s Freddie.
Freddie: Status.
Levi: at the house eating lunch
Freddie: Send a photo. Now.
Freddie: New rule. Status check. Ten a.m. every day.
Fuck him. He’s checking whether I’m lying.
I go inside and build the shot. The other subs come out of the refrigerator, and I’m laying them on the island when I catch it.
Deli paper. Price stickers. Freddie gets a copy of every order that runs through that app, and no order ran through it today.
A photo full of stickers is a receipt from a store my phone never set foot in.
The paper comes off, stickers and all, into the trash. The subs go on the cutting board next to that fancy bread knife, chips alongside, the Gulf in the glass behind all of it. Lunch that could have come from anywhere, in a house that came with food already in it.
I send the photo in a text.
Levi: house came stocked.
Which is the truth. It came stocked with cheese. What’s in the fridge now is nobody in Nashville’s business.
Freddie goes silent. Then I read the other text again about a new rule. Status check. Ten a.m., every day. He didn’t ask if that worked for me. Freddie doesn’t ask, he schedules, and I’ve just been scheduled through the end of the month.
And the funny part, the part Freddie will never work out, is that a rule with a time on it is easier to beat than one without. A man who has to be somewhere at ten is free at ten-oh-one.