Chapter 3 #2
Andy’s Grab and Go was my favorite grocery store, a tiny market run by a Vietnamese family who’d immigrated in the late seventies and had been slowly expanding their inventory ever since.
They carried ingredients you couldn’t find at the regular Stop & Shop, and Andy himself always threw in something extra at checkout, a piece of fruit or a sample of something new.
The problem was, I couldn’t remember where it was.
I knew it wasn’t the corner store, the one a block from our apartment that sold overpriced milk and stale bread. Andy’s was further, somewhere in Roslindale, maybe? Near that park with the gazebo? I’d driven there hundreds of times, but now, after so many years, the route had simply... vanished.
I pulled out of the parking spot and headed in what I thought was the right direction. Took a left on Centre Street. Looked for familiar landmarks.
Nothing.
Where the hell was my phone? I could just—
Right. No phone. No GPS. No way to type “Andy’s Grab and Go” into a search bar and let technology solve my problems.
I drove in increasingly frustrated circles for twenty minutes, getting more lost with each turn.
Streets that should have been familiar were strangers.
The gazebo park was nowhere to be found.
I made a U-turn in someone’s driveway and tried a different route, only to end up on a road I’d never seen in my life.
This was ridiculous. I’d lived here. I’d driven these streets hundreds of times. But my brain had overwritten the old maps with new ones, 2014 routes, 2014 landmarks, and now I was wandering Boston like a tourist.
Finally, more by luck than navigation, I spotted the familiar hand-painted sign: ANDY’S GRAB AND GO, with a little cartoon shopping bag that Andy’s teenage daughter had designed years ago.
I parked and sat for a moment, hands still gripping the steering wheel, feeling irrationally triumphant about finding the grocery store.
That’s when it occurred to me. Apple.
In 2014, I’d heard a hundred stories about people who’d bought Apple stock early and become millionaires. My coworker Dave had an uncle who’d invested ten thousand dollars and retired at forty-five. What if I could remember enough to—
I tried. I really tried. When did Apple go public? 1980? 1982? What was the stock worth in 2014? Was this before or after Steve Jobs got fired?
Nothing. The information wasn’t fuzzy or uncertain, it simply wasn’t there. Like reaching for a word on the tip of your tongue, except there was no tongue and no word, just a blank space where knowledge should be.
You cannot use your knowledge for personal gain.
The voice had said that. And apparently it had meant it, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t access a single piece of financially useful information. The future was locked away, at least the parts that could have made me rich.
Fair enough, I supposed. I hadn’t come back for money, but it didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to remember who would win the Stanley Cup this year.
I grabbed my purse and headed inside.
Andy’s smelled exactly as I remembered—fresh produce, dried spices, the sweetness of the Vietnamese pastries Mrs. Andy (I’d never learned her actual name) baked fresh every morning.
I grabbed a basket and started wandering the aisles, marveling at products that wouldn’t exist in my own time and missing products that hadn’t been invented yet.
I was comparing two brands of fish sauce when I heard his voice.
“The one on the left. Trust me.”
I turned, and there he was. Of course Jack was here. Because apparently the universe had decided that I’d traveled through time to live my life differently, so I needed to run into him every twelve hours.
He looked different this morning, casual in jeans and a worn sweater, hair still damp from a shower. Softer somehow. More like the Jack I remembered from lazy Sunday mornings, before everything went wrong.
And beside him, pushing a small cart was his girlfriend.
“Oh,” I said, eloquently. “Hi.”
“Maggie.” He nodded, his expression carefully neutral. “This is Rebecca Walsh. Rebecca, Maggie Shaw.”
Rebecca smiled, genuinely smiled, not the tight-lipped courtesy I might have expected. “Nice to meet you. Jack mentioned you used to—” She caught herself. “Well, anyway. Nice to meet you.”
Used to. Two words that contained a whole history.
“You too,” I said. And meant it, weirdly. Rebecca seemed nice. Kind. The sort of woman who probably didn’t spend every relationship waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Which made me feel like an absolute heel for wanting what she had.
But I did want it. Standing here, looking at Jack in his Sunday-morning sweater, watching the way he moved through the store, I wanted the second chance I’d come back for.
The voice in the darkness hadn’t sent me here to give up at the first obstacle.
I wasn’t going to win him back by running away every time I saw him.
“I didn’t know you shopped here,” I said, aiming for casual and probably missing by a mile.
“Best fish sauce in Boston.” He gestured at my basket. “You remembered.”
“Some things you don’t forget.”
The words hung between us, meaning more than they should.
An older woman appeared at the end of the aisle, one of the regulars, I realized, someone who’d been shopping here as long as I had. She spotted Rebecca and lit up.
“Becca! I didn’t know you were back from New York! How was the gallery opening?”
Rebecca glanced at Jack apologetically. “Mrs. Williams. Let me just—” She moved toward the woman, already being pulled into conversation.
Which left Jack and me standing alone among the soy sauce and rice vinegar, the sounds of the store fading to background noise.
“So,” I said.
“So.” He shifted his weight, a tell I recognized—he was uncomfortable. Uncertain. “About yesterday. At the diner.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I panicked and left before—” I stopped. Took a breath. “I was surprised to see you. That’s all.”
“With Rebecca.”
“With Rebecca,” I agreed.
He didn’t say anything. Just watched me with those blue eyes that had always seen too much.
“Could we get coffee?” The words came out before I could second-guess them. “Or lunch? Tomorrow, maybe? I just—” I twisted the basket handle in my hands. “There are things I’d like to say. Things I should have said back in the fall.”
He was quiet for a moment that stretched into forever. I watched him weigh options, calculate risks. Jack had always been careful—a journalist’s instinct, maybe, or just the habit of a man who’d been burned too many times.
“Okay,” he said finally.
“Okay?”
“Lunch. Tomorrow. There’s a place near the Globe—Mike’s, on Dorchester Ave. Do you know it?”
I didn’t, but I’d find it. If I had to drive in circles for three hours, I’d find it.
“Noon?” he asked.
“Noon works.”
Rebecca was heading back toward us, Mrs. Williams finally releasing her. He stepped back, putting an appropriate distance between us.
“See you tomorrow, Maggie.”
“See you tomorrow.”
He turned to Rebecca, said something about finishing up, and they moved down the aisle together. She touched his arm again, that easy, comfortable gesture I’d noticed at the diner.
I stood there holding my basket, fish sauce forgotten, heart pounding in a way it hadn’t in years.
I had a lunch date with Jack.
Now I just had to figure out what the hell I was going to say.