Sylvie
“I am going to murder someone.”
Knox is half-listening. “We only have crackers,” he says, going through the cabinets. “Gluten-free crackers. Some of that soup in the fridge. It’s a little dried out but together it could work.”
The van is buzzing from the mighty strength of this Jimmy Buffett sing-along.
“I am,” I tell him, “going to go out there and tell them where they can stick their margaritas.”
“After that, can we eat? I’m starving.”
“You think this is funny. It’s not funny! Two days from now we’re going to be writing stupid letters to each other and until then we’ll be eating pathetic leftovers while trying to ignore the senior citizen hoedown happening around us in this parking lot.”
Knox shuts the cabinet door. “You’re upset,” he says, and immediately I want to deny it, course correct, be fine, fine, fine.
“Yeah,” I say instead. Maturely. “I had a different idea about what tonight would be like.”
“I’ve heard that anticipating something, wanting something, is always more satisfying than actually getting it.”
“That might be the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well,” he says with conviction. “It’s seven p.m., June seventeen, and we’re still together, and we’re young, we’re free, we can do anything we want. We can have the thing we want. We can go anywhere.”
“Actually,” I tell him, “we’re boxed in by the solar eclipse tailgaters, so—”
“We can walk anywhere.”
“To the Exxon next door? I mean, I guess we can—”
“We can walk into that Walmart and buy some junk food.”
I stand up. “Actually, yes. Yes we can.”
A LITTLE LATER
We meet back by the checkout.
“Okay, what did you find?”
I survey my basket. “Rolos. Three kinds of Haribo, including sharks, frogs, and Happy Cola, which, I’ll have you know, is the ultimate Haribo, haters can hate.
The crispy M&M’s in the blue package that I thought they didn’t make anymore, so actually I got three of those and I’m going to save one for a break-glass-in-case-of-crispy-emergency situation.
Mint Milano cookies because I’m fancy. And some of the chocolate pudding that they don’t refrigerate and somehow it doesn’t go bad. ”
“Wow,” Knox says.
“What do you have?”
“Sour Patch Kids. Isn’t it weird to make your candy look like people? But I want it. I guess I want to eat the little chemical and artificially colored people.”
“Valid,” I say.
“Is it really?”
“Actually, it’s kind of weird, but I wanted you to feel supported in your people-eating. What else?”
“Um—Hershey’s Kisses.”
I blush, for some reason.
“And—honestly after that I got overwhelmed. I got more crackers. I got some Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper because I have no idea what that’ll taste like. That’s a lot of flavors all at once. What do you think will happen when we combine it with your crispy M&M’s? A volcano erupting?”
“A science experiment,” I tell him.
“Possibly we’re gonna be puking rainbows all over the van.”
“Possibly? I see your possibly, and raise you ‘probably.’”
“My mom,” he says, “would be so freaked out by what I’m buying.” He doesn’t sound upset, or sad. He sounds kind of matter of fact.
“Should we get some microwave soup or something, just to put down a layer of real food before we start throwing in the little sour people?”
A bunch of white-haired dudes in Path of Totality T-shirts walk in, singing Jimmy Buffett.
“I don’t know,” Knox says. “I kind of think those guys would give us some of their chili if we asked.”
But he’s looking right past me, at something, or someone, else.