Chapter Fifteen #2
Right. Eat your veggies, kids! Quite rich, coming from this man. His breath is a Twizzler.
“Real vegetables would be better,” I say. “C’mon, let’s go to the grocery store.”
“I want to look at everything they’ve got here first.” His eyes are round and marveling as they take in way too many options. He’s Martha Stewart now. I’ve lost him to the nuances between basket cornucopias and ones made of wire and we’ll be in here for two hours deliberating.
I’m ruthless in my quest to leave. “Cornucopias, Nicholas? That’s your pilgrim great-grandfather’s centerpiece. Modernize it a little. Go minimal with a simple red apple.”
He wrinkles his nose. “That won’t be impressive. It’ll look like I didn’t try at all.”
“Welcome to my life. It’s easier over here, I promise.”
I shouldn’t make self-deprecating comments like this because they bolster the stereotype that I have no aspirations and I’m a thoughtless layabout, but it’s become an odd habit.
He drags a finger up my spine, which he knows gives me the chills, and smiles when I jump out of my skin.
He continues to browse at one mile per hour.
Every time we round the corner into another aisle my stomach tightens with worry that the manager is going to come out and ask if we need any help.
It’s unavoidable. These small businesses are too darned friendly.
Twenty years later and with zero help from me, Nicholas has filled a basket with supplies to build our own birdhouse in the spring, which I can’t wait to see him never touch, plus a bunch of random bits and bobs marked down to fifty percent off.
He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with it all, but he’s a sucker for those neon green discount stickers.
“You never know,” he says, whistling as he drops a package of blue buttons and rose appliques into the basket. He needs an intervention.
The next aisle is wedding decorations. We both freeze at the threshold.
“I think I saw pinecones back that way,” I say, and he nods hastily.
“Yeah, let’s go look at the pinecones again.”
We’re quivering cowards and we know it. We end up grabbing four mesh bags of pinecones (which we could get from our yard for free) as justification for avoiding the wedding aisle.
I’m tired. My nerves are frayed. I beg him to just choose something and be done, so he gets a cookie jar that looks like a turkey.
We’re going to stuff it with the pinecones.
It’s a half-assed choice and he’s heartbroken to show up to dinner with a centerpiece that doesn’t blow everybody’s minds, but I’m finding it hard to breathe and Nicholas’s arm is probably stinging with red marks from my iron grip.
I’ve been picking at him to get him to move it along.
“All right, you go check out. I’m going to wait in the car.”
Nicholas doesn’t hear me. I’m dragged up to the register and all the blood in my body flees the country when I see who’s behind the counter.
Melissa.
I want to groan, but I force a smile instead. My skin is two hundred degrees. My organs are cooking like a casserole.
“Hey, Naomi,” she greets me jovially. Straight away, that pleasant tone’s got me shifty-eyed. Maybe her boss is close by. God, I hope not.
“Hey, Melissa! So great to see you! How’ve you been? New job, huh?”
“Just started Monday! I’m so lucky, you know? Nobody’s hiring.” She gives me a great big smile that is totally alien on her generally hateful face.
I want to run out of the store. Just started Monday. The job she’s got now is the job I applied for. Melissa was in the pool of contenders. Melissa beat me.
And no one called to tell me I lost the job. It hurts extra because the woman who interviewed me was so nice and sympathetic. Maybe she thought she’d wait until after the holidays to break the news, so that I wouldn’t spend Thanksgiving crying in a closet.
“Congratulations,” I make myself say. “I hope you like it here.”
“Oh, I love it. In fact . . .” She takes her time ringing up the pinecones, hands moving in slow-motion. “I heard you applied here, too. Wouldn’t that be fun, huh, if we both worked at the same place again?”
Nicholas turns his sharp gaze on me.
My voice is small. “I think they only had one position open.”
Melissa knows this, of course. “Oh, that’s right. Good luck with the job search.” A gloating smile curves the edges of her mouth as she coasts a knickknack over the scanner.
“She’ll find something,” Nicholas inserts smoothly. “We’re waiting for the right fit. Can’t just accept any old job that’ll have her—especially at businesses that will probably be closed within a year.”
Melissa’s eyes darken. I’m so grateful to Nicholas, I could cry.
“Luckily, I don’t find myself in that position,” she says, all uppity-like. “Let’s Get Crafty is doing superb.”
Nicholas makes a show out of glancing around the empty store. “Sure.”
Her peppy tone falters, the ice showing through. “It’s Thanksgiving. Of course we’re not busy today.”
Nicholas doesn’t even have to reply. He raises his eyebrows, smiling guilelessly. It’s more effective than a smirk. It’s an expression I’m well acquainted with and it usually fills me with rage, but weaponized against Melissa I’ve got to say, it’s looking more and more attractive.
“So . . .” She pretends to have trouble with a price tag, drawing this exchange out. “Burn any more poisonous flowers lately, Naomi?”
Nicholas stiffens. I’m going to stab her with the pin of her name tag.
“Actually, I haven’t had time. Been pretty busy.”
“Doing what? You don’t have a job.”
“Maybe we’re having lots of sex,” Nicholas cuts in, annoyed. “Maybe we lose track of the days because we can’t stop banging.” I let out an unladylike snort, both because what he’s said is delightfully inappropriate and also so untrue that it kind of hurts. “Not really your business, is it?”
Melissa abandons all pleasantries. “That’s about what I’d expect to hear from you. Lot of sex happening around your office, and I know that from experience. I wouldn’t be shocked if you’re screwing that dental hygienist, too. You and Seth both. The company you keep says a lot about you.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I snap. I’ve always been quick to lend my sympathies whenever she wanted to gripe about Seth (which was often), but seeing her here in this new setting, wearing a vest covered in trillions of craft-related buttons, it’s just too much.
I’m not rolling over and letting her punish us anymore.
“This again? You dated the guy for, like, a month and a half. I’ve had to hear about this since May. Your grudge exhausts me, Melissa.”
“Oh, my apologies! Have I not recovered from my heartbreak fast enough for you?”
“If you need closure with your ex, then go tell him about it.” Her mouth opens, but I raise my hand.
“Listen, I’m sorry Seth is an asswipe who cheated.
You didn’t deserve that. Honestly, you could do way better and he isn’t worth being this upset over.
But nothing that happened to you is our fault.
” She gives Nicholas a dirty look and opens her mouth, ready to shoot off, but I beat her to it.
“There will be no more attacks on Nicholas, you got me? I don’t want to hear this shit ever again. ”
As for Nicholas, I don’t think he’s ever been more stunned in his life. He’s giving me the same look I was giving him this morning. I’m being green-henley’d.
Melissa’s movements grow jerkier as she stuffs our purchases into a bag. “Can you double-wrap that?” Nicholas asks, and we both derive sadistic enjoyment from watching Melissa double-wrap the cookie jar.
“And then double-bag it?” he adds.
The savagery is so skillfully subtle, you could almost call it art.
She triple-bags it. “Is that good enough?”
He flashes a charming smile. “Perfect.”
Her glare cuts to me, and for once I don’t do the thing I always do when she and Nicholas are having a clash.
I don’t chew my fingernails and apologize with my eyes.
Instead, I give her airs like I am Extremely Important and have Places To Be.
I invoke my inner Deborah Rose and scare myself to the core.
“Well, good luck with your life,” Melissa says nastily after we pay and get our bags.
I decide to be the bigger person. “You, too, Melissa. Good luck. I hope this job works out for you.”
Nicholas decides to not be the bigger person and takes a penny from the take-a-penny, leave-a-penny station as we walk away. I’m in awe of his cattiness.
“Enjoy your Thanksgiving!” he calls over his shoulder.
“You two are assholes!” she calls back. “You deserve each other.”
I send her a thumbs-up. “Thanks!”
We’re barely out the door when we can’t hold our laughter in anymore. We throw our stuff in the car and tumble inside, peeling out like we’re fugitives making a getaway. I give him a high-five. “You. Were. Awesome.”
“Thank you, thank you.” He grins. “You were, too.”
“I’m so glad I don’t have to hang out with her anymore.”
He glances sideways at me. “She is right about Seth, though. I’m really tired of defending him. I feel . . . I don’t know. I’ve never broken up with a friend before.”
I’m not exactly a fan of Seth. He’s nice half the time, but for the other half he builds himself up by tearing Nicholas down.
“You’re allowed to defend yourself when people hurt your feelings.
You deserve to be around people who are good to you.
” Coming from me of all people, this statement is so outrageous I half-expect a lightning bolt to shoot down from the sky and strike me dead.
I’m right, though: he deserves friends who actually act like friends.
And so do I, for that matter. “You know that, right? Give yourself permission to put yourself first.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“I’ll help. And if Seth doesn’t clean up his act, I still have the number for those movers. I’ll set you up with them. We’ll put you in some ripped jeans and . . . ta-da! BFFs in no time.”
He smiles.