Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(12)

Despite its daunting size, I quickly decide that I like the supermarket. There are words to read and things to count everywhere. I appreciate that someone has taken the time to label everything. Every aisle. Every package. Every ingredient. It’s extremely helpful for someone like me. I devour the words hungrily. Some of the simpler labels make sense. Like eggs and milk and orange juice. I have a hard time extracting meaning from others. Like Apple Jacks and root beer and Thousand Island dressing.

‘I would buy you some make-up,’ Heather says as we stroll down an aisle identified as Beauty Products, ‘but I swear you don’t need any. Your features are so flawless.’

Then she chuckles softly to herself. ‘Funny, that’s what my mother used to say to me when I was a teenager. I always hated it.’ She plucks a few packages from a rack and tosses them into the cart.

‘Do you eat meat?’ she asks as we approach a large glass case filled with an assortment of fleshy red slabs.

I peer through the glass, reading the variety of offerings. ‘It doesn’t look familiar,’ I admit, feeling a bit queasy all of a sudden.

‘Well, it doesn’t look like that when you eat it,’ Heather explains. ‘You cook it first and it turns brown.’

I nod. ‘Oh. Right.’

‘Well, you can try it and see,’ she offers. ‘If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it. A lot of people around here don’t eat meat. It’s called being a vegetarian. Perhaps you were one.’

I shrug. ‘Perhaps.’

Once our cart has been filled to the top, Heather pushes it towards the front of the store and parks it behind another person. I observe the woman in front of us as she empties the contents of her own cart on to a moving conveyor belt. A young female cashier takes each item and swipes it along a metal surface, eliciting a beep. I notice a small screen that displays a name and number after each swipe.

Beep. Grape jelly: $2.99.

Beep. Raw sugar: $4.79.

Beep. Oatmeal: $5.15.

‘Is that all?’ the girl asks several minutes later, after the cart is empty.

The woman nods. ‘That’ll be it for today. What’s the total?’

The cashier presses a few buttons on a machine in front of her and I hear a soft voice whisper, ‘$187.22.’

It isn’t until this very number appears on the screen and the girl repeats it that I realize the voice I heard was my own. The realization takes me by surprise although I’m not sure why. I suppose it’s because I wasn’t aware I’d been counting.

Heather gives me a look of admiration. ‘Impressive.’

She pushes the cart forward and starts to unload it. ‘Scott can add large sums in his head too,’ she says. ‘Math was never my strong suit. Looks like we discovered your favourite subject in school.’ She turns and gives me a wink.

The cashier starts to scan our items.

Beep. Canned tomatoes: $1.29.

Beep. Doritos: $2.79.

Beep. Pop-Tarts: $3.85.

Another conveyor picks up the items on the other side of the metal scanning slate and a young man in a red apron places each one into a bag. It looks like the bag Kiyana used to pack up my dull grey clothes.

Beep. Green chillies: $0.99.

The cashier places the can of green chillies on the second conveyor but it gets caught between the edge of the metal and the beginning of the belt. I watch in fascination as the small can spins in helpless circles, trying to free itself.

‘Um, would you mind getting that for me?’

I look up to see the young man in the red apron gesturing towards the revolving can.

‘Yes, sorry,’ I say. But when I reach out to grab it, I’m stopped by a startling high-pitched sound.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!

The noise takes me, Heather, the young man and the cashier by surprise. I drop the can of green chillies and quickly withdraw my hand.

The register continues to shrill while the cashier bewilderedly punches buttons on her keyboard to no avail. The screen displays the words Error. Unreadable.

‘That’s strange,’ she says. ‘It must have malfunctioned. I have no idea what happened. Let me just call my manager.’

As she picks up a nearby phone, I surreptitiously glance down at my left arm. The one that was extended directly over the scanner when the noise started.

I turn my hand over and study the inside of my wrist. The skin around the tattoo is pulsating. I run my thumb across the thin black marking. It feels hot. Strangely hot. I recoil swiftly, a small gasp escaping my lips.

‘What’s the matter?’ Heather asks, looking at me with her eyebrows pinched together.

I shake my wrist. The subtle stinging sensation has already started to fade. ‘Nothing.’

The register finally falls silent and the cashier hangs up the phone. ‘Sorry about that.’ She picks up the next item and scans it.

Beep. Frozen pizza: $4.82.

It travels down the conveyor and into the awaiting brown bag.

Everything appears to be back to normal.

‘Your total is $102.49,’ the cashier says brightly.

The man in the red apron places the bags into our now-empty cart as Heather swipes a small plastic card through a machine mounted on the counter and punches a series of numbers into the keypad. This seems to finalize the transaction. She thanks the cashier and beckons me forward, pushing the cart in front of her.