All's Well(58)

“Sounds wonderful,” he says. “Sounds like my kind of spring.”

At the checkout, I wait in line, admiring my pig’s cheek in its butcher paper with the butcher’s phone number written on it and a , my cart brimming with salt, with spring greens, rosemary, sage. I’ll tear the sage with my hands. I’ll strip the rosemary of its spikes. I stand on both legs, and I do not lean, I do not crumble, I do not die a thousand deaths. I do not curse the line, the cashier, my body. Instead I take pleasure in contemplating the sideline merchandise. The echinacea pills, the chocolate truffles; I even take a few. I flip through the cooking magazines languorously. Read about dinners for two and heavenly desserts. A chocolate lava cake with a caramel sea-salt middle, how wonderful is that? Maybe something to make for Hugo and me, sometime, if all goes well. I grab a bottle of red wine from a pyramidal display, why not?

Then I hear a throat clear itself pointedly. The person in line behind me. I can feel them ticking like a bomb. Breathing impatiently into the back of my neck. Shifting their weight from foot to foot. Moving their basket from arm to arm. Come on, now, I can feel them thinking. Let’s move, please. An old or ailing person, no doubt. I’ll turn to them and smile. I’ll say, Go on. You go ahead, in front of me, please, I insist. I don’t mind, I’ll tell them. I’m not in a rush today.

I turn, and the smile falls from my face. Fauve. Standing there in a worn black coat covered in cat hairs. Holding a shopping basket overloaded with cans and frozen dinners. Wrist tendons straining visibly under the weight. Looking dour and miserable but she dagger-smiles when she sees me.

“Miranda,” she says to me. “Grocery shopping, I see?”

As if even this is a crime. But I’m immune.

“Just a little dinner,” I sing.

She looks down at my cart.

“Pig’s cheek?” she says, and sniffs. “Bit rich for my blood.”

Always needs to remind everyone they’re not paying her enough. It’s sad, really. I pity her, if I’m honest. I look at her sad basket of cans and trays.

“You look like you’ve got a good haul,” I say. “Always good to have something you can just heat up.”

Fauve smiles, but oh how it stings. Everything an arrow to her thrashing little soul.

“Oh, this isn’t for me. I was buying some soup for poor Briana. I’m going to drop it off on my way home.”

I shudder at the name. Involuntary. Does Fauve notice? If she does, she doesn’t let on.

“Briana?” I say casually. “Really.”

“It’s out of my way, of course,” Fauve adds.

“Of course it is,” I say.

“But her parents so appreciate it, you know. Those sorts of gestures. Such kind people, you know. So generous to the school.”

“How kind of you,” I say, smiling. “How utterly selfless.”

Fauve looks at me like she wants to kill me. She’s picked a method, even. Enjoys going over it in the nights.

“Well, we do what we can, don’t we? Though I wonder if it’s doing any good. Such a weird illness she has, poor thing.”

She gazes at me now with blatant accusation. But it’s a bluff. She knows nothing. Nothing to know, am I right? I look at Fauve right in her sickly eyes. That are boring into mine. Determined to find guilt there, sorrow. She’ll find nothing. Nothing there but dancing, laughing light.

“Things are going around,” I say tragically. “It is that season.”

“Usually Briana is so hearty, so immune,” Fauve insists.

“Like a weed,” I agree.

“She just says everything hurts. So sinister.”

Pathetic, this attempt to bait me. It’s almost funny.

“Has she been tested for Lyme?” I ask like I really want to know. “Maybe she got bitten by a tick.” I look so very concerned.

“The doctors are telling her there’s nothing wrong with her at all. But what do doctors know, really? I told them she should see my doctor. He’s holistic. Considers the whole picture, the energetics. A specialist when it comes to pain, especially. I would have recommended him to you, Miranda, but then, you don’t seem like you need one anymore.” She smiles at me. “You’re seeming so remarkably well these days.”

“Am I?” I smile right back at her. I shrug, unshaken. As if life is life is life. A mystery. Sometimes we’re down, sometimes we’re up, aren’t we? The wheel of fortune, always turning.

“I still have issues, of course,” I say. “With my back. And my hip is… my hip.”

“Her parents are worried sick, of course. They’re saying Briana is murmuring things in her sleep.”

“In her sleep?” Heart thrums in my chest now. But I continue to look unshaken. “Really?”

Fauve nods. “Your name came up, in fact.”

“My name?” A flash of lightning in the small of my back. The wine bottle nearly falls from my hands, but I catch it just in time. I grip the bottle, collect myself. “Well, that makes sense. I’m her director after all.”

I turn and smile at the moving conveyor belt. Still full of someone else’s groceries. I will it forward. Fauve watches me.

“It doesn’t surprise me either,” she says, “especially given the conflict the two of you were having. The day she got sick. What was all that about again?”