Supermarket(27)

It was Lola, pushing a cart our way. FUCK. I panicked. I hadn’t seen Lola since the diner, and I wasn’t trying to see her now.

“Mia, let’s get out of here, the store’s about to close,” I said.

“Chill, Flynn, we work here, and I need to find the perfect pomegranate,” she said.

“Mia, let’s go, I’m hungry,” I said, pulling her forward with my arm.

“Flynn, Jesus, okay.”

I rushed us to the express lane, ten items or fewer, hoping to get the hell out of there before running into Lola. I grabbed a copy of People. Brad and Angelina were going to trial over custody. Kanye was doing some Kanye shit. Bieber and Baldwin seemed built to last. I loved People. I emptied my basket of cereal onto the conveyor belt and tossed the magazine on top of the pile.

“Flynn?”

I stared dead ahead, petrified by the voice coming from behind.

“Flynn, is that you?”

I turned around.

“Lola . . . heey . . . hi,” I said, my voice shaking.

“What’s up? How’ve you been?” she said.

“I’m great, everything good with you?” I said.

“Yeah, I’m moving to Portland in a couple of months,” she replied.

“That’s great.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was feeling twisted, confronted by an intense array of emotions, unable to process any of them. Anxiety. Fear. Attraction. Resentment. Happiness. Sadness. Anger. She was gorgeous. But she was cast in a new light. She was no longer mine. I missed her. But I was trying to move on. Mia pressed my elbow with hers, acknowledging the awkwardness of the situation.

“You sure got a lot of cereal there . . . is that for dinner?” Lola said with one eyebrow raised.

“Umm, yeah . . . no . . . ,” I said.

“Hi, I’m Lola, who are you?” she asked, turning to Mia.

“I’m Mia.”

“This a new girlfriend, Flynn?” Lola said.

“Um, don’t worry about it,” I said. FUCK. What the hell was I supposed to do?

“I see . . . what’s new?” Lola asked. “How’s the novel coming?”

I panicked. I hadn’t even told Mia about my novel.

“Novel?” Mia said.

“It’s going,” I said as the cashier told me my total.

“Eighteen ninety-five with your discount, Flynn.”

“Discount? You work here, Flynn?” Lola said, now with both her eyebrows raised.

“Umm, yeah. It’s for my . . .”

Mia handed the cashier a twenty, pulling me by my waist.

“Lola, nice to meet to meet you, we’re running late and are in a bit of a hurry,” Mia said, pulling me away.

“Umm, okay. Good luck with all that, Flynn,” Lola replied.

I grabbed our groceries. The white plastic met my sweaty hands. My vision became speckled with spots of white light. My chest tightened.

“Flynn, we’ll talk in the car,” Mia said on our way out of the store.

We pulled out of the parking lot. I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry that had to go down like that, Mia.”

“Flynn, it’s fine, it happens. Exes keep living lives. Run-ins happen. You just . . . you’ve never said anything about a novel.”

“Mia, you’re amazing. Thank you for understanding. I was caught off guard by the whole thing. Look . . . at one point I was fooling around with some writing. It was just a juvenile hobby. There’s nothing more to it than that,” I said.

“That’s cute . . . I didn’t know you were creative in that way. I want to read some,” Mia said.

“Oooh, no,” I said. “That stuff is long gone, buried deep in a landfill somewhere. It’s for the best . . .”

“Well, you should keep writing,” Mia said. “I think it’d be good for you. Could be a sort of therapy.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

The drive home was strange. That was a roller coaster. It was crazy how sweet and understanding she was about the whole thing. How she saved me from the nightmare situation. That was grace under fire. We sat in silence for the rest of the drive, windows down, with the radio faintly playing in the back.

We got back to my place, and I had, like, five different kinds of Cap’n Crunch set up for her to try. My record player was spinning “Someday” by the Strokes. Bennett was being shy, I guess. He stayed in my room the whole time, avoiding us.

On the table I had the original Cap’n Crunch. I had the one with Crunch Berries. CoZmic Crunch, Cinnamon Crunch, Chocolatey Crunch, and my personal favorite, Peanut Butter Crunch. She tried them all and fell in love! She was an instant convert. We had a blast, staying up for hours talking about life and the future and everything each of us wanted.

Turns out, we both wanted kids. We both believed in a higher power of some sort, but weren’t super religious about it, though neither of us judged others who had those beliefs. We went deep about our shaky childhoods, about growing up with low resources, about our fucked-up dads. About feeling directionless but ambitious at the same time. We both appreciated what we had in life but wanted so much more. She dreamed of passing the bar and joining a firm in New York City. I wanted to tell her about my New York experience, but I held back. I couldn’t let her know I had a book deal. Maybe I would tell her after it was actually finished. Surprise her.