Nora Goes Off Script(12)

My garage is technically big enough for two small cars, but with the lawn mower, the wheelbarrow, my compost bin, and a big sack of fertilizer, you sort of have to walk sideways to get in. There’s a sweet smell of decay with hints of mold and manure, and I can’t get the garage door open fast enough.

“Earthy,” Leo says and opens the passenger door. He sits down, and we both survey the state of my car. There’s a layer of dust over the dashboard and two juice boxes by his feet.

“Arthur’s just recently started sitting in the front seat,” I say, as an explanation, as if he was going to think I’m the one chugging juice boxes as I drive. My cup-holder is sticky with something and filled with coins and gas receipts. I can’t blame Arthur for that.

Leo kicks the juice boxes to the side and puts his window down as I pull out of the garage. The magnolia trees that line my driveway are particularly flirtatious this morning, exploding with giant blossoms. It’s like their hormones are reacting to the presence of an actual man. I’m almost embarrassed for them.

“So, how far to the grocery store?” he asks. He’s looking straight at me and waiting for a reply as I make my way down my driveway to the main road and struggle with the answer.

Of course, I should take Leo to the Whole Foods in Pheasant Landing. I’ve only been a few times, but it is gorgeous and shiny. It’s the Leo of grocery stores. It’s fifteen minutes away, and we’d have to get on the highway, but it seems more his speed than where I shop. I’m having a hard time picturing him in the Stop n’ Save. It’s closer and much cheaper, but it’s pretty shabby, inside and out. On the plus side, it has the self-scanners so I can effectively get through the store without speaking to another human being, and on Fridays it almost always has canned goods on sale. I am at the end of my driveway: Left to the Stop n’ Save or right to the highway? I am seven thousand dollars richer than I was when I woke up this morning, so I could turn right if I wanted to. But I can’t handle another guy forcing me to run up my credit card bill, so I turn left.



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? ? ?

I pull my station wagon into the Stop n’ Save parking lot and kill the engine. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?”

“I do not. That’s why I’m here.” He gives me a youthful, expectant smile.

“Midnight in Jakarta,” I say. He looks at me, puzzled. “The smile. It’s the one you gave your parents, the shopkeepers, even the chief of police in Midnight in Jakarta.”

“That’s creepy,” he says.

“That you recycle old movie smiles? I agree.”

“That you notice.” He laughs and gets out of the car.

“Can you just try to fit in?” I ask, gathering my shopping bags from the back seat. He’s in jeans and a white T-shirt and a black leather jacket that probably cost what my car’s worth. “Maybe lose the jacket?”

He takes it off and suddenly he’s all shoulders and abs and I have to look away from the excess of it. “Put the jacket back on,” I tell him.

He wants to know what the bags are for, and I just shake my head. I scan my Stop n’ Save card to use the self-checkout gun, and his mind is blown. “So, it just knows what you’re buying?” He’s turning the gun in his hands, peering into the reader as if he’ll be able to see the tiny men who are making it work.

“Yes, from the barcodes.”

“What about fruit?”

“I’ll show you,” I say.

An older woman who I don’t know is blocking the entrance to the produce section. She is a statue with her hands on her full shopping cart, mouth open. Leo says, “Hello.”

She says, “Leo Vance.”

“Yes,” he says.

“Leo Vance,” she says again, not moving an inch.

“You’ve got me.” When he’s given her more than enough time to speak, he goes on. “Okay then, we have some shopping to do. I’ve got the scanner.” He waves it at her and gives her a smile I can’t quite name, but I’ve seen it before on the big screen.

As always, I approach the produce section with caution. Some shit’s always going down in the produce section—women over-confiding about their marriages, odd confessions, inappropriate confrontations. Don’t get me started. So when I look up and see Anita Wallingford coming my way, I’m not surprised.

Leo has his back to us, auditing the banana selection. He’s mumbling about how cheap bananas are, even the organic ones, as he weighs them and prints out the label. Anita starts right in. “Hey, Nora! How’re you doing?” Pouty face. “I heard about you and Ben. Just awful.” I nod in agreement, hoping we can move on. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me. I mean I had to hear it from someone else, and I just felt so hurt.”

This is a stunner, even coming from Anita. Even in the produce section. I can only repeat the words that have registered. “You’re hurt because Ben left me?”

“You should have called me. I mean, I thought we were . . .” I feel a hand on my shoulder. Leo has turned around to meet her gaze.

“She’s been super busy. I’m Leo.” He extends his hand with what I assume is a smolder. I want to see it since he’s never smoldered me, except I can’t take my eyes off wretched Anita Wallingford. She looks at him and then at me, and then at him again. The tiny microcomputer behind her eyes is overheating. She might short-circuit. For a brief moment, I love the produce section.