Canned Peaches and Paper Sacks

[Permanent Monday—Jordin Sparks; 049. Messenger]

One year hadn’t taken its toll on Rebecca the way it had on me—her blue eyes still bright, still curious, still looking slightly superior to the rest of humankind; her tight lips still twisting upwards into a knowing smirk; her dark, pin-straight hair still pulled meticulously back into a sleek ponytail. I hated to admit it, but she looked good. Better than she had when she left, even.

And she had looked goddamn beautiful then.

I busied myself unloading the things from her cart onto the conveyor belt, careful to stare intently at one of her purchases as if it was the most fascinating can of peaches I had ever laid eyes on. The picture on the can advertised the peaches as plump, juicy, and delectable; in reality, though, I figured the real contents would bear only a mushy resemblance to the image.

I looked up for a split second, too weak to resist the temptation of catching another glimpse of the girl I’d sworn to spend the rest of my life with, only to see her eyes narrowed at me. I fidgeted with my apron strings for a minute, self-conscious about the ugly uniform and shifting behind my name-tag, which lied, 'Brandon'. There was a familiar look in her gaze—calculating my motives, trying to read my furtive glances. But something else, too; something I wasn’t used to seeing in her.

Sadness.

“Well?” she demanded, shouldering her purse with a frown. “You aren’t even going to say hello to me, Jason? You’re not going to welcome me home?”

Home. It had always been such a touchy word between us—she wanted home to be somewhere distant and intriguing, somewhere exotic and amazing with sunsets like fireworks from the heavens. I had wanted the same faraway paradise. Until Dad got sick.

I smiled, pathetically. “Hello, Becca. Welcome home.” And then, because every inch of me was aching to know: “Are…are you staying for the rest of the summer?”

“No. Until Wednesday.” Her voice was flat, cold. I scrambled for conversation material, scanning each item with painful slowness in an attempt to keep her there as long as possible. There was no one else in line, but I wouldn’t have cared if there had been. I hadn’t seen Rebecca in a year.

“How was Georgetown?”

I quickly looked down and resumed the check-out progress, aware that that was probably not the best question to ask. If things had gone as planned, I wouldn’t need to ask—I would’ve spent my freshmen year in D.C. with her.

When she didn’t respond immediately, I stopped fumbling with the bar code on the yogurt bottle and looked up. She was biting her lip and staring at me, and something occurred to me that I had never considered a possibility before—she had missed me, too.

She searched for something in my face, and I hoped fervently that she found what she was looking for.

“Jason, are you doing okay?” She hesitated for a moment, and then, in case I wasn’t aware of the fact: “You’re working at a grocery store.”

Thank you very much, Becca, I hadn’t noticed. Thank you for reminding me that I have a 3.7 GPA but I can’t find the yogurt’s bar code in the check-out lane.

I swallowed down a biting retort. “I’m okay. It pays the bills. I do yard work, too.”

“Yard work?” she whispered. Those blue eyes widened, and I was suddenly and irrationally angry.

“Yes, Rebecca, yard work. And odd jobs around town, too, just because I’m trying to keep a roof over my head and medicine for my father so that he doesn’t die,” I said hotly.

“What do you owe that man, Jason? He’s been nothing but cruel to you, and to your mom too, when she was alive. Have you forgotten all the times he’s hit you over the years?”

“He’s my father!”

“He’s a drunk and an abuser! He hasn’t done anything for you.”

I gripped the counter, staring her down in disbelief. “I can’t just leave him, now that he’s sick. He can’t help himself, and God knows he never saved a penny for retirement all his life. You’re telling me to let my father die?”

“I’m telling you that he’s a waste of your future! Don’t bother with him, Jason. Why are you doing it? You can still get into Georgetown next semester. All my professors adore me. If I told them that I…that you were…maybe we could—”

“Maybe we could what?” I demanded, aware of the acid sarcasm seeping through. “Maybe we could ‘pull some strings’?”

She slapped her wallet against the counter. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say that you didn’t care about college. About Georgetown. About me, Jason! Remember all the plans we made? We had it all figured out.”

With the shrill tone of her voice, I was suddenly hyper-aware of where we were. Thursday evenings in the summer were never very busy for the store—everyone was at the fish fry. But we weren’t completely alone; there was an old man next in line, wheezing softly and rhythmically. He didn’t look too tuned in with his surroundings, but still. We were being loud.

My voice dropped. “You know that’s not fair, Becca. I care.”

“Do you?” she whispered, looking hurt, and that haughty glint in her eyes—the one I’d always loved, knowing she was confident enough to do anything she set her mind to—faded into something much less secure.

Tentatively, I reached across the counter and brushed her cheek. She didn’t pull away, but she flinched slightly. A year ago she’d have grabbed my hand and stroked it, smiled that lopsided smile of hers. Now she just softened a bit around the edges.

“It’s hard.” I swallowed. “You’re right; he’s nothing to me. If I could’ve done anything like this for Mom, before she—”

“If it was your mom,” she said, sounding distant and thoughtful, “I would’ve stayed home too and helped you care for her.” Her eyes hardened. “But your mom’s dead, and she wouldn’t want you to give up everything you’ve ever wanted for that man.”

I couldn’t argue with that—it was entirely true. Mom would have shipped me off to college in Washington D.C. in a millisecond over ensuring that her husband had money to pay for food. But could I live with the weight of knowing I had abandoned him?

I finished unloading everything from her cart, finished scanning everything carefully and double-checking discounts and coupons. I struggled for a moment, trying to find something else to procrastinate having to move on to the next customer.

“Paper or plastic?”

She looked up curiously. “Have you forgotten everything, Jason?”

“Right, paper. I knew that. Just checking.”

It took only a minute to bag everything up, and when I was done she held out the money. Her nails were painted a soft rose-petal pink, and I couldn’t help but smile; that was the nail polish I had given her for her sixteenth birthday. The only reason the bottle had lasted three years was because she insisted on only wearing it around me—and we hadn’t exactly spent very much time with each other for the past ten months.

I took one look at the fifty she had handed me and immediately started counting out her change, but I was shocked to find her curl her tiny hand over mine, pressing the bill into my palm. Her voice was close and soft as honey, and I hardly registered that I was leaning so far over the counter—instead, I was lost in her carefully-glossed lips, brushing across my ear like phantom butterfly kisses.

“Think about it, Jason,” she breathed. “Work hard for the summer, leave your dad some money, get someone down here to make sure he’s eating and staying at least semi-coherent. Just a couple of classes, night classes, maybe, on your scholarship. You can get a day job up there and send money back, and—”

“Becca, I—”

“Please, Jason.” She had trailed into less than a whisper, just biting her lip and looking at me like she’d be lost without me, like I owed it to her to go. “Think about it.”

I watched, trapped in my own muddled haze of duties and opportunities, as she drifted away from my lane and towards the automatic doors. The decrepit old man next in line had been waiting patiently for about five minutes now, and I flashed him a dazed look before coming to my senses. His only response was to squint and inhale deeply, wheezing.

She stopped in the doorway, irritating the motion sensors by not going in or out. The doors vibrated as if they were trying to decide whether to shut or stay open.

"I'm leaving Wednesday," she reminded me, clutching her purse. I couldn't really tell from so far away, but it looked as if she was avoiding direct eye contact and instead focusing on something just above my head. I lifted a hand to smooth out my hair, nervous.

"I--" she broke off and cleared her throat, stepping into the store again and allowing the automatic doors to come to a clashing close behind her. I found myself drifting away from my lane, towards the exit.

"I know you need to care for your dad," she said, shuffling in her stilettos. "But I leave Wednesday. Can we...meet, maybe? Before I go? Sometime when you're off?"

I figured that would not be a good time to tell her that I worked on weekends, too. "Yeah, sure," I said, trying to sound breezy and nonchalant. "Do you need my cell number?"

"Jason, you know I have it memorized." The red blush creeping up in her cheeks made my heart sing. I made a strategic decision not to tell her that I had hers memorized, too, nor to tell her that I had tried for hours after her plane had landed in D.C. to work up the courage and call her immediately. Immediately had turned into a day, and then next week, and then at Christmas break, but eventually I lost the nerve and tried to write a letter instead, which was an equal failure.

"I know. Great, then. I'll see you soon, okay, Becca?"

She smiled briefly, but that one dazzling moment was enough to send me skipping back to my lane with illogical happiness taking over me. The man hobbled up to the counter and coughed for a moment, obviously trying to tell me something—about how I looked just like his grandson, probably. I had heard it countless times before.

I gave him a moment, too elated to worry about some geezer’s hacking spasms. He eventually settled down and leaned up against the counter, steadying himself. It dawned on me that perhaps, as an employee, I should be offering some assistance.

“Sir? Is there…anything I can do?”

He shot me a funny look, but the effect was slightly lost on my ecstasy. “That’s some girl you got there.”

I couldn’t help it; I laughed outright. “I know, sir.”

He shook his head, and by the way his jaw dangled I was afraid it might fly straight off.

“No, no, boy,” he said, alternately chuckling and coughing, “I mean, look.” He pointed to the two full paper bags that were still sitting on top of the conveyor belt. I stared at them in shock.

The old man barked, hunching over. “Girl’s probably too lost staring deep into your eyes, son, to remember her groceries!”

I accepted that explanation happily and without complaint.

[Thanks for reading! ^^ I feel really bad for posting so excessively these past few days, but I'd love some quick opinions before the contest deadlines. Critiques are appreciated! EDIT: And title suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as well?]