Reminders of Him

No one warned me there could be job hazards on the first day, though.

That job hazard is named Ledger, and even though I haven’t laid eyes on him, I just spotted his ugly orange truck in the parking lot.

My pulse speeds up because I don’t want him to make a scene. I haven’t seen him since he showed up at my apartment Saturday night to check on me.

I think I handled myself pretty well. He seemed remorseful for treating me the way he did, but I kept my cool and acted unfazed, even though his showing back up definitely fazed me.

It gave me a little bit of hope. If he feels bad enough for how he treated me, maybe there’s a chance he could eventually grow empathetic toward my situation.

I’m sure it’s a small chance, but it’s still a chance.

Maybe I shouldn’t avoid him. Being in his presence might make him realize I’m not the monster he thinks I am.

I walk back inside the store and return the grocery cart to the rack. Amy is behind the customer service counter.

“Can I take a bathroom break?”

“You don’t have to ask permission to pee,” she says. “Remember how we met? I fake pee every hour when I’m here. It’s the only way I stay sane.”

I really like her.

I don’t have to use the restroom. I just want to walk around and see if I can spot Ledger. Part of me hopes he’s here with Diem, but I know he isn’t. He saw me applying for a job here, which means he’ll likely never bring Diem inside this store ever again.

I eventually find him in the cereal aisle. I was planning to just spy on him so I can keep tabs on him while he shops, but he’s at the same end of the aisle I appear at, and he spots me as soon as I see him. We’re just four feet apart from one another. He’s holding a box of Fruity Pebbles.

I wonder if those are for Diem.

“You got the job.” Ledger says this without any hint as to whether he even cares that I got the job, or if he’s bothered by it. I’m sure if he’s that bothered by it, he would have shopped somewhere else today. It’s not like he didn’t know I was trying to get a job here.

He’s going to have to find a new store if it bothers him because I’m not going anywhere. I can’t. No one else will hire me.

I look up from the box of cereal in his hands and immediately wish I hadn’t. He looks different today. Maybe it’s the fluorescent lighting or the fact that when I’m in his presence, I’m attempting not to look at him too closely. But here in the cereal aisle, the lights seem to illuminate him.

I hate that he looks better under fluorescent lighting. How is that even possible? His eyes are friendlier, his mouth is even more inviting, and I don’t like that I’m thinking good things about the man who physically pulled me away from the house my daughter was in.

I leave the cereal aisle with a new lump in my throat.

I changed my mind; I don’t want to be nice to him. He’s already spent five years judging me. I’m not going to change his view of me in the aisle of a grocery store, and I get too flustered in his presence to give him any semblance of a good impression.

I try to time things so that I’m not available when he checks out, but as karma would have it, the other grocery baggers on duty are all busy. I get called to his lane to bag his groceries, which means I’ll have to walk them out to his truck and converse with him and be nice.

I don’t make eye contact with him, but I can feel him watching me as I separate his food into sacks.

There’s something intimate about knowing what everyone in this town is buying for their kitchens. I feel like I can almost define a person based on their groceries. Single women buy a lot of healthy food. Single men buy a lot of steak and frozen dinners. Large families buy a lot of bulk meat and produce.

Ledger gets frozen dinners, steak, Worcestershire sauce, Pringles, animal crackers, Fruity Pebbles, milk, chocolate milk, and a lot more Gatorade. Based on his selections, I conclude he’s a single guy who spends a lot of time with my daughter.

The last items the cashier rings up are three cans of SpaghettiOs. I’m jealous he knows what my daughter likes, and that jealousy shows in the way I toss the cans into the sack and then into the cart with a thud.

The cashier side-eyes me as Ledger pays for the groceries. Once he gets his receipt, he folds it up and puts it in his billfold while walking to the cart. “I can get it.”