Grocery Shopping

When she and Tony first moved to the city they had to bus 15 miles on Sundays to the grocery outlet for cheaper food. They referred to the afternoon as Groce-Out, and did it together so they wouldn’t have to do it alone.

These money saving strategies were mostly Cynthia’s idea. They worked, eventually, but at the time they both hated it. Not just the Groce-Out, but everything. The carpet box they settled for out on the Hundred Teenth block (it looked okay on Craigslist). All the mildewed outliers waiting for their bus to Wal-Mart. Knowing no one and being poor as shit. It was an ugly transition. Almost like we never left, Cynthia would say. But in just a few months they’d find a couple-friendly sharehouse down on Mississippi and look back on 117th like it was funny, and then even embarrassing, especially after they split.

The day before Tony’s flight to Hawaii, they met up for coffee downtown and spent the day together. They sat close beside each other in a deep couch in the haut lobby adjacent to the café and talked about how Tony was getting to the airport in the morning. The space was stacked with a Sunday rush. The cloudy air smelled sour like roasted coffee, and was filled with dish noise and espresso hissing. This was five years after they first moved into 117th, and already two years since they split. Both were noticeably leaner now, drinking more and eating less, and sexier in each others’ minds somehow— more electric than they had ever been to each other back in Boisie.

Cynthia liked how Tony’s girlfriend Senjii, who worked a job she hated at a fashionable clothing exchange, picked out tighter fitting jeans for Tony to wear. I was always telling him he should do that, she thought.

Tony, meanwhile, admired the thick callous of cool charm Cynthia had developed over the years. It’s probably the museum people, he speculated. She was elusive and opaque now, and he found it oddly alluring.

At a lull in their conversation, Cynthia zoned out staring at the sticky remains of her chai latté, swirling the brown puddle around the bottom of her cup. As though fearing she might up and leave out of boredom, Tony nudged her in the ribs with his elbow and said something nostalgic about 117th. Back then it was just us, he said. Groce-Out runs on Sunday… Movies Mondays…

She seemed to hesitate for a moment, changing her posture, looking up and away as if suddenly realizing she forgot his name, and pulled her bangs behind her ear.

—I always think of this one guy, Joe.

—Joe?

—You probably wouldn’t remember him.

Tony assumed this doomed just-tell-me expression and set his cup on the table. Sometimes, in the morning, he wondered whether she had been with other guys when they were together, and hoped she’d never tell him.

—Someone you knew from work?

—No, no-not like that. He was this homeless guy I met on the bus, once, on our way from Groce-Out. I think you were reading one of your sustainability books or something, with your headphones on. He really liked me. Sang Smokey Robinson songs to me the whole ride, claiming he was his second cousin. A native guy—Joe—but he must have had a white mom or dad because his skin was white, and he had light blue eyes. Deep acne scars on his face, and slicked back black hair.

—What did he say to you?

—Nothing really. Just sang Smokey Robinson and went on and on about how he was his second cousin. Anyway. A week after that Groce-Out, I think, maybe two, I was walking down to the Walgreens for cigarettes and saw this paper sign tacked up to an electrical pole with his picture on it, saying he was missing. Never mentioned it to you though.

—Why not?

—I dunno. Strange thing is I still can’t remember whether the sign said he was missing before or after I saw him on the bus. Guess I felt guilty about that.

—Guilty why?

—Guilty that I remembered everything but the important part. I think it’s why I never told you. Maybe it’s why I always think of it.