The muumuu lady was slowed by her shopping basket, which was filled with bottles of something called Vita-Caff. Coach Wittstock grabbed her by the collar of her dress and hauled her backward. Her basket went flying and the bottles scattered, several rolling toward Jared, Mary, and Molly.
“No!” she shouted. “No, please! We can share! We can sh—”
“You scarfed up everything that was left,” Coach Wittstock snarled. “You call that sharing? I need some of these for my wife.”
The coach and the muumuu lady grubbed on the floor after the bottles. He shoved her into one of the shelves, sending down a cascade of aspirin cartons. “You bully!” she cried. “You big mean bully!”
Jared stepped forward without thinking about it, put his foot on top of Coach Wittstock’s balding head, and drove it sideways. Coach Wittstock went sprawling. The lady began to refill her basket. Coach crouched behind her for a moment: three-point stance, eyes shifting from side to side. The tread of Jared’s sneaker was faintly printed on his pate. Then he sprang forward and snatched the half-filled basket with the spry athleticism of a monkey stealing an orange. He sprinted past Jared (sparing him a stinkeye glare that said I’ll remember your face, bud), bumping his shoulder and sending him spinning down with Molly still on his back. They hit the floor and Molly wailed.
Mary started toward them. Jared shook his head. “We’re all right. Make sure she is.” Looking at the muumuu lady, who was gathering up the few bottles of Vita-Caff Coach Wittstock had missed.
Mary dropped to one knee. “Ma’am, are you okay?”
“I think so,” she said. “Just shaken up. Why would that man… I suppose he said he had a wife… maybe a daughter… but I also have a daughter.”
Her purse had ended up halfway down the littered aisle. It was ignored by the shoppers squabbling over the few remaining bottles of supplements. Jared helped Molly up and returned the purse to the lady. She put the Vita-Caff bottles inside.
“I shall pay for these another day,” she said. And, as Mary assisted her to her feet: “Thank you. I shop here all the time, and some of these people are my neighbors, but I don’t know any of them tonight.”
She limped away, holding her purse tight against her chest.
“I want to go back to Gram’s!” Molly cried.
“You get the stuff,” Mary said to Jared. “Her name is Norma, and she’s got a lot of frizzy blond hair. I’ll take Molly back to the car.”
“I know. Mrs. Ransom told me,” Jared said. “Be careful.”
She moved away, leading Molly by the hand, and then turned back. “If she’s reluctant to sell to you, tell her that Eric Blass sent you. That might help.”
She must have seen the hurt in his eyes, because she gave a little wince before half-running for the front of the store, bent protectively over the frightened girl.
A man was standing halfway down the long produce section, smoking a cigarette. He was dressed in white pants and a white smock top with PRODUCE MANAGER on the left breast in red thread. He wore an almost peaceful expression on his face as he watched the pandemonium that had engulfed his store.
He saw Jared approach, nodded at him, and spoke as if resuming a conversation they’d been having. “This shit will quiet down after all the women are asleep. They cause most of the trouble, you know. You’re looking at a man who knows. I’m a three-time loser in the marriage wars. Not just a loser, either. Routed I’ve been, each time. Like matrimony is Vicksburg, and I’m the Confederacy.”
“I’m looking for—”
“Norma, most likely,” the produce manager said.
“Is she here?”
“Nope. Left half an hour ago, after she sold the last of her product. Except for the stuff she kept for herself, I suppose. But I’ve got some fresh blueberries. Add em to your cereal, perks it right up.”
“Thanks, I’ll pass,” Jared said.
“There is a bright side,” the produce manager said. “My alimony payments will soon cease. The South rises again. We been kilt, but we ain’t whupped yet.”
“What?”
“Just kilt, not whupped. ‘I’ll bring you a piece of Lincoln’s tailcoat, colonel.’ It’s Faulkner. Don’t they teach you kids anything in school these days?”
Jared made his way toward the front of the store, avoiding the scrum at the checkout lanes. Several stations were unattended, and shoppers were hurrying through them with loaded baskets.
Outside, a man in a checkered shirt sat on the bus bench with a shopping basket on his lap. It was loaded with cans of Maxwell House. He caught Jared’s eye. “My wife is napping,” he declared, “but I’m sure she’ll wake up soon.”
“Hope that works out for you,” Jared said, and broke into a run.
Mary was in the passenger seat of the Datsun with Molly on her lap. She gave the girl a shake as Jared got in behind the wheel, and spoke in a too-loud voice. “Here he is, here he is, it’s our pal Jared!”
“Hi, Jared,” Molly said in a hoarse, teary voice.
“Molly was getting all sleepy,” Mary said in that same too-loud, too-jolly voice. “But she’s awake now. Wiiiiide awake! We both are, aren’t we, Mols? Tell us some more about Olive, why don’t you?”
The little girl climbed out of Mary’s lap and into the backseat. “I don’t want to.”
“Did you get it?” Mary’s voice was low now. Low and strained. “Did you—”
Jared started the car. “She’s gone. A lot of other people got there first. You’re out of luck. Mrs. Ransom, too.”
He left the Shopwell parking lot fast, wheeling effortlessly around the cars that tried to get in his way. He was too upset to worry about his driving, and thus did it better than ever before.
“Are we going to Gram’s now? I want to go to Gram’s.”
“Right after I drop Mary,” Jared said. “She needs to call her bestie Eric, see if he’s holding.” It felt good for a second to strike at her, to unload the fear that was running through him. Only for a second, though. It was childish crap. He hated it and yet he couldn’t seem to help it.
“What do you mean ‘holding’?” Molly asked, but no one answered her.
It was twilight when they got to the Pak house. Jared pulled into the driveway and put Mrs. Ransom’s Datsun in park.
Mary peered at him in the gathering gloom of Aurora’s first night. “Jere. I wasn’t going with him to see Arcade Fire. I was going to break the date.”
He said nothing. Maybe she was telling the truth, maybe she wasn’t. All he knew was that she and Eric were chummy enough for Eric to have given her the name of a local dope dealer.
“You’re being a baby,” Mary said.
Jared stared straight ahead.
“Okay, then,” Mary said. “Okay, baby. Baby wants his bottle. The hell with it. And you.”
“You two are fighting like my mother and father,” Molly said, and began to cry again. “I wish you’d stop. I wish you’d be boyfriend and girlfriend again.”
Mary got out, slammed the door, and started up the driveway.
She had almost reached the back stoop when Jared realized that there was an actual possibility that the next time he saw her, she might be buried in a white shroud of unknown origin. He looked at Molly and said, “Keep your eyes open. If you fall asleep, I’ll knock your block off.”
Jared climbed out of the car and ran after Mary. He caught her just as she was opening the back door. She turned to him, startled. A cloud of moths circled the overhead light, and her face was dappled with their weaving shadows.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Mary, I’m really sorry. It’s just so crazy. For all I know my mother’s asleep in her car somewhere, and I’m scared, and I couldn’t get what you needed and I’m sorry.”