The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,20
the toy section.
She had started returning mis-shelved store items a few months ago. The first time, she saw a carton of milk sitting next to the feminine pads. Her only thought was that the milk would go bad if she didn’t get it back to the refrigerated section. The next time, she found a head of lettuce next to some Oreos; she reasoned that if the milk deserved to go back to its home, so did the lettuce. Last week, she had spent ten minutes trying to figure out where they shelved the lemon juice at Albertsons.
Lucy strolled around—keeping an eye out for Gerald—until she found an aisle of pink boxes from floor to ceiling. There were hundreds of Barbies—even a Pioneer Barbie next to a Native American Barbie. What were the little girls supposed to do with those—reenact the fun of Manifest Destiny?
She was about to put Tropical Scent Barbie on her shelf when she saw Gerald Trujillo turn his shopping cart down the aisle.
“Hi, I thought that was you,” he said. God, he looked great. Bright hazel eyes against dark brown hair. His wife was a lucky woman.
“Hi,” she mumbled back.
“Still playing with dolls?” he said, smiling as he looked at the Barbie box in her hand.
Lucy felt her face color. She had no explanation for what she was doing, so she lied.
“I’m thinking of getting my godchild this.”
He nodded. She steeled herself against the next question, which she knew was coming.
“We haven’t seen you around the fire station lately,” he said, without as much accusation as she would have expected. “What have you been up to?”
“Do you want the truth or a lie?” she asked.
He laughed, enough so that his eyes crinkled up. “Well, I think I already know the truth, so tell me a lie, but make it creative.”
“I think I used the abducted-by-aliens lie last time so this time I’ll go with being in jail.”
“What were the charges?” His smile got wider, showing teeth.
“I didn’t get arrested. I just really wanted a prison tattoo.”
“Look, Lucy,” he said, the smile almost gone, “I know you’re busy, we all are, but you made a commitment to the station. If you plan on volunteering with us, you really need to make time for it in your life. Make it a priority. We haven’t seen you in weeks.”
“I know, I know, I suck.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, but if you want to keep your skills as a medic, you need to use them.”
Lucy just nodded, her eyes on the floor. God, she hated feeling guilty.
“How about this,” Gerald said. “I’ll be at the station tomorrow at about eight in the morning. Why don’t you stop by and we can go over some training?”
“If you make it ten instead, I’ll be there.” She had never been a morning person.
They murmured their good-byes and Lucy watched him turn down the aisle. She put Tropical Scent Barbie back where she belonged and started to the front of the store.
She was an aisle or two away when she heard exclamations of acknowledgment. She glanced down an aisle. Gerald was hugging a red-headed woman with a small child in her arms. Lucy felt, rather than heard, them giving each other the ritual Northern New Mexico inquiries: asking after each other’s families. Maybe they had been high school sweethearts or their fathers had bowled together. Lucy felt a pang of … something. Envy? She turned back around and headed to the checkout line, clutching her Lysol closer to her chest as it started to slip. As she stood in line, she noticed that someone had put several packs of gum back in the wrong places. She carefully placed them back where they belonged as she waited in line.
In the parking lot, she unlocked her Toyota Camry and tossed her shopping bag onto the seat. Then she drove to work, not even caring that she was an hour early.
Gil headed back from Taos to Santa Fe, but instead of again following the road that ran along the Rio Grande, he took the highway that went up into the mountains. He noted the mileage and time again, although he already knew that taking the High Road added about ten miles to the trip. Of the two roads leading from Santa Fe to Taos, the High Road is the more famous. When Gil was a uniformed officer working on the Plaza during the summer, he was always giving tourists directions to the High Road, each