you to wear big green bridesmaid dresses.”
I struggled for some other reason to object. Just as I settled on the idea that bridesmaids are supposed to be mute and beautiful, a row of silent eye candy for the wedding attendees to objectify, Yolanda jumped in.
“I know you hate being in a situation where you can’t talk,” she said, “so I wanted to know if you’d like to give a reading, too. A little poetry, a quote about love, you pick. Okay?”
I felt myself tear up. Yolanda knows me so well. Why haven’t I made an effort to keep up with her and my other girls? It’s not as if my dance card is full. I told her I’d be honored. When we hung up I wiped my eyes and headed back into Whole Foods.
The rest of my shift, I found myself keeping a watchful eye on Dirty Steve but I saw no signs of gastric distress. In fact, he was as surly and abusive as ever. “Hey, Señor Slowpoke!” he yelled at Jason. “Hurry up with that coleslaw.”
“That’s a microaggression and—at even a less progressive company—a fireable offense!” I thundered.
“Shut up, Poxy Roxy,” Dirty Steve said. “Why don’t you go make a batch of meatballs?” Dirty Steve knows that, as a vegan, I detest the squish of ground meat between my fingers. I suddenly felt certain that a case of ex-lax two-step WAS fitting retribution.
I went outside to join Jason and Nelson on their smoke break (as usual, they offered me a cigarette and as usual, I countered that I was fine with my kombucha). I ended up complaining about Dirty Steve, and finally confessed about the brownies. Jason smiled and put his hand on my arm when he said, “Gracias, guapa. Just what that pendejo deserves.” It’s rare for Jason to dip into Spanglish and it seemed like a little intimacy-reward for the risk I had taken.
It made me all the more furious Dirty Steve had called him such an awful nickname. I hate “Poxy Roxy,” but what Steve called Jason was so much worse. “You know, Annie told me if we ever wanted, she could complain to Topher Doyle about Dirty Steve. You know, tell him what the deal is.”
For a moment we contemplated the possibility in silence.
“I don’t hate Dirty Steve,” Jason said with a shrug. “I mean, I’m glad he’s about to have the Texas two-step, but I don’t hate him.”
“If some corporate lackey replaces him it’ll be so much harder to slack off and steal food,” Nelson said. “Also, that asshole gives this place character.”
I had to admit the truth of his statement. Whole Foods, once a local hippy grocery store, is now turning into the McDonald’s of health-food chains. You can buy kung pao tofu in a Whole Foods deli in Boulder, Colorado, or Austin, Texas, or Manhattan and it’ll taste the same. In a way, Dirty Steve is a throwback to a time when the store, and this town itself, was a little less clean scrubbed, and not yet on commodified offer to the world. Dirty Steve doesn’t represent a part of the old Austin that I love, per se, but it’s a part that I’ll be a little nostalgic for once it’s gone completely.
“You’re right. Fuck that guy,” I said. “We won’t rat him out to Corporate, ’cause we can handle him ourselves.”
Nelson pulled out a little pipe and we all took a hit. As I breathed in, I imagined myself as an empty vessel, receiving the gift of the smoke. When I handed the pipe to Jason, our hands touched and I felt a proverbial spark. He has a girlfriend and it was nothing, really, but enough to keep me from even thinking about a walk down Beer Alley. Lucky for me, because the last thing I need right now is a rare disease that gives me an acne beard.
Contemplatively,
Roxy
August 20, 2012
Dear Everett,
I was off work today so I asked Artemis if she wanted to go with Roscoe and me down to the Hike and Bike Trail for a walk. She gave me her address—somewhere off Old Enfield Road. I figured she’d live in some crappy old apartment complex, one of the ones that’s destined for the demo crew in the next few years. But when I pulled up to the address, I saw it was a nouveau mid-century-modern town house. (Sugar daddy jokes aside—where does she get her money?) I was going to park and knock, but Artemis was already