the essentials were the same. The posture, the gait, the back of the head: all Duncan. I glanced a little farther down.
Yep: confirmation on the butt, too.
With that came a jolt of panic.
I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do this.
I had to get out of here.
I’d been working in the library all day, wrapping book jackets in plastic and cataloging on the computer, and then I’d gone straight to Babette’s and made a splattery mess of pasta and tomato sauce for her dinner—much of which was on my shirt—and then I’d stayed to do dishes. My eyes were tired, and puffy, and my shoulders were tight. I hadn’t showered that morning, I knew that for sure—and now I couldn’t even remember if I’d put on deodorant. Or brushed my hair.
Nope. This was not the time to meet Duncan Carpenter. Again.
I had to get out of there.
I bent low behind my cart and started following him, figuring it was better to keep him in my sights as I moved toward the checkout aisles. All mindless shopping was now forgotten. He was here! On the island! My island! In my grocery store, of all places!
I can’t tell you how shocking it was to see him. Looking back, I should have just abandoned the coffee and slipped off into the night.
But I actually was out of coffee. Something I couldn’t face the start of school without.
I didn’t want to look directly at him, for fear he might feel it and turn around, so I looked at a spot a few inches to his right, and I kept my eyes there until he took a left at the frozen foods, and I hooked a right into the first available checkout aisle. Then I waited while the clerk scanned a stack of what had to be every single frozen dinner in the place for an old man on a walker.
Should I have had compassion for the old man? Of course.
Was it likely he was a widower, now fending for himself after losing the love of his life—the way Babette was? Or possibly doing a weekly shop for some pals who just needed sustenance? Or maybe he was ill, and microwave meals were all he could accomplish? Everybody had a story. But I didn’t have time for sympathy. I had to get out of there. I stood behind him impatiently—actually, literally tapping my toe—as the frozen boxes glitched the bar-code scanner again and again, my anxiety rising.
Can I just add that the clerk was about as sharp as a marble? He didn’t think—or didn’t know how—to manually enter the item numbers, and so when the scanner didn’t beep, he’d just scan it again, and again, and again. Then he’d wipe the scanner off with his shirt hem, or blow on it, or talk to it in a stern voice.
Seven thousand frozen dinners later, I wanted to bang my head against the conveyor belt. But I held still. Absolutely still. Because it was just as the old man was finally all rung up and counting out his exact change—in ones and nickels, for the love of God—that I heard a cart rolling up behind me. Heard it, and then felt it—because it slammed into my butt.
“Whoa. I’m sorry,” the pusher of the cart said, now just feet behind me.
Duncan Carpenter.
I hadn’t heard that voice in over four years, but I knew it in an instant.
When I’d identified his gait in the aisle, I’d been 90 percent sure it was him. When I’d taken a glancing ogle at his butt, I’d bumped the percentage to 99. And now, with the voice, we could make it an even 100. It was him. No doubt. No wiggle room. There was not even the slightest possibility that here, in my sauce-splattered shirt, I’d just been butt-bumped by someone else.
I only knew one thing in that moment.
I wasn’t turning around.
I would leave my coffee behind before I’d turn around. I’d shove that old man on the walker out of the way before I’d turn around. I would get down on my hands and knees and crawl my way out to the parking lot before I’d turn around.
When I didn’t respond to “I’m sorry,” he tried again with, “Didn’t quite hit the brakes fast enough.”
Guess what I wasn’t going to do? Turn around.
I just lifted my hand and flicked it, like Whatever.
Then I stood there. And just ignored him.
When it was time to pay for my one can of coffee, I didn’t even turn—just