Page 40 - WTP Vol. XI #2

The binders are going two for $5, and the only colors left are neon green and neon orange. They jut out at odd angles from the beaten yellow card- board bins. She slots her hand between two blinding spines, digging downward until her fingers are hid- den completely by mountains of hard plastic. If she can’t see the binder, maybe it will be delicate écru or royal blue.
She dredges up a binder, knuckles scratched from way- ward metal edges, and lets it dangle loosely between her ring finger and pinky when she sees that it is class- birthday-party–Jell-O orange. Rose won’t like this.
Rose won’t like that her mother is shopping at Walmart at all: Target is where everyone gets their school supplies, where everyone buys gold-sprayed metal wire shelves and magnetic photo frames and pastel cork boards for their lockers. Walmart is
for getting cancer from powdered soup bases and Great Value brownies defrosted under flickering bakery lights.
She has already calculated what she can and cannot stand. She can stand going shopping before the week- end, before Rose ambushes her father during his post–Shark Tank nap and inevitably comes away with Paul’s “yeah, of course, sweetie, whatever you want” waved in a victorious, invisible fist in her mother’s face. She could even stand watching Rose bat away the thread-thin Walmart bag to reveal a flimsy Walmart binder: “Mom, seriously?”
“Excuse me? Do you have more colors in stock?” The Walmart employee doesn’t look at her, keeps
stacking notebooks onto a nearby table. “No. Couple teachers came in a couple weeks ago, bought almost all the other binders. Guess they didn’t like the green and orange ones.” An empty box ricochets off a care- less foot and crashes into a rusting shelf of white- boards. He slits open a new one with a knife. “Check back in a couple weeks, maybe. We usually get more colors after the back to school rush is over.”
She tosses a neon orange binder into her cart, kicks a wobbly wheel back into place before moving on. It’s been years since her kids were born—Rose and then Alicia, nerve-wracking and then perfunctory—and years since she turned in her two weeks at Reigel & Reigel, but it still amazes her how many people are out at 2 o’clock on a Tuesday. She can’t imagine most of them are housewives or unemployed—there are too many of them, and few are at retirement age. But not all of them can be on their lunch breaks, either, and few people would spend their lunch breaks at Walmart. They’d make dates with their spouses, lunch for their kids, time to see their parents. There must be an entire echelon of people in the world
who live lives outside of the nine to five, are neither employed nor unemployed, and are neither married nor unmarried. They are goblin people or something close to the sort. Fantastical, unreal, government- project type of—
“TWO BAGS FOR JUST TEN DOLLARS!” A blue-vest- clad employee in the produce aisle broke out of his crowd of admirers and thrust a handful of loose cherries at her. “Ma’am, two for ten?”’
“No, thank you.”
“It’s the best price we’ve had all year! Cherry season is ending, and you should pick some as soon—”
“I’m not interested. My daughter is allergic,” she lies. The man’s lips relax upwards into a neutral line,
and he nods before melting back into the crowd. His barking resumes as she navigates a sharp turn into frozen pizzas and ice creams.
She’s checking off a few things on her grocery list— bread, beef, the new Danielle Steel—when a text flashes on her phone.
Drinks after work tonight. Be back late.
Her lips are chapped. She moistens them with two quick licks, darting her eyes around to see if any-
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Mother, Other
KAthRyn lee