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I twist to find a young boy, maybe three, or four, years old, with scraggly brown hair, his bright blue eyes watching me from behind thick glasses that seem to magnify them. I’m guessing the woman reaching for a gallon of milk next to him, with her back to me, is his mother. With a smile, I wave back at him, and he turns his head away, as if shy.

It’s when I turn back to what I was doing that I notice his mother’s profile.

Not the glowing, olive skin tone of her Houma heritage, or the exotic upturn at the corner of her eyes, giving her a sort of feline allure that sets my memory off. I’d never remember her that way, given how much she’s changed over the years. No, it’s the long, black, spiral curls cascading over where Dejarae, her family name, is tattooed on her shoulder that has the back of my neck prickling the way it does when I get a feeling about something.

The woman takes the little boy’s hand and moves along toward the cereal aisle. Keeping a short distance behind them, I follow, careful not to draw the attention of the little boy, who seems far more aware of his surroundings than his mother.

“Which kind you want, baby?”

At the sound of her voice, I’m taken back nearly ten years into the past.

“What candy do you want, Cely?” Brie’s older sister, Marcelle, stares down at me, holding the change from the cash my daddy gave me. “They got JuJuBes, bubble gum, or Good & Plenty.”

“No Red Vines?” The only kind of candy I liked was Red Vines. Not Twizzlers. And definitely not the kind she rattled off.

“Ain’t enough money for those and popcorn, too.”

I had to sacrifice some of my cash to pay for Marcelle’s ticket, otherwise we wouldn’t be going to the movies, at all, since she spent all her allowance on makeup.

“Okay.” It’s hard to hide the disappointment in my voice. “Get what you want.”

“JuJuBes it is.” As she pays for the popcorn and candy, Brie and I wait at the opposite end of the counter, where I eye the rack of more expensive candy.

Behind me, Brie toys with the fountain drink machine, trying to catch ice cubes from the dispenser. The theater is mostly empty, aside from one, or two, people standing in line for snacks.

Biting my bottom lip, I stare at the pack of Red Vines. Right there. In front of me. I mean, why would they set them there, where someone could easily take them?

“Excuse me.” The voice brings me to staring back at the woman, who tips her head, expectantly.

“I’m sorry?” Confusion hangs like a cloud inside my head, having gotten caught up in daydreams.

“I need the box of Captain Crunch. Behind you.” Though she carries a slight Valir accent, her words are a bit more articulate than some folks on this island. I’m guessing that’s due to the fact that the younger generation just doesn’t speak it as fluently as the older. Unlike Cajun, it adopts more traditionally French phrases, and there seems to be a degree to which it’s spoken here. For some, it’s fairly thick, and for others, nothing more than an accent.

“Oh!” Breaking out of my stupor, I step aside for her, and her son’s curious eyes are on me again.

“Dat lady is pwetty, huh, Momma?” The cuteness of his little voice is made all the more adorably unbearable by the accent that clings to it.

Pressing my lips together to hide a smile, I look up to see the woman giving me a onceover out of the corner of her eye. Could she possibly recognize me after all these years? I’ve changed the color of my hair a few times, my name each time we moved from one place to another. But at the core, I’m still Céleste. Surely, she has to see some small flicker of that?

When she stares back at me, though, I notice the dilated pupils, the exhaustion tugging the corner of her eyes. Maybe pain. She’s high. That much I can pinpoint in her lengthy gaze, and I won’t dare say a word and risk a scene.

Like Russ said, I can’t draw attention. No questions. But damn. Drugs? I don’t remember much about Brie’s older sister, but the sketchy fragments I do remember paint a picture of a book-smart girl who wouldn’t have touched them.

Unless my head has twisted some of my memories into a whole different picture.

“She is, ain’t she, baby?”

“That’s … Thank you.” I’m the queen of awkward encounters. Doesn’t matter that he’s only three, or four, years old. Kids, in particular, make me nervous, the way they stare like they can see right through a person. I’m just waiting for him to blurt out that I’m carrying a fake ID in my wallet.

Abandoning my stalking, I head toward the checkout, where the clerk manhandles my sandwich as she drags it over the scanner, loosening a small corner of the plastic wrap. The smashed tuna half leaking from the hole she’s opened suddenly doesn’t look so appealing, particularly when she scrapes her finger over the dribbled bits and wipes it on her apron, before closing the sandwich in again.

Five bucks for a sandwich fondled by hands that have touched God knows what on all that cash.

Swallowing back the urge to puke, I make my way out to the truck and toss the food onto the seat beside me. “Should’ve opted for Popeyes, I guess.”

Russ always called fast food fake food. He often joked that the chicken was actually a powdered mix of discarded parts that’d been ground down into patties and tossed into a deep fryer. Though, even that sounds better than my mangled tuna sandwich right now.

Glancing up, I see who I’m certain is Marcelle and her son exiting the store, making their way across the parking lot toward a beat-up sedan that makes Russ’s truck look like the luxury edition. As I fire up my own vehicle, a part of me is tempted to follow her, if only for the chance of getting to see Brie again. When I shift the truck into reverse and begin to back out, the bag beside me tips, and the sandwich tumbles out, onto the floor.