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Chapter Twenty-Three
Lennox
“You know how to drivea forklift?”
I managed to steer the overflowing cart around the corner and skidded to a stop next to Meg. “A forklift?” I asked. “Uh, no. Why do we need a forklift?” Meg was all over the place when she talked, so I wasn’t super surprised by the random question.
Meg tipped her head back and pointed at a pallet of macaroni and cheese that was twenty feet up in the air. “Because my grandbabies love the box mac and cheese even though I make way better homemade, and we are all out of the boxed stuff at the clubhouse.”
Over an hour ago, Meg and I had pulled up to that bulk grocery store everyone loved. This hadn’t been the type of shopping I thought she meant when she asked me to come, but it was still a good time. We each had a cart that was stacked to the top and still have four more aisles to go down.
“Uh, maybe they have it somewhere else?” I suggested.
Meg shook her head and pointed to the empty pallet on the floor in front of us. “Negative, ghost whisperer.”
I was pretty sure it was supposed to be ghost rider, but I had learned over the past couple of weeks that whatever Meg said was what she meant, even if it wasn’t exactly right.
She parked her cart to the side and pulled her hair up into a ponytail. “I’m going to need you to cover me.”
“Cover you?” I gasped. “What are you going to do? Climb the racking?”
Meg scoffed and shook her head. “What do I look like to you, Spiderman?” She nodded behind me. “I’m going to get on that pretty baby, and you’re going to spot me. It’s pretty tight in here, and I’m a little rusty driving one of those.”
“Those what?” I asked. I turned and saw a funny-looking machine that had forks on the front.
“What is that?”
“Well, in laymen's terms, it’s a forklift. In the warehouse world I used to thrive in, we called it a Crown. You sit sideways, control the speed with one of the handles, and the other moves the forks up and down. And you gotta have your feet on the pedals; otherwise, it won’t move.” She pushed my cart back and jogged over to the Crown. “Did I tell you about the time I was working and I lost control? Almost took my damn foot off.” She hopped up in the machine and laughed. “Feels like home.”
I blinked rapidly and panicked. She was about to steal a forklift to get a pallet of mac and cheese down, and in the midst of possibly committing a misdemeanor, she tells me she almost killed herself on one before. What in the what?!
“Meg,” I hissed. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
She turned in the seat and looked down at me. “The only reason I wouldn’t be doing this is if the keys weren’t here.” She lifted her hand and jingled a set of keys. “Billy Bob Forklift should have known to take the keys out.” She stuck the keys in the ignition and turn the lift on.
This was not a good idea.
This had the potential to end very,verybadly.
She nudged one of the handles forward, and the forks jerkily raised. “Oh, yeah, now I remember.” She smiled over her shoulder at me. “Cover me.”
“Just how exactly am I supposed to cover you?” I hissed. She was riding around on a machine that could easily run both of us over.Cover her?
She backed up and raised her feet. The machine stopped instantly and rocked back and forth. “One night I was cruising at about twenty, ready to go home, and I went to turn, but my glove got caught. I got all squirrelly and headed straight for a brick wall. At the last minute, I remembered to lift my foot to stop, but I had too much momentum behind me to stop instantly. Me, being the sometimes dumbass that I am, stuck my foot out to stop this heavy ass machine.”
My eyes widened, and I dropped my chin to my chest.
“Yeah, not my best moment. I was also wearing steel toes which pretty much saved me from being One Foot Meg for the rest of my life. Also, the maintenance guy was pretty pissed when I called him down to the warehouse and had to explain how the electric box got smashed.” She slowly moved forward and turned down the aisle with the mac and cheese. “Looking back, it’s pretty funny, but at the time, I was sure I was going to lose my job. Remy was barely seven, and I was hardly making it paycheck to paycheck.” She started to turn and raised her forks. “Oh, yeah, this is totally like riding a bicycle. I used to do this in my sleep,” she bragged. She stopped until the forks were way up in the air, and she scooted right under the pallet.
“Like a glove,” she cried. She raised the pallet up until it wasn’t touching the racking and slowly backed up. “Easy, baby,” she whispered.
The pallet rocked precariously in the air, and she slowly lowered it.
“Ma’am!” someone called.
“Oh shit,” Meg muttered. She slammed the handle down to set the pallet down, and a loud crack and crunch of wood sounded. “I used to do that at work all the time. It’s just the pallet I banged up.”
