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Faces jerk toward me, but I’m less concerned about people doing their shopping than I am with the predatory pimps at my back.
As I turn to the grocery store entrance, the two men from the street shove themselves through the door, their breaths nearly as labored as mine.
Their eyes narrow as they prowl toward me.
9
SAIGE
Around-faced man in a black jacket with a neon yellow security patch steps between me and the two pimps.
“You can’t be in here.” The security guard’s gruff words make me halt my slow retreat from the grocery store entrance.
I can’t see around his wide shoulders, so I don’t know how the two guys who were chasing me are taking it. Not well, probably. So I start backing up again just in case they turn nasty.
But when the sliding door opens and footsteps move away rather than toward me, I guess the pimps must know not to cause trouble here. Which means I’m okay.
At least while I’m in here. But out there?
The security guard swings around. I snatch up an empty basket beside me. Long after I’ve taken a few steps away, I feel his suspicious black gaze boring into my back.
I pass a refrigerator and grab a bottle of iced coffee that I slip into my basket. In the mirror beside it, my eyes glimpse a too-thin woman with wild dark hair, haunted blue eyes, small red cuts over her face, and a large white bandage taped to the right side of her forehead.
You look terrible.
The cop's words echo in my head.If I had a girl who looked like that, I’d fuck her six ways from Sunday.
Nothing about my face would make a guy look twice.
But then I remember what just happened outside.
Things go in my basket. What, I couldn’t tell you. But as I pad barefoot around the store, snatching items at random that I throw in my basket, out of the corner of my eye, the security guard trails me at a distance.
That he hasn’t tossed me out already is a mystery I doubt I’ll ever work out.
None of the few other customers in the store say anything as I pass them. I keep an aisle between us, but I feel their attention linger on my hospital gown and my bare feet.
I’m heading to the counter with my basket when a guy in a smart, white shirt and black pants beats me to it. When I glimpse a basket nearly overflowing with limes for the party he must be having, I do another round of the store.
Looks like he’ll be awhile.
After another quick weave around the small grocery store, I return to the counter just in time because the cashier is bagging up the last of his limes, so I stand behind him, leaving two feet of space between us.
But I can still smell him. I don’t know what cologne he uses, but it’s expensive. Felix would—
I catch myself before my thoughts can drag me back into memories I’d rather let die. Instead, I focus on the spicy cedar scent of the man in front of me, his thick white-blond hair, and the rapidly filling plastic bag of limes.
Must be some party he’s going to if he needs that many for one night.
“That’ll be sixty dollars and ninety-five cents, Aden. You need anything else tonight?”
The cashier likes him, this Aden with the bag of limes, expensive cologne, and thick blond hair. It’s plain to hear in his voice.
“Just these. But who knows what we’ll run out of later?” Aden laughs. And I know he likes the cashier too.
If two pimps hadn’t just chased me up the road, and this store didn’t seem to need a security guard, I’d think this was a nice neighborhood, wherever we are in the city.
“Well, whatever you need,” the cashier says, puffing out his chest, “we have it or we can get it for you.”
