Cole smiled out of habit, then realized the man couldn’t see his mouth, and nodded. “Good evening.” He jogged a few steps, catching up with his paper bag girlfriend, and lowered his head to her. “He knows it’s us,” he murmured.
“Of course he does,” she said, her giant head turning to look up at him, her hazel eyes shining. “Now, Mr. Masten, let me properly welcome you to the beauty that is Walmart.”
She stopped, in the middle of the wide, main aisle, and spread her arms. Spun around a little and stopped. Did a curtsy for no apparent reason and then laughed.
“The list,” he reminded her.
“Oh yes.” She dug in her purse, her head tilted down, hand holding her mask in place against her mouth. “Here.” She shook it out and, from a register halfway down, a blue-aproned employee walked to the end of her aisle and stared at them. “Corn, string cheese, pasta, spaghetti, cabbage, berries, dried peas, plastic bottles, ice cream and whipped cream.” Her words ran together in a line, the last set as one long mashed together word.
“Whipped cream?” he repeated the last one, confused.
She tugged at the bottom of her bag as if to make sure that it was still on. “I always wanted a guy to lick whipped cream off me. Scott was never that adventurous.” She shrugged her shoulders, and the bag moved slightly as she shook her head. “You might be my last chance.”
The woman thought that whipped cream was adventurous. “Okay…” he said slowly. “Whipped cream.”
She tilted her head. “Your face is so sad, I can’t tell if you think that is a good idea or a bad one.”
He stepped closer and looked down at her big-eyed, bright-lipped face. “Woman, I think it’s an incredible idea. I will buy every single can they have in stock.”
Laughter bubbled out of her, and this truce was the best idea he’d ever had. “I like when you call me woman. And don’t be so eager. This is Walmart. They will have a gazillion cans in stock.”
He looked down at her and was glad that she couldn’t see his face. I like when you call me woman. He wanted to call her a lot more than that. Only one month of filming left. The sudden thought was sobering. Not enough time to figure out if his post-sex epiphany was true. Not enough time to properly win her heart.
CHAPTER 100
I wanted to split up. Divide and conquer, that was the best strategy when dealing with the enormity that was a superstore. But Cole said no, that we needed to stick together, and when his old man bag face said something, I couldn’t seem to say no. We should wear these all the time. Behind mine I felt fearless, like the words coming out of me weren’t mine at all, but those of some other, braver, more confident individual. Whipped cream? Where did that come from? And did I actually tell him I wanted him to lick it off? I should have been mortified, but I wasn’t. I felt free.
We took the scenic route through the store, stopping at the sunglass stand—our bag heads too big for proper modeling—then the toys section, a heated discussion erupting over a wall of board games and puzzles. We decided on Taboo and Scrabble, then got distracted with a cartwheel competition: Cole bet me a hundred dollars that I couldn’t do three cartwheels in a row without my bag falling off (I won, my hair is fluffy) and then I bet, double or nothing, that he couldn’t do three cartwheels in a row without falling over. Needless to say, I left two hundred bucks richer.
It was in the pet section when it happened. We were arguing over the toy selection, Cole insisting, his mouth muffled through the bag, that Cocky was a chicken—a distinction that he seemed to think removed any chance of him enjoying a cat toy—and I was arguing that if Cocky was a chicken then maybe he didn’t need any toys. That’s when he dropped the ridiculous tiny dog collar he’d been considering, and pinned me to the cart, his arms on the handle, my body in between.
I squirmed, and he wrapped a leg around me, holding me against him. “Kiss me,” he said, and I stopped squirming, my hands softening their push against his chest.
“Now?” I squeaked, and turned my head to look down the aisle, my paper bag getting crooked in the process, my right eye losing all sight.
He let go of the handles and pulled at my bag, my hair floating up with it, and he tossed it into the cart, his hands coming down to smooth the erratic pieces. “Cole,” I whispered. “The cameras.”
“I don’t care about the cameras,” he said gruffly, his bag pulled off and joining mine, and there was a moment of nothing, then he pulled with rough hands at the back of my head, and there was a moment of everything.
I knew I was supposed to hate this man, but I kissed him in that pet aisle and somewhere, in the months since he moved here, I lost that objective. I let him kiss me and couldn’t, no matter how deep I reached, find any hate at all.
CHAPTER 101
Our covers were blown, everyone in the store knew who we were anyway, but we still put the bags back on and continued shopping. The kiss had changed things, his hands constantly on me, resting on my lower back, playing with the ends of my hair, his fingers sliding through my fingers when we’d stop at a display. I found him a giant cowboy hat that I was able to squash on his head, the worried old man face now looking eerily similar to a country version of Robert DeNiro. He returned the favor with big hot pink earrings that he pierced the side of my bag with. “We’re so sexy,” I mused, striking a pose in front of a dressing room mirror. I had a sudden thought and wheeled around, facing him. “Photo booth!”
“What?” He adjusted his hat in the mirror. “God, this hat makes me look ridiculous.” His hands stalled as his statement sank in, and we both burst out laughing.
I chased down my original idea. “Let’s take a picture in the photo booth.”
“They have a photo booth?” I couldn’t see them, but I was pretty sure his eyebrows were raised in skepticism.
“The photo lab machine takes selfies. Come on.” I grabbed his hand and tugged at it, pulling him and our cart in the direction of the electronics department. I hadn’t been entirely sure of myself, but when we parked in front of the standalone machine, it turned out that I was right. It took pics in bursts of three. We took ten. The electronics girl popped her gum and stared at us like we were idiots.
We were idiots. Something about this man, whether it was having sex with him, or kissing him on camera, or running up a nine hundred dollar bill in the middle of the night at Walmart, made me act like an idiot. The cashier, a pixie brunette who I’d attended high school with, bagged our items, handing Cole his credit card and nodded at me. I smiled at her and wondered, for the first dark moment since entering the store, if she’d been one of Quincy’s ‘anonymous sources.’
When we pushed the buggies out the front door, the parking lot was dark, the ten thousand watts of parking bulbs out. And around us, as far as I could see, was pitch dark. We stopped, the carts squeaking, and stared.
CHAPTER 102
Ten minutes later, our new items in the backseat of the truck, we found out that the power outage was caused by a trip at the power station. I would go into greater detail except that verbiage meant diddle squat to me. It was Carl at the gas station who told me. I nodded intelligently and asked him if the two for two-dollar candy bar deal included Rolos. They didn’t.
On the way back to Cole’s we drove by the Pit. He spoke to the security officers there, who assured him that they would be diligent in watching for any vandals who appeared on the heels of the blackout.
I snorted when he drove off. Vandals? This was Quincy. Those guys were going to have a long night of waiting ahead of them if they expected trouble. We did one final loop of the town, then drove slowly back, his brights on, our eyes peeled for deer.
When we pulled down the long drive, the white house lit by the moonlight, I looked to my house and thought of Mama. This time of night, she’d be asleep. She wouldn’t even know about the blackout but it felt odd for me to think of her, in that house, alone. Once I moved away she would always be alone. That idea, like every time before it, felt odd too. I woul
d get used to it. I’d have to. It was only natural for the young to grow up and leave the nest.
We set up camp in the Kirklands’ living room. I found candles and lit them, the large room glowing in flickering light, and I had the sudden vision of flames licking up the wall, the wallpaper bubbling, and hurried to blow out a few. There. Four candles lit. Enough to see by, just not in high definition. We unpacked in the living room, the floor strewn with our gear, Cocky picking his way gingerly through the pile. I saw some of his poo on the floor behind Cole and nodded toward it, passing him a can of wipes. I put on Cole’s new cowboy hat and ripped open a Nerds rope, chewing on one end of it as I shifted through our haul. Cole returned, scooping up the rooster and I plucked out the bag of peas, holding them up to him. “Sprinkle some of these in his tub. He’ll like digging through the bedding for them.” My words came out garbled, through a mouthful of Nerds goodness, but Cole nodded, grabbing the bag and heading to the bathroom. We’d have to build an outside pen for Cocky. He was too big to be inside, despite whatever notions Cole had for making him a house chicken. I frowned around the piece of candy. He’d. He’d have to build an outside pen. It was silly for me to think that we’d continue hanging out. Just because the sex had destroyed my world and rebuilt it in an entirely new way. Just because we’d had fun and been reckless and kissed in a Walmart aisle. Whatever heartbreak I had coming when Cole Masten left town was my thing, not his. That was what I needed to remember.
“His light doesn’t work.”
I looked up to see Cole standing in the dim corner of the living room, by the bathroom. I shrugged. “So? He doesn’t need the warmth anymore. That was just when he was a chick.”
“Do you mind if we hang out on the back porch? Just ’til the power comes back on?” He held Cocky under his right arm, like a football. A football he now scratched the chest of.
I grabbed the newly purchased bottle of wine, hefting to my feet. “Sure. I’ll grab some glasses.”
After my third glass, our bare feet hanging off the edge of the porch, my head on his shoulder, I decided to tell him about that night. Rehearsal Dinner Night. We’d lost Cocky to the darkness, his cluck occasionally heard from somewhere far in the yard. Every once in a while, Cole would dig his hand into the peas and toss them out into the grass. Sometime next summer, Cyndi Kirkland would be pulling out pea sprouts and cursing his name. At some point, around the second glass, his right hand had slid into mine, our fingers linking, and stayed there. It was on the third glass that my head had rested on his shoulder and my mouth had opened.
“It was crazy,” I said out of nowhere. “What I did that night. The article had it right, what happened.”
“Crazy isn’t always a bad thing.” That was all he said, and I was glad. I let out a big breath and then told, for the first time ever, the whole story.
CHAPTER 103
On a farm, things happened. Hospitals were not close by, and Tallahassee was too far away if there was a problem. So we had things. Ipecac syrup was one of those things. If a kid, or a stupid adult, or an animal ate something they shouldn’t, Ipecac caused a violent vomiting spell that got out all of the nasty. And Ipecac was what I reached for in The Plan.
It was easy to set up. The restaurant was serving crème brulee for dessert, topped with a medley of berries. I put the syrup in a flask, in a thigh holster. After the first round of toasts, I excused myself, walking right past the bathrooms and into the kitchen. I hugged Rita, the chef, and held up the flask. “Mind if I give the head table some extra flavor?” That was all it took. We were a dry county, liquor scant except in our private homes. She smiled. “Just pretend I didn’t see you. The platters are numbered, your table is number one.”
I’d like to say that I hesitated, my fingers twisting at the flask’s silver neck, but that’d be a lie. Two days of pent up anger, an hour of polite dinner conversation with false friends… it all pushed my actions, and I left the kitchen a minute later with all twelve of my table’s desserts tainted.
After that, there was nothing left to do but sit, sip my champagne, and watch.
When Ipecac hit, it was sudden. Explosive. If you gave someone too much, you could hurt them. I didn’t give my victims too much; there was about a half cup in each dessert. Scott was, brilliantly enough, the first victim. I saw him take his first bite, and I stood up, moving a few steps back and leaning against the wall, my champagne glass hanging from my recently manicured (professionally!) fingertips. Bridget saw me move and shot me a strange look, her elbow moving, out of sheer habit, to notify Corrine. Corrine glanced over, shrugged, and took her first bite of dessert. I stared point-blank at Bridget until she looked away, focusing on her dessert as if it was the most important thing in her life. Which, right then, it would be. Our table was up front, a long piece that cut the room in half, three couples on each side, Scott and I crammed on the end because weddings have this obsession with putting the bride and groom front and center, damn their need for elbow room to cut a steak.
My shoulders against the rose wallpapered wall, I watched the clock, a big silver piece that looked like it’d been around since the Civil War. Four minutes after Scott stuck that first bite into his deceitful mouth, it happened. He was speaking to Bobbie Jo at the moment, her sitting to his left, and there was no warning, no clutch of his stomach, holding of his mouth, no running to the bathroom. He just opened his mouth and vomit spewed out, soaking her lavender cardigan, unbuttoned low over those ridiculous breasts, her scream loud enough to make every head in the room turn. I giggled, watching Bobbie Jo’s date, her cousin Frank, as he tried to move away, his hands frantic in their push against the table, but Scott wasn’t done, his second attack came while trying to stand. Scott got his chair pushed back, got his feet under him, his hands on the table, and then it came again. We’d had fried green tomatoes with dinner. A piece of poorly chewed tomato caught the ear of Scott’s Best Man, Bubba, and hung there for a moment, the big guy flailing at the piece, then he was the next victim, and Tara and Scott got coated by his wretch.
It was a horrific unfolding, the medicine hitting everyone within the same three minutes, every head in the room turned, mouths opened, and murmurs gaining volume as it kept getting worse. Stacey was the first to hit the floor, vomit already covering her lips and chin, her hand over her face, her heels loud on the floor as she ran down our table’s side, then hit a pool of stench and slipped. I heard the splat as her dress, a Calvin Klein she had bragged over, hit the puddle. She screamed, her cry joining the sea, and tried to stand, her skinny legs flailing, slipped, tried again, and failed. It was hard to stand up when you wouldn’t put your hands on the floor. It was hard to put your hands on the floor when the floor was covered in stomach contents.
One bystander had told Variety Magazine that it had been ‘almost like a circus, with so many things happening you didn’t know where to look.’ I agreed with that statement. The week after the disaster, the cinematographer had asked, her voice tight with disdain, if I wanted the video from the event. I had already paid for it, after all. I had taken the video and sat on my living room floor, popped it in the DVD player, and watched it. That was the first time I felt guilt. I felt sick. I saw in high definition the moment that the poor sweet boyfriend of Tara’s bent over. I saw my first grade teacher, old Mrs. Maddox, trying to hobble for the exit among the masses, clean guests infected by screaming, puking bridesmaids, innocent victims caught along the way in the bottleneck that was the sole exit.
“It was evil,” I said quietly. “Doing it there. In front of everyone. Especially in a town where appearances and decorum are so important.” It was hard to respect someone when you’d seen them vomit all over their grandmother, then run for the exit. That had been Corrine. Her ninety-two year old Grammie had chosen that unfortunate moment to come over and say hello, her frail hands gripping Corrine’s chair for support when disaster hit.
“Isn’t that why you did it there? To punish them?”
“Yeah but…
I went too far.” I didn’t feel bad about the wedding party. It was all of the others whose night had been ruined. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. I cringe at their faces, so much of their money wasted, their perfect son’s perfect night destroyed…
Everyone had known it was me from the beginning. Maybe it was my manic laughter as I stood at the front of the room and watched the stampede. It was certainly confirmed by Rita, who pointed a flour-covered finger straight in my direction. I had shrugged, accepted the blame. It wasn’t like I’d ever thought about discretion. I’d wanted them to know. I’d wanted them to realize what they had caused, what Bobbie Jo and Scott had caused. I wanted them to know that you didn’t screw with Summer Jenkins and get away with it.
I’d been young, rebellious, and self-centered. And the town had, as a result, made me pay. My hour of glory had been the last moment in the Quincy sun. After that, the chill from Quincy’s elite had been solid and unyielding, a layer of impermeable frost.
“You don’t need them.” Cole pulled my hand up and kissed it.
I turned to him. “I know that. I just wanted you to know. The—” type of person I am. That was what I wanted to say. I wanted him to stop this thing he’d been doing all night, looking at me like I was made of fairy dust. I didn’t finish the sentence. Probably because I liked the way he had been looking at me. And I didn’t want it to all break apart. I had told him what I had done. The magazine had gotten it pretty much right, even if it had been horrible to read. But I’d wanted to fill him in on my motivations. He could make his own decisions from that point on.
“I just won’t ever cheat on you.” He turned to me and patted his leg. “Come here.”
I didn’t question him, just crawled over, ’til my butt was on his thigh, my legs stretched over his lap, one of his hands holding me in place, the other tucking a bit of my hair behind my ear. “No man in his right mind would cheat on you.”