Even before I handed my invitation to the ladies at the reception table I wanted to take Miss Thang home. Jody, the bitch.

However, as they always said, where one door closes, another one opens.

I never planned to go back to work the next day, expecting to be bangin’ Jody all night and until the cops came knockin’ at our motel door. But being as how I was sober and so full of unspent energy, I went to work anyway.

I happened to be rotating the cheese in the dairy department, pulling the nearly outdated cheeses up front so that they’d be selected before all else. It was the same with the milk, the juice, and the meats as well.

I noticed a yellow-boned cutie down the way, picking through loaves of bread. When one dropped and when she bent down to pick it up, an outrageous tear was born down the back of her skirt. She had one of those jobs that hugged her thighs enough to hide her behind. It was black with pink and blue flowers printed all over. She also had a soft white button-down sweater top that showed off her cheerleader’s body. Nobody else was around to hear the rip or to see how the woman’s ass was showing, but she was embarrassed just as if there were hordes of shoppers.

I hurried over to the woman’s aid. I took off my apron and hooked it around her waist before she even knew what was happening.

“I can’t go around like this,” she said after melting out of her stupor.

“I could call you a cab . . . uh . . . maybe you could wait in the office till they come.” She let out a frustrated growl, a sound a threatened cat might make. “Or . . . where do you stay at?”

“I’m at the Ramada.”

“The Ramada?” I couldn’t imagine why a girl—what was she, eighteen?—would be staying at the Ramada. Shouldn’t she be away at school or something? Maybe showing off her body at a dance rehearsal or the beach?

Maybe she read my mind. She said, “I’m here with my dad. He’s a CEO at First Insurance . . .”

I shook my head, saying no explanation was necessary—lying—and offered her a ride to the Ramada.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” she replied.

I ushered her through the back of the market and out to the employee parking area.

“Just a minute,” I told her after I seated her in the used Volvo I bought months earlier. It was nothing to be flashy about, but it did the job. “I gotta let my boss know. Be right back.”

Like a jackrabbit, I hurried in and informed the day manager. I got a grateful smile in return, and was back to the woman within record time.

“I’m Spencer,” I said, offering my handshake.

“Roxy,” she replied. “I . . .” She chuckled and spoke simultaneously. “I feel like a complete fool.”

“Don’t. Coulda happened to anybody,” I said, trying to console her.

On the way to the hotel, Roxy explained how her father had her there in Stamford for the weekend. He’d be working. She’d be shopping while he was working. However, they intended on spending Saturday and Sunday as father and daughter, an occasion that Roxy thought should be more often than not.

“So that’s how you do this? You stay in the hotel instead of with him?” I asked.

“A little agreement we have . . . to give each other space. But also . . . I don’t quite get along with his girlfriend.”

“Ah-ha!” I said, tryin’ to put some energy into our acquaintance. “So the truth comes out.”

Roxy smirked and directed me through the parking garage where she could slip through some glass doors into the hotel’s underground entrance.

“Thanks a lot for the lift. You’re a lifesaver.” Her eyes matched her smile. Roxy hopped out and leaned in the window. “What about the apron?”

“Oh, that. You can . . .” I was gonna tell her to toss it, knowing that it wasn’t a big deal. “Wanna bring it next time you shop?” I said, hoping for continuation. Roxy’s face sought an answer.

“Wanna come up?”

“You sure?” Her father came to mind.

“Room three-one-five,” she said and turned off for the entrance.

I didn’t know how to feel. In one way I felt like this was an opportunity. In another, I was nervous as shit. Spencer the virgin at eighteen.

I parked and made the short journey to the third floor, half expecting the apron to be wedged around the doorknob or otherwise out in the hallway. But there was nothing close to my imagination.

Roxy and I made small talk. She spoke on her life and commuting between divorced parents. I spoke on Stamford and how we had more than one movie theater, night club, and shopping mall. One thing led to another and we were making the most of a conveniently isolated situation. Roxy was lonely and impulsive, and I was inexperienced and still horny from my prom-night letdown. I still had the condom in my wallet with Jody’s name on it.

We submerged ourselves in foreplay. Me becoming familiar with a woman’s body for the first time, her surrendering to my progressions with her innocent sighs and whimpers. Jesus, I didn’t even know this girl’s last name and I was pushing inside of her like my life depended on it. Like it was my birthday or something. When it was over there was guilt and shame fighting the silence in that hotel room. Meanwhile, Roxy’s scratch marks on my back and a sperm-filled rubber were the only memories, outside of some incredible explosion, that I can recall about the day after the prom.

they said when it rains it pours, and when it did it was probably in relation to the summer months following my high school graduation.

I was bagging groceries, as I did my best, when I recognized a celebrity in the checkout line next to where I was working.

“Lemme switch with you, Stevie,” I said to the coworker at the edge of the neighboring checkout line.

“No prob, dude. What’s the hurry? Ain’t no cuties over here.”

“No biggie,” I said. “Just tryin’ to break up the monotony.”

“I feel ya’,” Stevie said, one of the coolest white boys I know.

I tried to figure out what TV show I’d seen the woman on, her Hollywood features just only hinting at age and her hair swept up in a motherly do. I didn’t want to be so obvious so I avoided any extreme eye contact. Two customers were already asking for autographs. Phyllis? Lynn? Felicia? Yes! Felicia! She’s that woman from—. My thoughts were interrupted. I had already packed up two of the woman’s packages when she said, “Pardon me? Do you think you could help me carry the groceries to my car?” I was startled by the mere command of her voice. Her diction so precise and articulate.

“Oh, ah, sure. N-no problem,” I replied, wanting to kick myself for being so nervous.

We have those state-of-the-art shopping carts at Waldbaum’s and they couldn’t get past the iron stations, poles really, that demarked the walkway out in front of the store from the parking lot. If not for those barriers, carriages would be all over the lot. As it was, some customers got creative and lifted shopping carts over the poles just for convenience. I never got that; how they’d bust their ass to labor the cart over the barriers for the wee bit of comfort . . . that cart-to-car ease. Some people just can’t help being lazy. When I got outside the woman had me wait until she pulled the car up to the storefront. I couldn’t help deciding whether to admire her good looks in that sundress or to think she was old enough to be my mother. I shook off the thoughts once the green Jaguar crawled to a stop at the curb. I immediately figured her to be caked-up from all of her years in entertainment. I thought of her husband as a lucky stiff.

“I’ve seen you around here before,” she said as I loaded the groceries in her trunk. “They keep you mighty busy.”

“Yes, ma’am, they do. It’s been almost five years now.” I found myself confiding in her as I would an aunt or a friend of my mother’s.

“So what’s next?” All manner of perfect diction thickening her voice.

“Next?” I asked, shutting the hood of the trunk.

“Surely you don’t plan on working here for the rest of your life.”

“Whoa! You sure we haven’t spoken before? My brother and I were just . . . oh never mind. No . . . actually, I’m not sure yet where I wanna go or what I wanna do, but—you’re right—I don’t want to be here forever.” She listened to me and sized me up, too.

“You think you could give me a call?” she asked as I did the gentlemanly bit, closing her in the car. “I could use . . . may I rephrase that? I believe you could prove to be a valuable contribution to my . . . to my routine.”

“I guess I could call. Sure, that’s not a big deal.”

She jotted down her name and phone number on the inside of a matchbook. It was only in that idle moment that I realized she smoked. I peeped a cigarette butt in the well of an ashtray.

“Mrs. Stern,” I read out loud. “Sure. I’ll give you a call.”

“You wouldn’t lie to a lady, would you?”

“I wouldn’t lie to myself, Mrs. Stern.”

“Thank you. And, uh . . . I’ll be sure to make it worth your while.”

She put on some tinted glasses as a pro, breezing away from Waldbaum’s like some kind of pipe dream. The way the woman winked at me was—how can I explain it?—promising.

 

Copyright © 2007 by Relentless Aaron. All rights reserved.