Jessica looked up from her dinner of caramel corn and chocolate milk. Her manager, an older lady named Mathilda, was holding out a red envelope and a pen. Jessica was confused.
“What?”
Mathilda gave the envelope a little shake. “Peter’s card. Everyone’s signed it but you.”
Jessica was still confused. “Is he sick?”
Peter didn’t look sick. The last time she’d seen him was yesterday when they’d passed each other between shifts. She’d been in the employee bathroom for nearly half an hour, clipping her fingernails and then shaving her armpits over the sink. When she’d finally come out, there was Peter, leaning against the wall, waiting. He’d smiled and said hey, like it was no big deal that Jessica had hogged the bathroom for way too long. Even under the harsh fluorescent store light that made everything it touched look bleached and corpselike, he appeared easy, relaxed, like he was outside waiting for the bus on a warm spring day. Peter was infuriating.
“Are you kidding?” Mathilda asked, her smile crooked. “His last day is Sunday.”
“Sunday?” Jessica replied. “As in, two days from now?”
“Well . . . yeah.”
Jessica blew past Mathilda and charged out into the store. Her shift had been over for almost half an hour, so she’d changed out of her work shirt and into a gray V-neck that used to belong to John. She still had her khakis on, though, and the fabric swished when she walked. A Celine Dion ballad was blasting through the store speakers. It was the ironic soundtrack of her life.
Jessica found Peter in the candy aisle, up near the registers, where he was stuffing handful after handful of chocolate truffles into display boxes.
Peter heard the harsh swish of Jessica’s khakis and glanced over his shoulder. Nope, he didn’t look sick. He looked pretty great in that too-tall, easy-breezy way of his. If anything, Jessica was the one who looked sick. She’d stopped showering at home and was now practically living out of the store and out of her car. As a result, her hair and makeup had suffered. Jessica made excuses for herself—to herself—claiming the light was just too bad in the store’s bathroom, but really she’d stopped caring.
“Oh, hey,” Peter said.
“Mathilda told me you’re leaving,” Jessica blurted. “She asked me to sign your card.”
“Oh. Nice. A card. Thanks for telling me.”
“Where are you going?”
“College,” Peter replied. “Up in San Marcos. But I’m going to visit family in Mexico for a couple weeks before that.” He scooped up another handful of truffles. “What are you still doing here? I thought you’d be long gone by now.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” Jessica snapped. “I didn’t know that. About you leaving.” She paused. “You’re just a junior. You can’t leave yet.”
“I’ve been taking dual credit,” Peter said. “Besides, I . . . didn’t think you’d want to know.”
Peter waited for Jessica to reply, which wasn’t happening because Jessica didn’t know how to reply. Did she really care about the details of her coworker’s life? She had enough going on in her own life, in her own house. And, oh crap, Peter had that look on his face again, brows creased, mouth slightly puckered with concern, like he was about to ask Jessica how she was doing. She dreaded hearing that question—or some variation of that question—so much that she started to shift up onto the balls of her feet, preparing to turn and break into a sprint. Peter didn’t ask that question, though. He didn’t say anything. Instead, he plucked one of the chocolate truffles from the pile, unwrapped it, and then popped it into his mouth. He unwrapped another and held it out to Jessica.
Fast like a whip, Jessica snatched the chocolate from Peter’s fingers and tossed it in her mouth.
“Holy shit, you’re a thief.” Jessica chomped on the chocolate as fast as she could to get rid of the evidence. “Peter Rojas, I would’ve never expected. What would your abuela in Mexico say if she knew?”
Peter licked the chocolate off his fingers. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Sure.”
“You’re a bad influence.”
“The worst.”
Jessica crouched down and took her keys from her pocket, poised to dig into a strip of tape. “Do you need help or anything?”
“Yeah, sure,” Peter replied.
For nearly an hour, Jessica and Peter restocked almost the entire candy aisle. Jessica opened boxes of peppermints and cinnamon chews and those puffy things shaped like peanuts. Occasionally, Peter left to help with the registers, but, for the most part, they worked together, largely in silence, which Jessica appreciated. She of course knew all the words to all the songs that came through the speaker, but she didn’t sing along. She caught herself humming once or twice but cut that off quick.
“Are you going to be at the block party tomorrow?” Peter eventually asked. He was across the aisle, with his back to Jessica, rearranging price tags.
Jessica paused, dropping a pack of Swedish Fish in her lap. She hadn’t gone last year because the party had fallen on one of the days immediately following Ana’s death. Or maybe the neighbors had canceled the party out of respect. She couldn’t remember. That time was always a little fuzzy.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I work Saturday mornings. I could be there later. What about you?”
“You aren’t picking up your phone.”
Both Jessica and Peter turned at the sound of John’s voice. That voice—Jessica had never thought much about it before, but now it grated. It felt itchy, itchy and cold like a ghost in her bones. Jessica realized she was wearing John’s T-shirt, and she was tempted to strip it from her skin. She plucked at the fabric, shook her shoulders a little bit.
John had already apologized for what had happened the other day in the car, bought Jessica some roses—wilted pink ones from the grocery store—and took her out for soft serve. He’d do better, he’d said. Jessica had forgiven him but not really. She’d said the words it’s okay, but she hadn’t meant them. Every day in the work bathroom, she inspected the little bruise on her cheek, watched the colors change, watched it fade. She imagined all the ways she could leave bruises of her own.
Did she say anything, though? Do anything? Of course not.
“My battery’s dead,” Jessica lamely replied.
It was a bad lie. John would know. The word dead sounded fake, cracked in half.
“I asked her to stay and help,” Peter said, rising to stand.
“Let’s go,” John commanded, ignoring Peter altogether. “What’s wrong with your hair, Jess?”