I saw Rachel and Becca walking toward aisle nine. Ted was calling them over to restack a pyramid of canned soup that someone’s tyrannical child had decided to push over.
“Yo, go tell that girl I like her!”
Frank had popped up from behind the counter, scaring the shit out of me.
“Fuck, dude! Don’t do that, man!” I yelled. “Jesus!”
“Hahahahaha, you’re a pussy, bro,” he replied. “Just tell her I like her.”
“What? Who are you talking about?”
“Kat Dennings’s cousin over there,” said Frank.
“Oh, Rachel? Why don’t you go talk to her yourself? Aren’t you the self-proclaimed ‘pussy slayer’?”
“I need a different approach, man,” said Frank, looking at me. “Word is getting around I’m a whore.”
“Rightfully so,” I said.
“Look, man, when you can . . . just tell her I’m into her, okay?”
Just as I was about to answer, a large white woman with short, thinning red hair appeared. She was wearing a fluffy blue blouse with white flowers, a matching white skirt, and black heels. She cleared her throat in a very authoritative manner. “Yes,” she said. “I would like one medium coffee, black, two sugars, and a piece of iced lemon cake, thank you.”
I froze, trying to register everything she had said. I looked back to Frank for guidance, but he had gone, most likely sensing the bitchy attitude of this woman and not wanting any part of it. I looked back at her, my mouth open to speak . . . but nothing came out.
“Hello!” the woman said, loudly and obnoxiously. “Can I get some service here?”
“Oh, yes,” I responded. “Of course, I’m sorry, ma’am . . . it’s just my first day in the department.”
“Well, even on your first day, pouring black coffee isn’t too complicated now, is it honey?”
“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU SAY TO ME?!” I screamed. But before I had time to register what I had just done, I was already balls-deep in the commitment of standing up for myself and anyone else this woman had ever made feel inferior.
“Bitch, what dimension are you from? You think just because I pour coffee for a living you can talk to me like I’m some piece of shit?! You are such a fucking cunt!”
The woman’s jaw was on the floor at this point—she was stunned. Fuming with rage.
“FLYNN!” I looked up. It was Ted Daniels, screaming my name from across the store. But his scream was nothing compared to . . . the child running from aisle to aisle, kicking over stacks of food.
“AND FUCK YOU TOO, TED!” I said, my voice pointed straight into his soul. “You creepy fuck!”
Rachel appeared. Her eyebrows were raised high. She let out a quick laugh, then covered her mouth with her hand.
“I’m here to help you!” I said, focusing my attention back on the insulting woman. “Not serve you, goddamn it!” From the corner of my eye, I could now see the kid jumping up and down, smashing plastic bags of tortilla chips with his shoes. “And if I were to help you, I would tell your fat ass that you don’t need the fucking lemon cake! Why don’t you give your arteries a break, woman, damn!”
At this moment, a child began to cry. The same goddamn child who had been terrorizing the store for an hour, the child who knocked down the eight-foot towers of canned soup for his own devilish amusement.
“Listen here,” the child’s neglectful mother said. “I don’t know what you think—”
“—and you, terrible mom!” I interrupted. “Put that fucking kid on a leash or I’ll strangle that little shit myself!”
The mother’s eyes grew furious. “How dare you,” she roared. “My son is—”
Without hesitating, I ran over, picked the child up, and threw him through the plate-glass window, shattering the Muldoon’s logo on the glass and immediately snapping me from . . .
“Hello! I said coffee—black—”
. . . my daydream.
“—and chop chop, boy,” the overweight woman finished.
Alas, I thought. Another daydream.
“Okay, sure, sorry,” I told her, pouring the coffee so quickly I spilled some on my thumb, burning it. “Shit!” I said aloud. The pain was excruciating, but I did my best to keep my composure, holding my right thumb under my left armpit as I rang her up using my left hand. The burning intensified with each passing moment.
“Boy, aren’t we forgetting something?” she said. I had no clue what she was talking about. I just wanted to be away from her and out of the store.
“I’m sorry, what?” I replied.
“You forgot my slice of lemon cake.”
Goddamn! I yelled internally, sweat dripping from my brow.
“I’m sor . . . I’m sorry,” I said, bending down to grab a slice of lemon cake. But as I opened the glass I saw there were none left.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, there are none here.” My legs went weak. It was a deathly scary feeling.
“What do you mean? I’m looking at it right there,” she said, pointing to a piece of cake.
“No, I’m sorry, that’s the display piece, that’s not—”
“Display?!” she interrupted. “Well, what about in the back? Surely there—”
At that moment, everything around me began to flicker, as though the lights were being sucked from the room, then instantaneously brought back. My hearing became muffled, then ceased altogether. A high-frequency pitch shot into my head, like in those old war movies when a soldier experiences shell shock. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion and yet superfast at the same time.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get my kids to school here,” said another woman in line.
“What’s the holdup?” asked a man in a suit with a newspaper under his arm.
My chest tightened.
“Hello!” the large woman in front of me said. She glanced at my name tag. “Flynn, is it? Well, Flynn, I said there must be SOME IN THE BACK!” she repeated as though I were deaf.
My breath became shallow and my neck felt numb. Not sure what was going on, I turned around quickly and walked into the back staff area of the coffee shop. I stumbled through the door like a drunk. I glanced around, trying to find a seat. Cara stood in the corner. Topless. Topless and fidgeting with the wire in her bra that had been stabbing her side.
“FLYNN! What are you doi—”
“I’m sorry!” I yelled, transfixed on her breasts. Her body was incredible. I hadn’t seen a naked woman since Lola. The excitement only fueled what I had been experiencing.
“I’M SO SORRY!” I yelled “I’M SO—”
“Flynn, get OUT!” she screamed, and I backed out of the room as fast as I could, repeating the same words to myself.
“I’M SORRY, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to! I’m so sorr—”
I stumbled out of the coffee shop. By now, my legs felt as though they would give way at any moment, but I made my way past the line of customers and onto the supermarket floor.
“I’m sorry,” I continued to repeat, confused, in a state of panic. I couldn’t understand why my body felt this way, because I wasn’t freaking out in my mind—it was my body that felt out of control, as though it were about to shut down.