“Headache,” I mutter.
“Got any Tylenol in your purse?”
“Meh.” My shoulders hunch as I troop inside, endeavoring to make myself smaller and less noticeable.
“I was thinking about a cornucopia,” Nicholas says. “Is that overdone?”
The answer is yes, obviously, but I’m not too concerned about the centerpiece for his parents’ dining room table at this moment. My eyes are darting along the ceiling corners for hidden cameras. I think of a man in a back room somewhere, eating a sub sandwich and watching me on a tiny television screen. Isn’t she one of the applicants? Wow, isn’t this sad. Coming in here to beg for the job, I bet.
“Naomi?” Nicholas says. I get the feeling this isn’t the first time he’s said my name within the last thirty seconds. He snaps his fingers in front of my face.
“Shh!” I whisper, pulling my coat collar up to my nose. I look like a cartoon private eye. “Keep it down.”
“Why? Nobody’s in here.” He looks around. “Imagine if we’d gone to Walmart. Aisles would be packed. We’ve got this whole store to ourselves.”
Nicholas forces me to voice opinions on plastic vegetables, trying to determine if they’re too fake-looking. “Should we use real vegetables instead? I thought plastic would be less wasteful. We could reuse them.”
“For what?”
“Maybe a diorama at the office.”
Right. Eat your veggies, kids! Quite rich, coming from this man. His breath is a Twizzler.
“Real vegetables would be better,” I say. “C’mon, let’s go to the grocery store.”
“I want to look at everything they’ve got here first.” His eyes are round and marveling as they take in way too many options. He’s Martha Stewart now. I’ve lost him to the nuances between basket cornucopias and ones made of wire and we’ll be in here for two hours deliberating.
I’m ruthless in my quest to leave. “Cornucopias, Nicholas? That’s your pilgrim great-grandfather’s centerpiece. Modernize it a little. Go minimal with a simple red apple.”
He wrinkles his nose. “That won’t be impressive. It’ll look like I didn’t try at all.”
“Welcome to my life. It’s easier over here, I promise.”
I shouldn’t make self-deprecating comments like this because they bolster the stereotype that I have no aspirations and I’m a thoughtless layabout, but it’s become an odd habit.
He drags a finger up my spine, which he knows gives me the chills, and smiles when I jump out of my skin. He continues to browse at one mile per hour. Every time we round the corner into another aisle my stomach tightens with worry that the manager is going to come out and ask if we need any help. It’s unavoidable. These small businesses are too darned friendly.
Twenty years later and with zero help from me, Nicholas has filled a basket with supplies to build our own birdhouse in the spring, which I can’t wait to see him never touch, plus a bunch of random bits and bobs marked down to fifty percent off. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with it all, but he’s a sucker for those neon green discount stickers. “You never know,” he says, whistling as he drops a package of blue buttons and rose appliques into the basket. He needs an intervention.
The next aisle is wedding decorations. We both freeze at the threshold.
“I think I saw pinecones back that way,” I say, and he nods hastily.
“Yeah, let’s go look at the pinecones again.”
We’re quivering cowards and we know it. We end up grabbing four mesh bags of pinecones (which we could get from our yard for free) as justification for avoiding the wedding aisle. I’m tired. My nerves are frayed. I beg him to just choose something and be done, so he gets a cookie jar that looks like a turkey. We’re going to stuff it with the pinecones. It’s a half-assed choice and he’s heart-broken to show up to dinner with a centerpiece that doesn’t blow everybody’s minds, but I’m finding it hard to breathe and Nicholas’s arm is probably stinging with red marks from my iron grip. I’ve been picking at him to get him to move it along.
“All right, you go check out. I’m going to wait in the car.”
Nicholas doesn’t hear me. I’m dragged up to the register and all the blood in my body flees the country when I see who’s behind the counter.
Melissa.
I want to groan, but I force a smile instead. My skin is two hundred degrees. My organs are cooking like a casserole.
“Hey, Naomi,” she greets me jovially. Straight away, that pleasant tone’s got me shifty-eyed. Maybe her boss is close by. God, I hope not.
“Hey, Melissa! So great to see you! How’ve you been? New job, huh?”
“Just started Monday! I’m so lucky, you know? Nobody’s hiring.” She gives me a great big smile that is totally alien on her generally hateful face.
I want to run out of the store. Just started Monday. The job she’s got now is the job I applied for. Melissa was in the pool of contenders. Melissa beat me.
And no one called to tell me I lost the job. It hurts extra because the woman who interviewed me was so nice and sympathetic. Maybe she thought she’d wait until after the holidays to break the news, so that I wouldn’t spend Thanksgiving crying in a closet.
“Congratulations,” I make myself say. “I hope you like it here.”
“Oh, I love it. In fact …” She takes her time ringing up the pinecones, hands moving in slow-motion. “I heard you applied here, too. Wouldn’t that be fun, huh, if we both worked at the same place again?”
Nicholas turns his sharp gaze on me.
My voice is small. “I think they only had one position open.”
Melissa knows this, of course. “Oh, that’s right. Good luck with the job search.” A gloating smile curves the edges of her mouth as she coasts a knickknack over the scanner.
“She’ll find something,” Nicholas inserts smoothly. “We’re waiting for the right fit. Can’t just accept any old job that’ll have her—especially at businesses that will probably be closed within a year.”
Melissa’s eyes darken. I’m so grateful to Nicholas, I could cry.
“Luckily, I don’t find myself in that position,” she says, all uppity-like. “Let’s Get Crafty is doing superb.”
Nicholas makes a show out of glancing around the empty store. “Sure.”
Her peppy tone falters, the ice showing through. “It’s Thanksgiving. Of course we’re not busy today.”
Nicholas doesn’t even have to reply. He raises his eyebrows, smiling guilelessly. It’s more effective than a smirk. It’s an expression I’m well acquainted with and it usually fills me with rage, but weaponized against Melissa I’ve got to say, it’s looking more and more attractive.
“So …” She pretends to have trouble with a price tag, drawing this exchange out. “Burn any more poisonous flowers lately, Naomi?”
Nicholas stiffens. I’m going to stab her with the pin of her name tag.
“Actually, I haven’t had time. Been pretty busy.”
“Doing what? You don’t have a job.”
“Maybe we’re having lots of sex,” Nicholas cuts in, annoyed. “Maybe we lose track of the days because we can’t stop banging.” I let out an unladylike snort, both because what he’s said is delightfully inappropriate and also so untrue that it kind of hurts. “Not really your business, is it?”