Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff
Chapter Seven
Ten minutes later, I’m pushing a wobbly wheeled cart through the grocery store with one hand and drinking my venti macchiato with the other. I’m also doing my best to pretend I don’t miss the little neighborhood bodega and specialty stores where I used to do most of my grocery shopping. It seems I traded in Effie the bodega cat for a set of four-year-old twins in matching pink outfits and snotty noses. Both are dangerous in their own way, I guess.
On the plus side, Stop & Shop does have an abnormally wide variety of specialty cheeses with samples out, and I decide to try a dozen or so of them, mostly because there’s no one around to stop me. Whoever says a woman can’t live by cheese alone obviously hasn’t met this deli department—or me.
After sampling everything from Brie and gouda to goat cheese and pepper jack, I head to where those with costly home renovations in their futures and anemic bank accounts shop—the cereal aisle.
I have every intention of picking up my usual box of Cheerios—it’s heart healthy and eminently sensible, after all—but once I’m standing right in front of the bright yellow boxes, it’s the last thing I want. Not when every time I reach for the box, I can hear Karl lecturing me on the importance of fiber—and how much I need him to make sure I eat well—as he pours the little round Os into his favorite black-like-his-heart cereal bowl.
You know what? Fuck fiber.
I drop my empty coffee cup into the cart and grab a family-size box of Crunch Berries in one hand and a box of Froot Loops in the other, throwing them into my cart with wild abandon. Karl doesn’t get to tell me what to do anymore. And he sure as hell doesn’t get to tell me what to eat.
I toss in a box of Cookie Crisp for good measure and then start to make my way toward the trash bag aisle. But just as I’m rounding the corner, a woman with wild red hair squeals my name.
“Mallory? Holy s-h-i-t! Is it really you?”
She looks vaguely familiar, and as I struggle to figure out how I know her, the toddler she’s holding reaches up and yanks on one of her huge hoop earrings. The woman responds with a sound that is half squawk and half yodel as she stops dead and tries to pry his hand off her earring.
And just like that, I place her. Angela Mancini, cheer captain, senior class secretary, and the girl who could shred an air-guitar solo as if she had hopes of winning a college scholarship for it. She was always brash and loud but overall pretty sweet—which is why I step forward and ask, “Can I do something to help?”
“It’s okay. I think I’ve got it,” she answers as she finally manages to pry her kid’s hand off the gold hoop before he rips it straight through her ear. “It’s my own fault. I know better than to wear earrings like this around Joey, but Manny gave them to me for my birthday yesterday, and I couldn’t resist.”
It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about Manuel Perez, her high school boyfriend and—I glance down at her ring finger and find a small but sparkly diamond ring and wedding band—apparently current husband.
She gives me a dazzling smile with even more sparkle than her ring. “It’s been a long time, Mallory! How the h-e-l-l are you?”
“Um, I’m good, thanks.” It’s a lie, but what else am I supposed to say to a relative stranger in the middle of the Stop & Shop? “How are you?”
“Oh, you know. We moved to Sutton about five years ago.” She waves an airy hand. “Between Joey and the others, I can barely keep my head above water most days. But honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“The others?” I ask tentatively.
“Joey has four brothers,” she tells me proudly. “Jimmy, Johnny, Jordy, and Jeremy. They’re a handful.”
“I can only imagine.” I goggle at her. “You look—”
“Exhausted?” she interrupts with a laugh.
“I was thinking really good for having five boys under the age of…?”
“Ten.” She waves a dismissive hand. “You have no idea.”
“I really don’t.” Especially since Karl kept putting off my every attempt to have a family, always telling me to wait a little longer, that it wasn’t the right time, that the business needed all our attention.
The women I knew in the city—wives of Karl’s business associates—told me not to worry, that all men feel like that until they establish themselves financially. But as I eye little Joey Perez gazing up at his mom with adoring eyes, it hits home that it was just one more lie I let myself believe to keep the peace. One more argument I lost without even putting up a fight. Doormat? Yeah, that was me.
The thought makes my skin crawl. More, it makes me want to run and hide before Angela and the rest of the world realize just how weak I let myself become—so weak that buying a box of Froot Loops feels like a massive rebellion. Fuck me. Tears prick at my eyeballs, and I take a step back, put on my sunglasses, and start to make some excuse about having to go. But before I can come up with anything, Angela grins at me. “What are you doing in Sutton? Your parents still living in Brunswick?”
“Oh, um, yeah, they’re still there, but, umm, actually, I’m living here now.” I stumble a little over the unfamiliar words. “My aunt died a few months ago, and I just found out she left me her house here.” I ignore the rest of the disaster that is my current life and say instead, “I’ve decided to live in it while I fix it up.”
“Oh, that sounds fun! Like a mini vacation from your life.” She sighs as Joey starts to clap his hands against her cheeks in a rhythm that sounds suspiciously like Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” “I wouldn’t mind one of those every once in a while.”
“Well, if I get the place into any kind of decent shape, maybe you can come over for coffee some time.”
She laughs again, the rich, rollicking sound of a woman who is totally content with her life. “Make it a glass of wine and it’s a deal.” Her face turns serious. “Does the place need a lot of work?”
A domestic horror film flashes in my mind’s eye. The wild jungle of a front and backyard. The front porch with a tree sculpture embedded in it. The cracked driveway that is threatening to become a mini Grand Canyon. The dying trees that only need one good thunderstorm to finish crashing through the rest of the house. All of it is against HOA regulations. Then, of course, there is the torch fire the inside needs. “Some, yeah.”
Joey smacks his mother’s cheeks again as he chants, “Go, go, go!”
“Just a second, baby,” she answers as she leans down and takes both of his hands in hers before dropping a kiss on each one. “Want a cookie?”
“Coo-kie. Coo-kie!” Joey responds excitedly.
Angela gives him another kiss—this time on his soft-looking brown curls—before she fumbles through the crossbody bag she has slung over her torso. She comes out with an animal cracker in one hand and a business card in the other.
“Here,” she says, extending the card to me even as she gives Joey his cookie. “You should call Mikey. He’s Manny’s younger brother and he is h-o-t. He’s also one h-e-l-l of a contractor. Tell him Angie sent you, and he’ll give you a good deal.” She wiggles her brows. “And he’s totally single and available.”
“Available…?” I break off as her meaning sinks in. “Oh, I don’t think… I mean… I don’t—”
She laughs again. “I’m sorry. Did I overstep? Manny always tells me I’m doing that. Well, Mikey is attractive and really good with his hands, I’ve heard.” She winks at me. “You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.”
Considering I’m still dealing with the consequences of my last relationship, that would be a hard no. I’m most definitely not “into that sort of thing” or any other things that require me getting naked and vulnerable ever again.
No thank you.
“I should probably get going—” I say at the same time Joey finishes his animal cracker and starts screeching, “Go, go, go!” at the top of his lungs.
“Yeah, me too.” Angie rolls her eyes. “But give Mikey a call. I swear he’s a great contractor.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a pen, then scribbles a phone number across the back of the card. “And here’s my number. Call me once you get settled. We’ll do lunch or wine or something—without Joey, I promise.”
Then, before I can think up a suitable response to her invitation, she gives a quick wave and disappears down the next aisle while Joey continues to scream, “Go, go, go!”
It was the oddest—and sweetest—encounter I ever had in a grocery store, and I can’t help but grin as I shove Mikey’s card into the back pocket of my jeans. If I’m really lucky, maybe I’ve found a contractor—and a friend—in one quick trip to the Stop & Shop.
My bodega in the village didn’t have that. Maybe big suburban grocery stores really do have everything after all. Or you know, at least really good deals on two-ply and garbage bags—both of which are necessities as I gird my loins for a trip back to Aunt Maggie’s in her giant deathtrap Caddy.
I just pray my obnoxious neighbor will be nowhere in sight when I have to wrestle a metric ton of Hefty garbage bags into the house.
I need another macchiato if there is even a possibility of seeing him again.