Tales of the City 08 - Mary Ann in Autumn

included—were already morphing into giant white tortoises; the only color remaining in the landscape was the blue-and-red glow of a Pepsi machine on the porch of the store.
    She tugged open the door and entered a fetchingly decrepit scene: slanting floors, pegboards hung with fishing lures, a dormant potbellied stove serving as a perch for the resident cat. It might have been something out of Norman Rockwell if not for the glass-fronted freezers full of packaged pizzas and, mounted above the checkout counter, a flat-screen TV set on mute, with subtitled carnage from a car bombing in Iran. Why would you want that here? she wondered, until she saw the look of leaden boredom on the face of the young cashier. He was like some heartsick captive creature in a roadside zoo.
    And apparently he’d been alone until her arrival.
    “Wow,” she said, brushing the snow off her jacket. “It’s really starting to come down.”
    “Don’t worry, lady. You’ll be able to get out. The plow comes through this evening.”
    “Oh, I didn’t mean that. I like the snow, actually.”
    He grunted noncommittally.
    “We’re staying across the road,” she added with growing discomfort. “That little rental house? It’s very sweet. This is such a charming town.”
    Another grunt. “Anything in particular you’re lookin’ for?”
    She shook her head. “I’d just like to browse, thanks.” She didn’t like this kid’s energy, and she didn’t like to be called “lady,” so she chose not to squander another moment in conversation. Still, to keep from looking like a fraud, she had to make a show of “browsing,” so she began meandering through that tilty-floored room, stopping to admire things that would never normally attract her attention. A box of jackknives, for example, and a creaky carousel of Day-Glo postcards emblazoned with flaming skulls.
    Michael had been right; the place was a trip, a head-on collision of country funk and city demands. There was an alcove to one side, an obvious add-on to the original building, that did its best to impersonate a wine cellar, complete with an arbor of dusty plastic grapes. There was even an “antique nook”—a sad collection of cobalt medicine bottles and horseshoes—but she could smell mold from the door, so she didn’t go in.
    She found the condiments on a scantily stocked shelf near the back of the store. There were two squeeze bottles of Grey Poupon, amazingly enough, so she took one, then headed toward the freezers for the half-and-half. The cashier was dealing with someone else now, laconically ringing up an order, so she lurked out of sight to avoid further awkward transactions. The funny thing was: she’d heard no one else enter the store. She had to assume this other customer had been shopping in the antique nook.
    She waited for proof of the customer’s exit—the telltale jingle of the cowbells on the back of the front door—before bringing her items to the desk. She wondered how she’d become like this: afraid of everything and everyone, even herself. Cancer and infidelity were two good answers, except for the fact that her failure of nerve had come to her long before those particular calamities. Once, when she was younger, she would have stopped at nothing to charm this cashier—even after he’d been so rude to her—just to prove that, deep down, people were decent, and, even more important, that she was.
    She no longer had the energy for that tiresome dance.
    She paid for the items in cash without saying a word, mostly to see if the guy could complete the transaction in total silence. He did, and she wasn’t surprised. She stuffed the mustard and the half-and-half carton into the pockets of her jacket and left the building. It was already dusk, so she stopped on the porch to study the nondescript house across the street, her harbor for the next two nights. She could see someone moving about in the living room—Michael, it looked like—and there was light spilling from the windows onto the new-fallen snow. It felt like spying on someone else’s life.
    It took her a while to notice the footprints leading from the store to the end of the block. There, next to the restaurant, she finally saw the other shopper, a slow-moving figure in a dark overcoat and a brimmed hat, hunching into the snow on his way home to somewhere. She could feel the bite of the wind now, so she tugged tight the hood of her jacket and proceeded to trudge toward the house. She was