The ring, p.8
The Ring, page 8
“Did you see that?”
Alison stopped reorganizing shopping bags and glanced up. “I did. It’s very sad.”
Alison was one of several older cashiers who worked at Safeway. Cynthia had never asked her age—nor would she ever—but placed her somewhere in her mid-sixties. A sparkplug of a woman who called it like she saw it, Alison had earned the nickname Nana Spunk among her coworkers.
“To say the least,” Cynthia said, grimacing. “I mean, Mountain Dew? For breakfast? Where are his parents for God’s sake?”
Alison grabbed a cup of coffee from beside her register. “No offense, hon, but be careful how hard you lob stones from inside that glass house of yours.”
Cynthia frowned—Alison had a point. What she witnessed with the boy was becoming more commonplace with latchkey kids, many left to fend for themselves in dual income households where the parents or parent, in many instances, were out the door before their children. Cynthia should know.
She had always had a distaste for the redeye shift. While the early hours allowed her to be home in the evenings and attend to domestic duties, it wreaked havoc on her conscience. Most days she was fortunate to have Trevor there to attend to Eva. It gave her comfort. There were times, though, when both she and Trevor had to leave for work before Eva departed for school. It was certainly not what they desired, but it happened. Dual absences became more frequent once Trevor was promoted. As a department supervisor at Home Depot there were new responsibilities and new duties. There were also new hours.
Summertime had always been the real killer. With both parents working and Eva out of school, juggling schedules to keep either Cynthia or Trevor home had been a maddening exercise in negotiation. But Eva was older now and had taken her first job over the summer. It was ideal and provided Cynthia some relief from having to worry.
Then Rory disappeared and everything changed.
Cynthia crossed her arms. “The worst part about it is that I’ll bet his parents have no idea he eats that way. Is it really that hard to keep a box of corn flakes in the house?”
Alison leaned back against the railing to her stall. “Who’s to say they don’t? You know how kids are. Once the cat’s away the mice will play. That boy’s probably getting his first taste of independence and running wild with it.”
“Maybe.”
“Ah, there isn’t any maybe about it. I can guarantee you if mom or dad ever got wind of his morning dietary habits there’d be hell to pay. You can bet on it. I know I’d let him have it.”
“Geez, glad you weren’t my mom,” Cynthia said with a wink before facing a middle-aged couple pushing an overloaded cart into her stall.
“Good morning. Welcome to Safeway. Do you have a Safeway Club Card or any coupons today?”
A slight woman with a gray pixie haircut maneuvered around the cart to stand in front of Cynthia. She looked through narrow-framed glasses into her purse and simply uttered the word, “yes.”
Her husband nodded at Cynthia uneasily as if he couldn’t wait to leave. He began laying items on the conveyor in a hurried motion as his wife produced the card.
“Thank you,” Cynthia said, scanning the bar code and returning it to the woman who pocketed it without so much as a word or upward glance.
So it was going to be like that.
The first items rolled up to Cynthia. They were cans—lots and lots of cans. After so many years scanning items, the products that passed through her hands had become blurs of color. There was no presupposition anymore, not like the early days when she could tell whether a person came from an affluent neighborhood, was a blue-collar worker like her, or was preparing to spend food stamps, all based on the types of food they bought. She had long ceased passing judgment on customers. Occasionally, however, there were peculiarities that were hard to overlook.
She lost count somewhere around twenty and still the cans kept coming, soups and beans mostly, with some fruit and tomato sauce thrown in. Then came bags of sugar and flour, rice and pastas and more beans, this time dried. So much had been piled on the conveyor Cynthia had almost asked if the couple owned a restaurant.
Having finally emptied the cart, the husband pushed it through to the end of the stall then, to Cynthia’s surprise, turned around and retrieved not one, but two more carts. Why Cynthia hadn’t noticed them before she couldn’t say, but the sheer volume of food and the introverted nature of the couple led her to a determination: the couple wasn’t supplying a restaurant—they were stocking a shelter.
Cynthia glanced at the woman and was startled to discover her staring back. Her expression suggested an awareness, that she had seen in Cynthia’s eyes the truth behind their shopping spree. Cynthia, in the brief moment she held the woman’s gaze, detected a note of embarrassment, as if what the couple was doing went against pre-held personal beliefs.
The husband began hoisting cases of water onto the belt.
“That’s okay,” Cynthia said. “Just tell me how many you have.”
The husband silently counted. As he stooped to include those on the bottom of the cart, Cynthia’s attention was drawn beyond him and toward a pair of women standing near an endcap that, until yesterday, had been overstocked with the same plastic-wrapped water bottles the man currently pushed to the end of Cynthia’s stall. To her surprise, the endcap was bare, save a final case one of the women held in her hands.
“Twelve,” the husband said diffidently.
Cynthia nodded absently, ringing up the total. She kept her eyes on the women who seemed to be in the middle of a minor dispute. Fingers pointed at one another and hands were thrust onto hips.
Taking a survey of her surroundings, Cynthia realized there were only a handful of cashiers and baggers at the front of the store with no security or management in the vicinity. If the situation escalated, she didn’t know what would happen.
Reaching for the handset, Cynthia activated the store intercom. “Mike to the front, please. Mike to the front,” she said, placing a distress call to the store manager, but no sooner had she cradled the phone than one of the women shoved the other.
“Excuse me,” Cynthia said to the middle-aged couple as she raced around the backside of her register and trotted over to the pair of women.
She arrived just as the woman who had been pushed pulled out her cell phone.
“Is everything all right over here?” Cynthia said, her heart thumping in her throat.
“No, it isn’t. I’m calling the police,” the one with the phone said. “This woman just assaulted me.”
“Yeah, call them,” the other one said. “And I’ll have you arrested for stealing.”
“I can’t steal something from you that isn’t yours, you lunatic.” The woman with the phone shook her head as if the entire conversation were ludicrous on a level heretofore unheard.
Her pantsuit was of a professional caliber, the style denoting someone employed as an office worker. Cynthia glanced into her cart: plates, plasticware, donuts, bagels and juice—all the makings of an early morning breakfast meeting. The woman’s poker-straight blonde hair hung over her shoulders, chopped evenly across the bottom. She used excessive amounts of blue eye shadow and had applied so much mascara that her lashes left ghostly, spidery imprints on her brows.
By contrast, the other woman was, for lack of a better word, less polished. Wearing bedraggled sweatpants and a white T-shirt that read, “Take me drunk I’m home”, she epitomized lower socioeconomic stereotypes. Her frayed, frosted hair was yanked back into a scrunchie, her oversized sunglasses perched atop an unruly mane. Her face was rough and pitted with acne scars, her teeth stained an unnatural yellow-brown. The woman was haggard, twitchy and a bit dirty. She also appeared to be someone who was no stranger to confrontation.
“Is there something I can help you ladies with?” Cynthia said, her voice cracking slightly.
“Yeah,” the woman in the t-shirt said, “you can tell Barbie to give me my water back.”
“For the last time, it’s not yours. For God’s sake, this is ridiculous.” The woman in the pantsuit kept the phone pressed to her ear. She turned to Cynthia. “We approached the water at the same time. I got there first. She doesn’t like it.”
The woman in the t-shirt thrust her finger at the other woman. “You saw me reaching for it and on purpose grabbed it before I could get to it!”
The woman lowered her phone. “Do you even hear yourself? How on earth would I know what you were reaching for? I’m sorry you didn’t get your water. I’m sure they have more in the back. No big deal.”
“If it’s no big deal, then you wait for it.”
Cynthia checked for any sign of backup, but saw no one. The woman in the t-shirt was becoming more agitated with each sentence and Cynthia feared an altercation was imminent if someone didn’t intervene. She caught a glimpse of Alison back at her register clutching a phone in her hands. Quite clearly, she mouthed the words, Should I call the cops? Cynthia shook her off.
She faced the woman in the t-shirt. “Ma’am, if you can wait just a minute I can have someone check—”
The woman in the t-shirt whirled on Cynthia.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
Cynthia recoiled. The woman in the t-shirt smiled, exposing teeth blackened at the gum line.
“What’s the matter, bagger lady? You scared or something?”
Cynthia glanced uneasily at the woman.
“Well, I’m not sure what else can be done here,” the woman in the pantsuit said nervously, her self-righteous attitude having evaporated. “But I need to go.”
Plunking the water into her cart, the woman pocketed her phone, having apparently decided that involving the police would only make matters worse. With a curt nod she attempted to wheel her cart away. That’s when the woman in the t-shirt clamped her hand on it.
“Where in the hell’re you going? This ain’t done.”
Cynthia swallowed with effort, her throat a desert.
“Ma’am, please—”
“Don’t you ‘ma’am please’ me. You all think that just ‘cause I don’t have nice clothes that you can walk over me?”
“I promise you, no one thinks that,” Cynthia said, her hands held out in an appeasing manner. Another look. Still no one.
“Look,” the woman in the pantsuit began, “I really need to be going. Will you please let go of my cart?”
“Sure. Soon as you give me what’s mine.”
There was a moment of false calm. Like the eye of a hurricane. The woman in the pantsuit simply eyed the other woman, debating her options. To Cynthia there was only one. Give her the water. While the woman in the pantsuit may have been in the right, the effortless choice would have been to avoid the potential for bodily harm, which seemed all but assured if the woman in the t-shirt didn’t get her way.
“I wasn’t going to do this,” the woman in the pantsuit began as she retrieved her phone from her pocket again, “but I don’t feel you’ve left me any choice.”
Quickly dialing, the woman in the pantsuit jammed the phone to her ear and waited.
What happened next was a blur, a flash of movement so unexpected Cynthia stumbled at its suddenness. She tripped over her own feet as she staggered backward and fell to the tiled floor. For a fleeting moment she wondered from where the woman in the t-shirt had produced the knife, and so stealthily. There were no pockets on her pants, no place to conceal one under her snug-fitting shirt. Then Cynthia saw the woman’s open purse.
She peered toward the register and discovered Alison on the phone and dialing. Where the hell was Mike? Other customers had frozen in place at the sight of the woman in the t-shirt wielding a knife, many of them producing their own phones and placing emergency calls.
“Just take it easy,” the woman in the pantsuit said, her hands held up defensively. She threw the phone into her purse. “There. Okay? Nobody has to get—”
“This is only the beginning!” the woman in the t-shirt spat. “It’s gonna get worse. You wait. Those things in the sky are gonna keep coming and when they do there’s gonna be more problems than just water!”
Cynthia couldn’t speak. Couldn’t stand. The situation was too terrifying, too alien to accept that it was actually happening.
The woman in the t-shirt stared wild-eyed. She rocked from foot to foot, her hand continuously adjusting its grip on the knife. Her eyes flitted between Cynthia and the woman in the pantsuit, seeming to wait for someone to challenge her. Then, making a decision and knowing that time was now of the essence, the woman in the t-shirt suddenly lunged forward—causing the woman in the pantsuit to recoil with a high-pitched yelp—and snatched up the case of water from her cart.
She stared a moment, perhaps expecting a response to her actions. But there were none, Cynthia and the woman in the pantsuit having become statues. The woman stood indecisively and took a single step backwards, contemplating her next action. Without provocation and perhaps realizing she had gone too far, the woman dropped the water, twisted around clumsily and ran for the door, leaving her cart as she fled.
Cynthia never looked back, didn’t even see where the knife-brandishing woman went. She was just glad the woman was away from her. At least now Cynthia stood a fighting chance of fending off the panic attack that threatened to overtake her.
* * *
The doorbell rang. While there had been numerous calls throughout the day, the door remained oddly silent. Until now.
“Got it!,” Eva said. Hopping from the couch, she trotted over to the door and pulled it open; Wes and his parents stood on the stoop.
“Hi, Eva. Where’s your mother?” Jenny said, not waiting to be invited in as she slid past Eva holding a casserole dish wrapped in tinfoil.
“In the kitchen. Hey, Mr. Hardin,” Eva said to Wes’s dad, turning to Wes. “Hey, dork.”
“Hey, loser.”
Wes pushed past Eva playfully and entered, Dale following directly behind him.
“So your mom had quite the scare today,” Dale said.
“Yeah,” Eva said. “I’m just glad she’s okay.” Eva motioned toward the kitchen where Jenny now stood alongside Cynthia who hung up the handset. “Been on the phone ever since it happened.”
“I heard there’s been all kinds of reports of people acting out,” Wes said. “There was a thing I saw today about people panicking at gas stations in Idaho. Twin Falls, I think they said. Cleaned several of ‘em completely out. Then there was this other piece about runs on food banks in, like, three different states.”
“Holy crap.”
“Seriously. Been reports of stuff like that happening all over the world.”
“Because of the halos?”
“Guess so.”
“Hey, Trev!” Dale belted as he waved to Trevor on the other side of the patio door. Trevor raised an arm and nodded curtly before returning to the phone pressed to his ear.
“The boys at Home Depot hassling him again?” Dale said, following Eva into the kitchen.
“Who else?” Eva responded. “Usually it’s not so bad, but after dad heard about what happened and left work, people there, for whatever reason, suddenly became incapable of making decisions or doing their jobs.”
“Eva,” Cynthia said. “That’s not nice.”
“But it’s true. Dad manages a bunch of buffoons. Come on, you’ve seen them.”
Cynthia suppressed a smile.
“Such are the pitfalls of being in charge,” Dale said. “I should know. Because, like him, duty calls.”
Jenny dropped a hand to her hip. “What?”
“Sorry. Got a mower acting up and I can’t afford to have it down.” Dale looked at Cynthia on the other side of the kitchen island. “You okay?”
Cynthia rolled her eyes. “I feel like I’m going to wear these words out but, yes, I’m fine.”
“Glad to hear it,” Dale said, pointing to the casserole dish. “But in the event there’s any residual emotions from the day, Jen’s pear cobbler cures all. I highly advise you partake of a serving or two.”
“Do you have to go tonight?” Jenny said, taking Dale by the arm.
“Wish I didn’t, but I’ve got a full slate this week and a down mower will kill me. But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Jenny turned to Cynthia. “Sometimes I wonder why we own our own business. It’s great to be your own boss, but the days can be so long and it always seems like one of us is hardly home.” Jenny poked Dale in the ribs with a teasing finger.
Dale threw his arm around his wife. “It’s what keeps you in your castle, sweetheart.”
“Please,” Jenny smirked. “House isn’t even ten years old and we’ve got cracks in the walls from settling foundation.”
“It gives the house character.”
“You’re a character.”
Dale pecked Jenny on the cheek then looked at Cynthia. “You sure you’re all right?”
Cynthia nodded in big swoops. “For the last time, yes.”
“All right then. I’m off,” Dale said, bidding his farewells.
“Later, Dad,” Wes said, Dale shooting him a wink before he slipped through the door and closed it behind him.
Wes turned to Eva.
“So, you seen the latest?”
* * *
Eva bounded up the stairs to her room, immediately parking herself in front of her laptop and waking it.
Wes marched in behind her and plopped on Eva’s bed, leaning back as if he owned the place.
“Is there a particular place I should go?” Eva said.
“I think I saw it on ABC. But it’s probably everywhere.”
Eva typed into the URL search field, entering the domain name for the ABC news organization.
“So what’s been happening?” she asked, not turning from the screen.
Wes sat up. “Yeah, so check it. You know how the last halo was somewhere over the ocean, right? Near Australia or whatever?”
“Timor-Leste. But, yeah.” The ABC news page loaded, images on the homepage filtering in.
“Well, this morning, like, thousands and thousands of fish started washing up on the beaches—dead.”
