Chp. 6

'Nice and calm.'

It was raining outside. All the air-conditioners were turned on. Solana snuggled into her jacket, enjoying the calmness of her surroundings as her eyes scanned the sales floor and aisles. It was a Friday morning. The supermarket was still empty except for the morning shift staff and two customers. Nope. Three. 

A formally-dressed tall man was now walking toward the cash counters with two large loaves and something else Solana couldn't see. She guessed the other two customers were probably just window shopping. 

"Do you know what a shopping cart is?" She wondered aloud, looking at the man approaching the cash point. 

He chose to stop at Zuri's counter, and Solana gave a silent prayer of thanks.

"Nice and calm." She hummed silently. 

It was wrong to enjoy the peace that came with slow business hours. Especially since this was where she earned her living. But she couldn't help it. The weather made her want to stay like this till she clocked out later. She did not feel like dealing with people. 

Someone was playing Ludovico's Ascent on the speakers. Maybe it's the manager. God bless his sweet soul. The music filled the place with such a sweet ambiance, it made her want to sit back and think of all the good things that had happened to her in this life. 

Her eyes moved to the analog clock on the cash machine. The time was already past 11 AM. The market got very busy at this time on Fridays, but not today. It seemed the rain was keeping everyone out.

Enjoy the calm while it lasts, she breathed silently. Reaching for her phone, she scanned the sales floor to make sure Mr. Gonza was nowhere in sight. Nope. Then she launched F******k making sure the phone stayed hidden from sight. With her head bowed down slightly, it was funny meme time.

She didn't know how long she sat scrolling and laughing at F******k memes before packs of condoms suddenly hit the counter, startling her. She jerked, causing her Samsung to slip from her grasp, hitting the floor with a loud thud.

"Hello. Good day." She greeted the customer but did not immediately look at who was in front of her.

Bending down quickly, she retrieved her phone from the floor and gave it a quick look to check if anything was broken. Then she placed it in the desk drawer and proceeded to scan the customer’s items.

“So, do I get one free?”

It was at the sound of his voice that she raised her head to look at the person. Time seemed to stop when her gaze settled on his. Honey-brown, arresting eyes held hers like a magnet!

“Eh... excuse me?” She asked, looking away quickly before he caught her staring. Yeah, right. Like he's blind, huh.

“Don’t I get one free? The price went up without notice and I’m buying all these boxes. I mean I deserve a freebie, don’t you think? A free condom…

Plus throw in someone to test it with. To check that the quality is still the same, you know.” He winked.

“Is this your idea of flirting?” She looked at him and was yet again, taken by his features, making her force her gaze away from his face.

“If it is?” His voice had a seductive tinge when he asked this.

“I’d say your game is weak and I’m not interested! And no, there’s no freebie. We also do not sell those types of toys here!”

She said this without looking at him, promising herself that she would work on her confidence so she could look jerks like him directly in the eye when she talked to them.

“You were supposed to laugh. I was trying to be funny, not flirt with you, jeez.” 

She caught his eye roll and quickly looked away. “Oh, my bad. Ha ha!” 

With one last, quick look, she handed him his receipt, then helped him pack his items in the grocery bag. 

Just because you had beautiful eyes and smelled nice didn’t give you the right to be a fool. Throw in someone to test it with. What an idiot! Her mother had warned her never to judge men by appearance. Most handsome men don’t mature early, she had said. Translation: Most handsome men were dumb as a brick. This one was proof that her mother was right.

*** Mark ***

My game is weak, huh? Yet you looked up today. Mark collected his receipt from the girl and proceeded toward the exit.

"I’d say my game is pretty strong!" He mused to himself.

Before heading out the exit, he took another glance to find that the girl’s eyes had returned to not minding who was in front of her. Typical. 

It was her Standard Operating Procedure. She did not look at people. 

From the day he realized she worked here, for no reason at all, he kept his eyes on her whenever he was paying for stuff. And he always used her counter no matter how long the queue. Never had he noticed her looking straight at anyone while dealing with them. Not once had she made eye contact with him longer than two seconds. Till today. Not that he counted. 

At some point, he considered complaining to Phil about it. But that thought had quickly vanished from his mind after thinking it through. He could imagine how that conversation would go. It was better to avoid the embarrassing inquiries that would follow. 

Mark came here often, especially because the place belonged to a friend of the family. As he walked back to his car under the light rain showers, his mind drifted to the first time he caught sight of her. It was a few months before he lost his mother.

He recalled her soft, gentle smile that day. How the wind played with her yellow dress when she bent to help his mother. He recalled the sunlight reflecting in her eyes in the one second she had looked at him that afternoon. 

He'd seen her again the following week and since then, he always looked for her when paying for his items. Each time, he would feel like saying something, but she never looked up. 

It felt like she wore a sign that said - "Just pay and go, don't talk to me!" He didn't know how to evade the invisible sign. To get her to see him. 

'Well, until today.' The dumb comment about the condoms had made her raise her head after all these months. And he knew she liked what she saw. 

What did he do with this little achievement? Mark wondered. Did he even have the time to do anything about it? The answer was nope. She seemed like a hard ass, too. Couldn't even take a joke. Already jumping to conclusions. So what if he was flirting?

They weren't kids and sex between two consenting adults was the most natural thing. Maybe she was a prude. It was not like he asked her to be the volunteer. He implied that anyone would do. Throw in someone to test it with. 'SomeOne. Not you.' And again, it was a joke. 

The girl had been too quick to take offense. Then again, he heard that people working in retail were constantly stressed, so they left their sense of humor at home if they even had any. Maybe that was the problem. She was stressed.

Why was he even thinking of a random supermarket cashier now? It was not the time. He was not in any position to entertain useless thoughts. Any thought that did not relate to his self-preservation and saving his motel was useless. The motel, he amended. He had a lot to do.

Dealing with the applications was at the top of the list.