July 18th, 2014; 11:43 PM
Dear Diary,
Mood: lonely, but isn’t it always? Perhaps if I weren’t such a fool, my heart wouldn’t be forced to beat in solitude. Oh, how I yearn to be touched as tenderly as I caress the tomatoes I ring up. If only someone would lay his fingers on me as though I were an onion without a sticker and he was searching the topography of my body for the code.
Tonight, something marvelous could have happened, but I let the opportunity slip away.
I was on register three—a register of good character—when he came through my line. The grocery store was slow and half-empty, which was unusual for a Wednesday. I was shifting back and forth on my tired feet, thinking about the cheapest thing I could buy in the deli on my break. I was hungry, but I was hungry for more than fried chicken.
The presence of the man stirred me from my reverie, and I mechanically shifted into customer service mode. My bagger unloaded the man’s cart while he stood examining the magazine rack. Head down, I began to scan his items. Grapes, paper towels, buy-one-get-one bacon… When I looked up, I noticed his eyes on me.
Ever the shrinking violet, I managed a smile, but broke eye contact and continued scanning. “Y’know somethin’?” His voice was slow and mushy. “You’re a real beauty, hon.”
“Thank you,” I said, taken aback that someone as mature as this gentleman had taken notice of me.
“I really mean it. You’re absolutely beautiful. Just beautiful,” he continued. He leaned close to me, and I got a good look at his face. His skin was splotchy like constellations, broken blood vessels purpling his nose like a sunset. His lips were lush and full like two sizzling sausages, and his hot breath smelled like a small animal had had the privilege of dying in his throat. “Now tell me something, baby doll. You got a boyfriend?”
The sad truth spilled from my lips before I could sugarcoat it. “No.” The plaintive syllable was just another note in the chaos of the store, drowned out by the symphony of registers beeping and shopping carts squealing.
“A pretty girl like you with no boyfriend? Well isn’t that somethin’? You can’t be more’n nineteen, though. Looks like I still got a chance!” He grinned at me.
My heart fluttered, but I felt something in me close myself off. I scanned his items faster and faster until they were all in bags and there was no reason for him to continue standing at my register. He paid, but said nothing, and then, he was gone. If only I had let myself be open to the alluring stranger who entered my life today. A man like that, possibly three times my age, why, he’d have so much to offer me. He was brimming with life and experience. I remember the way he handed me his damp, crumpled bills, the way his gentle fingers brushed my own. Tonight, as I rest my aching feet, I will imagine him turning me over and over in his hands, like I am a succulent piece of produce and he’s looking for the code.