“Let me give you some advice,” Maggie instructed her seriously. “Never try to give a cat a bath.”
Andi began laughing loudly and Maggie couldn’t help but laugh with her. An old woman in line behind Maggie cleared her throat impatiently.
“Did you find everything you were looking for?” Andi asked, slipping back into her role of cashier.
“Actually, I was hoping to pick up a bottle of wine but didn’t see any.” Maggie thought of the claw foot bathtub waiting for her back at Devereaux Manor. She missed the place already. Sweetwater felt too much like the real world. She wasn’t ready for the real world.
“You can’t buy any here,” Andi replied, sounding rather disappointed herself.
“Is there a liquor store then?” Maggie asked. She heard the woman behind her scoff at her question. She glanced over her shoulder to see a conservatively dressed elderly woman standing behind her in line. Despite the summer heat she wore a high collared long sleeve blouse and long denim skirt. Her thin gray hair was pulled tightly into a severe bun on the top of her head. She openly sized Maggie up, lingering on her tattered arms, and then turned away with a look of disgust. Maggie looked back over to Andi who rolled her eyes.
“We don’t have any liquor stores,” Andi explained apologetically. “This is a dry county.”
“A what?”
“A dry county. No liquor is sold here.”
“In the entire county?!”
Andi nodded as she scanned and bagged the last of Maggie’s items.
“I didn’t realize prohibition was still in effect,” Maggie muttered as she paid for her groceries. Andi giggled. The woman behind her huffed again loudly and shifted around seeming agitated.
“And how are you today, Mrs. Bouchard?” Andi asked loudly, forcing the woman to acknowledge them.
“Well, the Lord saw fit to give me another day on this earth,” the old woman remarked dryly. Maggie wasn’t entirely sure if Mrs. Bouchard was necessarily happy about that fact.
“And all of our days are brighter for it,” Andi replied cheerfully. Her sunny smile only seemed to irritate the woman more. It was Maggie’s turn to stifle a giggle.
“It was nice to meet you, Andi.” Maggie smiled sincerely as she pushed her loaded cart away from the register. “Mrs. Bouchard.” She nodded in the old woman’s direction, the smile gone from her face in a perfect impression of her mother’s cold refined stare. She saw the woman’s eyes widen in surprise just before she turned to leave the store.
As she made the short drive back to Devereaux Manor the air conditioning went out in her car. She should’ve known better than to push Old Betty so hard. This heat was just too much for her. She rolled the windows down but wasn’t really sure if the heat outside was improved at all by the wind created when driving through it.
Just as she turned into the driveway Old Betty began to sputter and lurch. The check engine lights began to flash on the dashboard.
“Oh no! Please no!” Maggie begged as her old car began making a horrible high pitched noise. She tried to drive as gently as possible as the car wheezed its way down the driveway. Just as she rounded the fountain near the front steps the car died with one last sputtering cough. She’d known this day was coming. Maggie leaned her head against the steering wheel in defeat.
She could feel the panic trying to creep its way in, the anxiety and the questions bubbling just below the surface, but she refused to let them take hold. She gripped the steering wheel tighter and clamped her eyes shut. She would not panic. She could handle this.
The car could be fixed. She had a roof over her head, a rather magnificent one, and a trunk full of groceries. She wasn’t stranded. She had no where she needed to go. That final thought is what did it. She raised her head and smiled to herself. She had no where she needed to go. How wonderfully liberating. No deadlines to meet, no classes to make, no papers due, no tests to study for. The only real pressing issue was the ice cream that was currently melting in her trunk, and that she could handle.
~∞~
Several hours later the microwave dinged and Maggie pulled out a hot potato with an oven mitt. As she dressed it with cheese, salt, and butter, her new cat strolled lazily into the kitchen. He really did look much better after his bath. Unfortunately Maggie couldn’t say the same for herself. Brazenly the cat jumped onto the kitchen counter.
“Don’t push it,” Maggie warned, pointing her fork at the creature. With a haughty meow he jumped back to the floor. Maggie retrieved a can of cat food that she’d purchased earlier and spilled the contents onto a small saucer placing it on the floor for the cat.