“I saw you come home,” Mrs. Ransom said. “Jared, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jared, a boy who would have remembered his manners even on the sinking Titanic, held out his hand, scraped from his earlier run through the underbrush.
Mrs. Ransom smiled and shook her head. “I better not. Arthritis. And you must excuse me if I skip the amenities, which I ordinarily would never do, but time is of the essence this evening, it seems. Young man, do you have a driver’s license?”
Jared found himself remembering some movie where the suave villain had said, You can only hang me once. “Yes, but I don’t have a car.”
“That is not a problem. I have one. It’s a Datsun, old but in excellent repair. I drive it seldom these days, because of my arthritis. Also, my leg brace makes it difficult to operate the pedals. I make my customers pick up from the house. They’re usually okay with that—oh, never mind. It’s not relevant, is it? Jared—I need a favor.”
Jared was quite sure he knew what the requested favor was going to be.
“I sleep badly these days under the best of circumstances, and since my granddaughter came to stay with me while my son and daughter-in-law work out their . . . their differences . . . I’ve hardly slept at all. I have gone in debt to sleep, you might say, and in spite of all my painful ailments, I believe that tonight that debt may be called in. Unless, that is . . .” She raised her cane so she could scratch the spot between her eyebrows. “Oh, this is hard. I am ordinarily a private person, a decorous person, not one to spill my problems on a complete stranger, but I saw you arrive home and I thought . . . I thought perhaps . . .”
“You thought I might know someone, be able to get something that would help you stay awake a little while longer.” He spoke it as a statement, not a question, thinking coincidence, serendipity, predestination, fate.
Mrs. Ransom’s eyes had widened. “Oh, no! Not at all! I know someone. At least I think I do. All I’ve ever purchased from her is marijuana—it helps my arthritis and my glaucoma—but I do believe she sells other things. And it isn’t just me. There’s Molly to think about. My granddaughter. She’s as lively as a flea right now, but by ten o’clock she’ll be—”
“Getting soupy,” Jared said, thinking of Mary’s sister.
“Yes. Will you help me? The woman’s name is Norma Bradshaw. She works at the Shopwell store, on the other side of town. In the produce section.”
4
Now here he was, driving to Shopwell on his permit with one traffic violation—a blown stop sign—already to his credit, and the lives of two people in his inexperienced hands. Mary he had been counting on; ten-year-old Molly Ransom not so much. She had already been sitting in the elderly Datsun’s backseat when Jared assisted her grandmother back to the house, and Mrs. Ransom insisted that he take the girl. Getting out of the house “would help keep the poor mite’s juices flowing.” The news reports said that there was unrest in the cities, but Mrs. Ransom wasn’t the least bit concerned about sending her granddaughter on an errand in little old Dooling.
Jared was in no position to refuse an extra passenger. The car belonged to the old lady, after all, and if he refused in spite of that, it might raise that pertinent question again—he was a licensed driver, wasn’t he? Mrs. Ransom might let him go even if he admitted the truth, she was pretty desperate, but he didn’t want to take the risk.
They were at last approaching the supermarket, thank God. Molly was sitting down again with her seatbelt fastened, but she had a motor mouth, and it was currently in high gear. So far Jared and Mary had learned that Molly’s best friend was Olive, and Olive could be a puke when she didn’t get her own way, it was like her superpower, except who would even want it, and Molly’s parents were seeing a marritch counselor, and Gram smoked special medicine because it helped her eyes and her arthritis, and she had a great big smoker thing with an American eagle on it, and usually smoking was bad, but it was different for Gram, although Molly wasn’t supposed to talk about that, because then people might think smoking that wasn’t okay—
“Molly,” Mary said, “do you ever shut up?”
“Usually just when I’m sleeping,” Molly said.
“I don’t want you to go to sleep, but your thoughts are a little overwhelming. Also, you should stop breathing your grandmother’s pot smoke. It’s not good for you.”
“Fine.” Molly folded her arms across her chest. “Can I just ask one thing, Miss Bossy Mary?”
“I suppose,” Mary said. Her hair, usually pulled back smoothly and tied in a ponytail, was loose on her shoulders. Jared thought she looked beautiful.
“Are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?”
Mary looked at Jared, and opened her mouth to say something. Before she could, he dared to take one hand off the wheel and point ahead at a huge parking lot bathed in a bowl of halogen light. It was crammed with cars.
“Shopwell ahoy.”
5
“This is crazy,” Mary said.
“Crazy-crazy,” Molly agreed.
Jared parked on the grass at the far end of the Shopwell lot. That was probably another violation, but not one that would count for much when the lot itself was a demo derby. Cars sped recklessly up and down the few lanes that were still clear, honking at shoppers who were wheeling full carts. As they surveyed the scene, two carts collided and the men pushing them started yelling at each other.
“Maybe you better stay in the car, Molly.”
“No way.” She seized Jared’s hand. “You’re not leaving me. Either of you. Please. My mother left me in a parking lot once and—”
“Come on, then,” Mary said. She pointed to one of the middle lanes. “Let’s go that way. Less chance of getting run down.”
The three of them weaved through a snarl of abandoned automobiles. They had just passed one of these orphans when a Dodge Ram pickup backed out of its space and struck it, driving it backward until there was enough room to escape. The Ram roared past them, its newly dented tailgate flapping like a loose jaw.
Inside, Shopwell was pandemonium. Voices babbled. Voices roared. There were screams and the sound of breaking glass. Men were yelling. As they hung back beside the stacks of shopping baskets and the few remaining carts, a skinny man in a suit coat and tie went sprinting past, pushing a cart full of Red Bull, Blast-O Cola, and Monster Energy drinks. Chasing after him was a burly guy in jeans and a tee-shirt, stomping in motorcycle boots.
“You can’t have all of those!” Motorcycle Boots shouted.
“First come, first serve!” Suitcoat and Tie shouted back without turning. “First come, first ser—”
He tried a hard right into Aisle 7 (Pet Food and Paper Products), but weight and momentum carried his overloaded cart into a display of dog cookies. They went flying. Motorcycle Boots was on the cart at once, grabbing six-packs of energy drink. When Suitcoat and Tie tried to reclaim his cart, Boots shoved him. Suitcoat went down.