“I was thinking of you just this morning,” Audra said. “In fact, I think of you every morning when I get in the shower!” Brady had recently fixed their shower head. “I think, This feels heavenly and I owe it all to Brady Shannon!”
Brady smirked at Audra and rocked a little on the balls of his feet.
Not for the first time, Graham wondered if there was some sort of processing unit—some sort of filter—missing from Audra’s brain. She said things like this all the time without realizing how they sounded, and now here was poor Brady Shannon, getting turned on in Frozen Foods.
“Anyway,” Audra said, oblivious, “how have you been?”
“Oh.” Brady sounded disappointed. He probably hoped that Audra would go on describing what she did in the shower. “I’m all right.”
Audra touched Brady’s arm. “And please tell me how dear Ellen is.”
Okay, now first of all, Graham happened to know that Audra didn’t say things like “dear Ellen.” Except that she just did. Second, Graham would have bet that Brady didn’t like it when people said things like “dear Ellen.” But he had just liked it when Audra said it. Third, Ellen was a cat.
“She’s coming along, I guess.”
“Bladder infections can be very serious,” Audra said.
“Don’t I know it,” Brady said, shaking his head and tsking.
Audra and Brady talked some more about dear Ellen’s urinary tract, and health problems among the elderly cat population in general, and the astronomical cost of veterinary care, and Brady’s aunt Linda, who had had a bad run of UTIs herself recently, and the time Audra drank cranberry juice nonstop for a week and turned out not to have a UTI at all and—
Finally, finally, they got to the checkout lines.
Audra said, “Now, let me see if Jordan’s working. Oh, yes, he is! Let’s get in his line. Come this way.”
“Who’s Jordan?” Graham asked, maneuvering their cart with some difficulty.
“The checkout guy.”
“Well, yes, but why do we need to be in his line?”
“Just a minute,” Audra said. “Here.” She pulled the front of the cart to a checkout line near the door. The customer in front of them was just putting the last of her groceries on the conveyor belt.
“Audra,” Graham said again. “Why—”
Audra squeezed around the front of their grocery cart so that she was standing right next to Graham and spoke in a low voice. “I thought I told you this but maybe not.” Her breath on his face was as warm and soft as clover. “I was here a couple of weeks ago and Jordan was ringing up this man’s produce and the man had bought some pears but Jordan accidentally hit the wrong button and rang them up as these superexpensive Asian pears and the man got very huffy—he really was the most awful man, Graham, very coarse and uncaring—and told Jordan to take the Asian pears off his order and Jordan tried but he’d never done it before and the cash register froze and they had to call the supervisor and the man hollered at Jordan and stormed off without even buying his groceries! I thought Jordan was going to cry. I honestly did. He can’t be more than twenty, and he’s so sweet and defenseless-looking. So, anyway, now I always make sure to go through his checkout line and tell him what a good job he’s doing.”
Perhaps this was the fundamental difference between them. Audra was worried about Jordan’s self-esteem and Graham was wondering if Fairway still had the special Asian pears. If so, should he go get some so they could have Korean short ribs with pear marinade for dinner?
Audra edged back to the front of the cart and began unloading their groceries onto the conveyor. Graham peered around her to look at Jordan. He was a tall skinny African-American guy with neatly cornrowed hair and the large scared eyes of a deer. He was painstakingly checking out the purchases of the customer in front of them.
When they got up to the cash register, Audra said, “Good morning, Jordan!” so suddenly that Jordan fumbled the can of peas he was holding and had to lean down behind the counter to pick it up off the floor.
He looked at Audra cautiously. “Good morning.” He began scanning items.
“How are you, Jordan?”
Jordan paused, a bottle of ketchup in his hand. “Pretty good.” He scanned the ketchup and reached for a box of cereal.
“I was hoping you’d be working today,” Audra said. “You always do such a good job.”
Jordan stopped again. It was clear he couldn’t work the register and talk at the same time. Graham estimated that they had at least fifty items in their cart. So if each conversational exchange took thirty seconds—
“Thanks,” Jordan said finally.
He scanned a carton of orange juice and a box of pasta—Graham’s hopes rose microscopically—before Audra said, “You’re so efficient!”
Jordan stopped. Graham sighed. The man in line behind Graham sighed, too.
Jordan swallowed nervously. His neck poked out of the too-large collar of his tan uniform, narrow and vulnerable. “Thank you, ma’am,” he whispered.
“Audra,” Graham said quickly.
“Hmmm?”
“We forgot to get Parmesan cheese.”
She frowned slightly. “Did we? You want to run back and get some?”
That was the last thing Graham wanted to do, but at least Jordan had managed to scan another three items while Audra was distracted.
“I think we also forgot toothpaste,” he began again, but she had already turned back to Jordan.
“Excellent, Jordan!” Audra told him. “Look at you go!”
(Try to imagine having sex with someone so universally encouraging. It was, like almost everything about Audra, both good and bad.)
Graham sighed again and rested his elbows on the handle of the cart.
—
They had left Matthew, their ten-year-old son, at home with Bitsy, and when they got back from the supermarket, they found that Bitsy and Matthew had built a domino line through every room in the apartment, including the bathrooms.