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Surprises

W. Dean Marple

    She was surprised.
    It happened right in front of the iceberg lettuce. The gentle bump on her back, the mumbled apology, the slight retreat of his cart. It wasn’t particularly remarkable. Shoppers and grocery carts, especially in crowded isles, did sometimes bump.
    Him: tall for an average man, but not NBA tall. Him: clean shaven and the only man in the store wearing a suit. Perhaps he was an attorney on his way home grabbing a gallon of two-percent milk and a loaf of whole-grain bread for his children’s breakfast tomorrow. He wasn’t pretty boy handsome, but if she were forty years younger, she would have noticed him.
    She was grandmotherly plump and dancing on the cusp of eighty. Wearing a dress that fit fifteen pounds ago, she carried a large, floral print handbag slung over her left shoulder. It was the handbag that first caught his eye.
    He was not an attorney. Good at his craft, he made sure his appearance gave no hint about his motives. For now, he was content to follow her, sometimes falling back and randomly tossing a few items in his cart. Except for the Snickers bar, he didn’t care what ended up at the bottom of the wire cart. He liked the texture of Snickers. Sometimes he pushed his cart closer, sneaking glances at the handbag’s contents. The unmistakable green edges of cash peeked out of an interior pocket. He noted a cell phone, a checkbook, and some other odds and ends that he suspected might include tubes of that bright, red lipstick that old ladies globed on their puckered lips—the kind that left smeary imprints on grandchildren’s cheeks.
    She was surprised.
    At the meat counter he was beside her again, their carts nearly touching. She felt his suit sleeve barely brush her handbag. He stopped a few feet in front of her to eye a pork roast, chilled and resting under the bright white lights of the case. She asked for a half-pound of shaved ham. The man with the suit was eyeing her, not so subtly this time, and she noticed his expression. It made her vaguely uneasy. She reached over the counter to take the ham from the clerk.
    Up the bread aisle she pushed, one roll of her belly pressing against the cart handle. The store placed the expensive premium brands at eye level but made those with a Social Security budget work a little harder. Stretching, she reached up for the generic white bread on the top shelf and was just cradling it down into her cart when she again felt a bump on her hip. The bump was more substantial this time. For a moment, the thought flickered across her mind that Mr. Bread For His Kids was following her.
    She was surprised.
    “Oh, oh! I’m so sorry. Please excuse me,” gushed a young mom with toddler riding in her cart. The woman looked frazzled, one unruly curl swinging back and forth in front of her face. The youngster was having trouble deciding which food group to throw on the floor next.
    “Don’t worry, dear. I remember going shopping with my two at that age. It was such a hassle and they’d always end up fighting over something like whether they wanted the creamy or the crunchy peanut butter.” She gave the woman a reassuring smile, and then realized the man was nowhere in sight. For some reason it made her feel better.
    Moving on, she quickly passed through the frozen foods section, selecting a pint of ice cream (her favorite: chocolate swirl), and headed for the check out lane. Preferring lanes where she actually talked to the cashiers, she avoided the automated lanes where shoppers scanned their own items. It was nice, even briefly, to have someone notice her and share a few words. The casual chatter distracted her, and she did not notice the man checking out three lanes over.
    She thanked the boy who placed the bagged groceries in the cart and slowly pushed her purchases through the self-opening doors. Sticking his Snickers in his suit pocket, the man abandoned his cart next to a random car and began shadowing her. Walking at a slightly faster pace, he inconspicuously closed the gap between them as she trudged on. Each step brought her closer to her car—but farther from other shoppers.
    As he closed the last few feet between them and gave her right shoulder a familiar hard shove. Shoving the right shoulder made her left shoulder, the one where the handbag hung, rotate toward him. As expected, the handbag spun toward him, and he stepped in to grab it. That’s when her right hand jerked forward, jamming the small pistol into his gut. By the third pull of the trigger he knew the odds and ends in her handbag were not bright red lipstick.
    He was surprised.

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