Saturday, 7:35 pm
When Tabitha rounded the corner, Luke was knelt down in front of her register, inspecting the area beneath it. She could hear the rustle of plastic. Pointedly, she plunked the handheld scanner onto the counter, and he shot her a baffled look before rising to his feet.
"Why are you looking through my groceries?" she demanded. Luke went pale.
"I didn't know---" he began quickly, but Tabitha silenced him with a moody look.
"They're right where I usually put my purse," she said. She winced as she heard the snap creep into her voice. She was more mortified than angry, but the sleep she had lost over the past two days was finally starting to catch up to her. In the past four hours, she had somehow misplaced the barcode printer, nearly locked herself out of the bookkeeping room, and---in a daze of worry and exhaustion---completely ignored a customer who had been trying to get her attention for several minutes. Still, she had managed to survive the majority of her shift without screaming at anyone or passing out on her keyboard, and with only thirty minutes left on the clock, she was determined to keep her streak going. "I'm sorry," she sighed. "I'm a little tired."
"It's fine. I shouldn't have snooped." He glanced tentatively at the two bags that were crammed beneath the register, and when he looked back up at her, he lifted his eyebrows. "I just don't think I've ever seen someone buy that much...garlic...before." Tabitha cast her eyes down and tried to fight away the heat that was rising to her face.
"I'm making lasagne," she mumbled.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Luke's confused expression fade into concern. "...Okay."
"The labels are done. Any chance I could leave early?" she continued, stuffing the equipment back into a drawer and looking anywhere but at her boss. Luke cleared his throat awkwardly, but bowed his head after a moment.
"Sure. I guess I still owe you one for staying late on Thursday."
"You owe me a lot of ones," Tabitha said, turning to give him a light smile that he quickly returned. But then her eyes strayed to the area beyond the front window, where someone was entering the bar across the street. "Did you ever hear about what happened to that guy? Er...Bob?"
"No idea. I offered to buy him lunch on Friday, he never called me back," Luke grunted. Tabitha nodded idly as she stooped down to gather up her coat, and his face suddenly lit up with realization. "You know, if you're not busy later---"
"My friend is coming over tonight," Tabitha yawned. Her fingers flew nimbly over the keyboard despite her exhaustion, and she watched with satisfaction as a familiar pattern of LED asterisks appeared on the register's display.
"Right." Luke's voice sounded a little dull. "The lasagne."
Tabitha felt her brow crinkle in barely-lucid confusion, but then she blinked. "Oh. Yes." He watched her in amusement as she heaved the bags against her chest, and she felt her heart sink when she observed the produce bag that was nearly spilling out of her arms. It
was
a lot of garlic. Not for the first time, she wondered if she might have gone overboard. "Lots of lasagne," she concluded gloomily.
"Sounds like a party. Have fun," Luke offered, and she rewarded him with a weary smile before clomping towards the exit.
---
Saturday, 8:30 pm
As she exited the bus, Tabitha was beginning to realize that nearly two pounds of garlic and a very densely-packed box of salt did not good traveling companions make. She had knotted the grocery sack's handles tightly around the bulbs that were threatening to spill forth, and the sharp corners of the salt box were beginning to protrude slightly from the confines of the flimsy plastic. Grimacing, she heaved the box into one arm and cupped the base of it in her hand. She had about half a mile more to walk, and she could only hope that the bags would hold for that long.
"Hey!" someone called from behind her. Tabitha kept her eyes cast forward and quickened her pace, praying that the stranger was signaling to someone else. "Hey, you! Lady! Lady with the brown hair!" The pattering of footsteps was growing ever-louder, and Tabitha quickly broke into a hurried sort of waddle, still cradling her mass of groceries. "No, wait! I have your---"
But exactly what the person had of Tabitha's was lost to the wind as her heel hit a sheet of ice and skidded. Her rebellious legs slipped and flailed all over the sidewalk, and after what seemed like a decade of struggling, she was pitched forward with a yelp.
Papery-white bulbs exploded in every direction as the sack hit the concrete and burst. Sharp pain flared to life in Tabitha's knees and palms as she crashed to the ground, then dwindled to a steady throb. The sounds of footsteps slowed as the stranger came to a halt behind her, and a low whistle pierced the night.
"Oh,
fuck,"
a voice sighed. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," Tabitha croaked, and then a shoulder was shoving itself under her left arm and pulling her crumpled limbs up and back into a standing position. The woman's body wobbled as Tabitha struggled to regain her balance, but when she did, she looked down into a pair of very wide blue eyes. The skin around them promptly contorted into an annoyed squint.
"Am I really that terrifying?" the woman said accusingly, and then she held up a bright rectangle of glass and white plastic. "Or do you really just want to ditch your phone? I can take it off your hands if you do." Sufficiently mortified, Tabitha immediately pried the phone from her hands.
"Oh, God," she groaned as she stuffed it into her coat pocket. "I'm so sorry. Thanks, it's just---"
"I get it. The night is dark and full of creepers." Her pink lips split into a contagious, cherubic smile. Now that Tabitha was really looking at her, she could see that this woman was quite possibly the least "terrifying" thing she had ever seen. She was short---at least two inches shorter than Tabitha---and was wearing a black hoodie over worn blue jeans. Her pert figure, (and the woebegone black sneakers on her feet), spoke of a person who had recently moved into the deep city and sworn off motorized transportation, and her peroxide-pale hair was shaggy in the way that a pixie cut grows after several months of neglect. It framed her heart-shaped face in a feathery mop. "Let me help with that," she continued, stooping back down onto her knees and reaching for a bulb of garlic, and Tabitha shook her head frantically before joining her.
"It's really fine," she protested, but the strange woman was already gathering the fallen globes in handfuls.
"Don't worry. I'm not gonna steal your..." Her button-like nose wrinkled. "...garlic?"
"Making Italian," Tabitha grumbled, wondering how many times she was going to have to tell that particular lie before she made it home.
"Neat. I can barely boil water---I think it runs in my family. Oh, here." After fishing around in a small leather satchel at her hip, the mystery girl pulled out a crumpled cloth sack and began to deposit the bulbs. "This'll probably hold up a little better."
"I don't want to---"
"They're like a dollar. Don't worry about it."
Feeling more than a little flustered, Tabitha took the sack that was being thrust out towards her and crammed in the remaining garlic bulbs. "That's terribly nice of you," she finally managed to say. "I owe you. Really." The girl cocked her head to the side in thought.
"I guess you do," she said. Tabitha lifted her eyebrows, but the other woman had busied herself with hoisting up the tattered bag containing Tabitha's box of salt. "My place isn't for another couple of blocks. I could walk with you," she offered, hugging the box to her chest and replacing the satchel's strap over her shoulder. The pensive look on her face had vanished so abruptly that Tabitha found herself wondering if it had ever been there at all.
