Pearl could've sworn the woman she saw in the Food Lion parking lot was that Karen from long ago, that Karen with the wild child and self-entitled attitude. When that Karen met Pearl's eyes, she visibly cringed, tugged her child's arm, and hurried to get into her vehicle.
Pearl liked to think Karen was afraid of her, but honestly Pearl knew she wasn't particularly intimidating. She couldn't figure out why that Karen had acted like a scaredy-cat.
Today was a rare little treat. Darren was joining her on a grocery shopping trip. They'd already left the truck and were walking to the main entrance with their fingers interlaced.
Inside, Pearl saw what she believed was a very "Food Lion" interior. It felt different from the kind of grocery store Mama used to take her to when she was a child. Although, that had been a very local store, and that place kept changing owners and names over the years. This Food Lion they were in looked and kind of felt brown. Not a sickening brown, more like a gentle, creamy color.
Pearl liked holding Darren's big hand. Hell, sometimes she'd even hide her face into his shirt. No reason except it felt excellent. He'd typically pat her back or head, and that always warmed her belly. He encouraged this odd behavior. He liked it. That made her feel secure and safe.
Autumn was here again. The cool air didn't stop Pearl from looking pretty. She had a long, coat-like sweater of black wool. Underneath, there was a pair of reasonably tight blue jeans with a high waist, a long-sleeved pink T-Shirt, and black booties with low heels. Darren had personally braided her hair for her, a single French braid. He'd said he thought she looked like she was ready to take on the world. But she still clung to him like a shy child.
Darren took a shopping cart, or as he called it, a buggy. Then Pearl looped two of her fingers into his jeans' belt loops and followed him around. Do we have enough ground beef? What about potatoes? Rice? Canned vegetables? Darren asked those sort of questions. Pearl had a list to consult, but she was able to answer most of the questions without looking.
When it was time to get cold cereal, Pearl left him long enough to get a few boxes of her favorites. She ate cereal a lot more often than Darren did. She even held each box up to him, grinned, and said, "I want this one!"
"Okay Baby," Darren would say as he put each box in the cart.
At one point, Pearl realized some new Karen, a woman she would've called Kristy just to keep things less confusing, was staring at her from a spot down an aisle. It wasn't an innocent stare. If it was, Pearl wouldn't have mentally called her a Karen nor a Kristy. Her lips were pursing and her nose was wrinkling. She had short and blonde hair. It had been teased and puffed up. Her sweater had some script that read, "GOD FIRST."
The Kristy's fingers clenched on her cart's handle. She had unusually long, red fingernails. When Pearl and Darren passed by her, the Kristy gave them such a snarling look that Pearl really didn't know what to think. She had a grandmother that was, in her opinion, the Christianiest Christian to ever Christian in all of Christiandom. And that grandmother would never have given random strangers such a mean look. What was up with this Christian sweater wearing Kristy?
In an aisle full of alcohol, Pearl happened to see a particular brand of canned beer on sale. In fact, the price was so low that she let go of Darren's jeans just so she could stop and examine the anomaly. Darren only took maybe two steps before he too stopped.
Daddy liked this brand of beer. Since the price was so low, Pearl thought she should get a pack for him. The price might change the next day for all she knew. She hooked her fingers in the plastic keeping the cans together, and she held it up to say to Darren, "I know someone who'd like this."
"Oh my GAWD!!"
Both Darren and Pearl turned to see where that had come from.
Red painted nails, puffed up hair, Kristy the Karen! She was pushing her cart over to them and practically yelling. "You can't give alcohol to a minor!"
God damn it.
The beer cans lowered with her arm, Pearl looked at the woman and said, "Ma'am, I don't know what you're talking about." Her chin rose and her free hand went to her hip. "He's forty, and the beer's not even for him."
Unamused, the Kristy left her cart to wave a finger, and she dared to snatch the beers out of Pearl's grasp. "Don't use that tone with me!" Yep, the waving finger was all up in Pearl's face. "You need to respect your elders!"
"Ma'am!" That was Darren. He'd left his cart to put a hand on Pearl's shoulder from behind. "Let's just calm down. Okay? Nobody here's a minor."
The Kristy squawked something about getting a manager, as if that would solve whatever problem she thought existed, and it shouldn't. The couple decided to walk away. When they were putting their stuff on the conveyor belt at a register, that Kristy stormed up with a nervous looking manager behind her.
"There she is! She's trying to by alcohol!" This weirdness got the attention of pretty much everyone.
"So what if she is?" Darren said after giving the confused cashier an exasperated look. "She's thirty, and she's not even going to drink it."
The manager sighed and said, "Ma'am, the cashiers have been trained to check IDs. This really isn't something you need to worry about."
"I'll show my ID while we're at it," Darren said. Then he glanced over at Pearl and muttered, "Control yourself."
Pearl snorted. "Not my fault some people don't know how to act."
"That girl's obviously a teenager!" the Kristy went on to the manager and anyone else that would listen. "She shouldn't even be with that man! He probably kidnapped her! I'm calling the police!"
"Ma'am," the manager said, "please don't call the police. Nobody's hurting anybody."
Oh great, the bitch was already on her phone. But the cashier had already looked at their IDs, and she called out to the Kristy, "They're both over twenty-one!"
"He must've got a fake ID for her!" that crazy woman said in the middle of a conversation with someone on the phone.
"Go ahead and call the police," Pearl said as the groceries were being rung up. "You'll look pretty damn stupid when they show up and get told nothing happened."
The manager rose his voice, seeming to hope that the people on the other end of Kristy's conversation would hear him. "This woman thinks a minor just bought alcohol even though she she's over twenty-one."
"It's obviously a fake ID," the bitch argued.
"She hasn't even seen my ID," Pearl said with a rising temper, "but she thinks it's fake. But I'm not about to hand it over to her. She might snap it in half."
"Girl." Darren gave her braid a little tug. "You're amazing when you're mad but I'm tired and I just want to go home."
"I'm not the one who started this," Pearl said with a huff.
The groceries were all bagged and in the cart, but when they tried to leave the Kristy ran up to them, still talking on the phone. She grabbed the bag of beer cans. "You can't have this!"
Darren's jaw was clicking.
Oh no. He was ill.
Pearl knew he wasn't himself when he was ill.
He snatched the bag out of the Kristy's hand, slammed it back into the cart, and hollered down at her, "Well aren't you just a fucking peach?! I just bought that and YOU THINK YOU CAN TAKE IT OUT OF MY BUGGY?! YOU WANNABE THUG ASS BITCH!!"
Silence. Pearl wanted to drop a pin just to learn how it would sound.
Darren put one hand around Pearl's wrist and the other on his cart's handle. Then the couple left the building. Pearl looked back to see the Kristy's paling face. Having a huge man yell at you, especially when you were a woman, was rather frightening.
Normally, Pearl would've vented about the situation for a while and then forgot about it.
