That evening, Jack didn’t arrive until some time after 6:30. It had hit 6:35 and I grew mildly concerned that he wouldn’t show up, and was swift to punish myself for being so embarrassing as to him on a date - would this have been considered a date? Had I looked too deep into Jack’s company? What if I just mistook friendship for something more? Could you both be friends and be in love?

He did eventually show, and I felt instant relief when he showed up on his bike, cradling a large brown paper bag mottled with grease spots against his chest with one arm like a babe.

I was waiting outside the store, locked up and lights off (save for the neon CLOSED sign that flooded the street in garish red light), and standing before the door leading to the upstairs apartment. My arms were crossed to keep warm against the breeze beneath my pale pink cardigan and my leg bounced anxiously. Every couple of minutes I chewed on my thumb’s nail, gnawing the flesh of its pad between my teeth, only to stop when I realized I’d fallen into the habit.  Against my will, I grinned seeing Jack swagger up to me, especially when I caught the whiff of sharp pine-y cologne that he wasn’t wearing earlier today. He still wore sunglasses despite it being dark.

In fact he looked a little cleaner, too, with a fresh shirt and jeans, and, like I said, he smelled nice. I suddenly felt bad that I didn’t freshen up after closing the store, that I was still wearing the same pink sweater and khakis as before.

“Long time, no see!” he said, running a hand through his obviously cleaned hair. When he pushed his sunglasses up to rest atop his head, I noticed how one eye, his left one, was bloodshot, blotched severely with red.

I winced, and he must’ve noticed my expression because he mimicked me, though not as severely. 

“What did you-”

“I think it’s just some oil in my eye,” he answered quickly, waving his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it, it don’t hurt or anything like that. It’s fine. All we should worry about,” he patted the grease-sodden bag in his arm, “is wolfing this down before it gets cold on us.”

So, led him inside.

I tried to hurry and clean the place beforehand, folding blankets, arranging throw pillows on the sofa, cleaning the kitchen, and even made the beds in the bedrooms, as if Jack would even be looking in here for some reason - but you never know!

The apartment itself wasn’t large. The kitchen, dining room, and living room were all one shared area with an island countertop separating the linoleum tiles of the kitchen from the bowed hardwood and brown-and-blue area rugs of the living room, matching the aged blue wallpaper barely adhered to the brick walls. I only hoped it didn’t smell too much of old people. It always did to me, ever since I started sharing my bedroom with Grandma.

Jack looked around with what I interpreted with muted appraisal before he set the food on the kitchen table. “Nice place!” He said, seemingly genuinely impressed.

I look down, bashfully. “It’s my mom’s. Been in our family since the building was built in 1885.”

“Been doing the convenience shit since then?” He said, starting to roam into the living room where he looked at the multitude of shelves hung on the walls, at the collection of photographs, artistic sculptures scavenged from estate sales in Whitefish Bay, and other heirlooms. My hands gripped at the edge of my cardigan when he reached then grabbed a photograph, one of me from high school, when I was fourteen or fifteen. I was broad-shouldered and poorly-postured, my smile an awkward, stiff baring of teeth that revealed a mouth full of braces, and I had a patch of acne reddening my chin. My hair was a blunt, frizzy bob of platinum blonde hair, several years too young for my face, and I wore a heavy, knit blue turtleneck that pressed itself along my round jawline. I winced when I looked at it. Like many others, I hope, I wasn’t an attractive teenager.

Fortunately, Jack said nothing as he put it back, and the face he wore was gentle, which I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing at the time.

Remembering that I was supposed to reply to him, I nodded. “Mm-hm, it actually used to be an apothecary in those days, then became a drug store in the ‘20s. The active pharmacy stuff kind of ended with my grandmother when she turned it into a convenience and grocery store in ‘66. Mom felt like there was more money to be found there, in doctors and herbs, drugs anyway. They don’t trust modern pharmaceuticals much.”

“Huh, and why is that?” He hummed, looking at a final picture, one of me as a pudgy, red-cheeked eight-year-old and Mom, and behind us was a man that was just like me, with pale blonde hair, pale blue eyes, obnoxiously tall; and he also had a mustache. Dad, Charlie Cavell, kind fisherman, beloved father, and horrible businessman.

My brow furrowed and my tongue swiped across my lips, which suddenly felt dried and chapped. “My dad passed from cancer when I was in high school. I… I don’t really remember much, I try not to, but I think it was something in his throat, then his lungs,” I said, words clipped. “Ever since then, I think Mom’s been blaming the fact that since medicine couldn’t save him, then all pharmacies are evil. She believes the hospital kept him sick to leech more money from us.” It was a belief she held until the day she died, I remember, turning Dad’s death from a thing of mourning into one of resentment. I never got to mourn, not with Mom’s bitterness about it all and her endless string of conspiracies; I still don’t know how to mourn or to know my grief. It never ended. So, I merely tried to forget that such a thing happened. If I forgot Dad’s death, then I could forget Mom’s ridiculousness, too. (The very same ridiculousness that eventually came to kill Grandma as she fell further into her dementia, by keeping her from one of those cushioned nursing homes and lacking the proper pharmaceutical medication old folks ought to be taking to be kept alive.)

I grounded myself in the present by tracing my nail in circles on the island counter. “Now she holds no qualms in exploiting peoples’ belief in medicine, just as doctors did for her. Placebos, she calls them. Not medicines or vitamins or immune boosters. Placebos.”

Jack looked up from the photo, wearing a pinched brow and slack-jawed expression. “Oh… I’m sorry, Temp, that’s crooked.” He winced, lip curling slightly, but I dismissed it with a wave.

“I was young, Mom was stupid. She was a little sheltered in her upbringing, I think. She always thought that just because you’re a doctor in a hospital you can fix anything. Not much has changed so there is no point in worrying myself over the past. I’m only worried about the now… and the me right now is famished.”