Page 16 of A Fine Line

“Done and done.” I glanced back at my hands, my destiny lying between them.

This dessert was going to make or break me. Literally, since I might die if she saw through my extensive disguise and took all of those poison threats into fruition.

“Okay,” I took a deep breath and lifted the pastry to my mouth. “It was great knowing you.”

Rachel gave me a half-hearted salute. “It’s been a pleasure, sarge.”

Simultaneously, we both took two large bites into our desserts. In for a penny, in for a…death, I guess.

Flavorful notes hit my tongue one at a time then all together at once like a punch to the gut. No, not a punch. It was a dance. A waltz in my palette, moving and gliding effortlessly togetherin a delicate swirl. Sweet, creamy, vanilla, a touch of something fresh, unique. Then, the real punch hit…salty. Salty, REALLY, REALLY, salty. My tongue shriveled up, my mouth twisting and turning. What the hell?

I lifted my head and saw Rachel, mouth open, strawberry covered tongue sticking out with a muffled ‘thisisawful’ noise coming out.

In unison, we both jerked up from our positions of being bent over our wide range of desserts and immediately began spitting out the remaining bits in our mouths. I reached for the stack of napkins in our bag, ones riddled with her logos, and desperately scraped any leftover saltiness out of my tongue.

“How in the world does that wretched lady have a line wrapped around your truck every night?” Rachel asked, her words spilling out in between gags.

“I told you she poisons them, the only reason it didn’t work on us is because we know the truth.”

“Or she knows the truth?”

Slowly we both turned to face the pink truck in the distance. A shiver crawled its way up my spine when I made eye contact with a bright, shining Winnifred hanging outside the window, waving.

“You’re welcome, DICK!” She yelled at the top of her lungs, causing everyone, literally everyone, within a fifty foot radius to stare at me.

A scowl spread on my lips, my eyebrows lowering. My mustache also lowering- due to the scowl. I began to make a threat right back to her, conjuring up all Winnie The Pooh references I could, but just then my fake mustache decided to it was ready to clock out, falling right to the parking lot.

Rachel busted out laughing beside me. “Oh my gosh,” she wheezed, holding her stomach. “I think I’m in love with her.”

That would make just one of us.

There were few things I loved about living in this city. But there were many, many reasons why I hated it.

First, and foremost, my ex still lived here. I knew so because he had his face on a billboard, one that I happen to pass by in my every day commute. Because he was the self-proclaimed ‘best dentist in the 1910 area’ and enjoyed his face so much he thought it deserved its own ad. Worst part is the man had terrible hygiene, so the photo of him in white scrubs flexing his biceps with toothbrushes, floss, and mouthwash falling around him like the world’s worst storm was entirely photoshopped to turn his teeth bright shining white. News flash: no one’s real teeth look like they would glow in the dark at a neon bowling alley.

Secondly, parking was a nightmare. And not the kind of nightmare you forget after five minutes of scrolling through social media. The kind that haunts you throughout the day, lurking over your shoulder knowing you’ll have to come back to it eventually.

Third, and obviously not least, the amount of consumerism. Buildings, so many freaking buildings. And shops everywhere full of people buying things they never needed. I never realizedhow much I appreciated my five stoplight town back home. How the closest thing to a shopping center we had was a Walmart thirty minutes out of town. How our corner stores were ninety percent locally grown vegetables and meat from the ranch. The other day I saw a woman who had an actual outfit on her Stanley cup. A yellow and pink sweater and the straw had a teeny tiny baseball cap on. It made me want to go find a giant patch of grass and just roll around in it for a while.

Growing up I always groaned and whined about the lack of shopping in our area. Lottie, her friends, and I would lie around on her bedroom floor saying our plans of once we graduate we’re gonna drive all the way to Birmingham to get our daily needs. Which was for lack of a better words: horse shit. Yeah, maybe everything moved slow back home. And maybe at the time I hated that. But I’ve experienced fast pace. I moved here with construed misconceptions and now…I missed slow, I missed it so, so much.

I will say though, the one thing about this city that I did love…was a Costco. The closest thing we had to a Costco back home was a Sams club and it was nearly two hours away. This place had everything I could possibly need for the truck. And it had it in bulk. Along with dollar fifty hot dogs and the best cinnamon pretzels that a giant chain could make.

So every single weekend I made a date night with myself. Two hot dogs with relish, ketchup, mustard, and some pepper flakes sprinkled on top- stolen from the pizza section. A cinnamon pretzel for dessert. Two hours of aimlessly strolling down the aisles, counting my every expense and grabbing my every day supplies for the truck. And a 32 oz Dr Pepper with the good ice for the road.

Now that my assistant, who recently married and decided to go and get herself pregnant and become one of those gorgeous glowing beach balls, quit it was just me again. A reliefconsidering most weeks I would have to PayPal her amount owed from my credit cards just to be able to pay her and my bills at the right time. But now that I was the only one in charge of my bills, my budget stretched a little further for these trips. Thus, two $1.50 hot dogs instead of just one. Life is a luxury, people, and I planned to live it.

Lifting a larger than life container of baking soda, I tossed in the cart next to my thirty two individually packed freeze dried strawberries, my overly sized box of granola bars that would take me three years to reach the bottom of, and my four containers of heavy whipping cream.

“Alright,” I looked down to the paper list in the kids section of my cart. It had tiny cartoon DNA symbols with an illustrated Albert Einstein in the corner holding a pencil and smiling brightly at me. “What’s next, Al?”

My eyes scrolled the list, settling on ‘all-purpose flour’ and I pushed my cart a little further. Grabbing my next few essential items, I rounded the corner to the next aisle.

My cart, the size of a small SUV, smacked right into another one in front of me.

“I’m so sorry, I-” I looked up and saw whoever was pushing this cart had their items stacked so high up that they couldn’t see the end of their buggy. It was a wonder they had managed to even navigate the end of the ais-

Oh. Never mind. It wasn’t a wonder. Not when a familiarly handsome face popped out to the side, a hot dog in his hands. With relish, mustard, ketchup…and red pepper flakes. This bastard. His gaze morphed as he took in that I was on the other end of the collision, first apologetic and then irritated. My smile pulled up further.

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