Page 9 of Plunge

CHAPTER SEVEN

Thistle

“YOU CAN DO this,” I mutter, clutching my mother’s steering wheel, parked outside the food co-op for the first time in a very long time. The first week I was home, I ordered all our food online, but eventually Mom and I wanted something perishable in our diet.

So now, here I am. About to enter the gossip epicenter. And I’m here for at least six months, so I’d better get used to it. Walter has a contracted consultant in my office for six months while I get my shit together. The temp is getting my salary. I get to be the daughter of the century and pay market rate for my health insurance.

I purse my lips and take another deep breath.

Mom’s at speech therapy for another hour. I have time to get some salad stuff and assemble some sort of Thanksgiving dinner. Right? I’ll just ignore all the busybodies.

I grind my teeth together, inhale deeply through my nose, and grab the stack of grocery totes from the passenger seat. “In and out, Thistle,” I say, not trusting this mantra for an instant.

Thanks to a halfway true article in the Oak Creek Gazette, I know that the word is out that Mom still can’t talk but is otherwise working toward “ok” after her stroke.

People have politely given us our distance, but have flooded Mom’s email account and social media. I hear Mom pecking away at her keyboard at all hours. I know she’s starved for connection and I know I need to do a better job of getting her some social opportunities.

So here I am. Going to the source for middle-aged-lady play dates. But lord. I don’t want to talk to them all.

I push open the door and am hit by the familiar scents of bulk herbs and essential oils. I fidget with the list in my hand, trying to remember where things are laid out in this store and wondering if anything has changed at all.

When I pause to wrestle a cart out of the rack, I hear a familiar high-pitched squeak.

“Thistle McMurray is that really you?” I’m crushed by strong arms and smothered by flying dark hair as my old friend Indigo embraces me. “It’s just so good to see you in real life!”

She pats my arm as she releases the hug, and then pulls me back in for a rebound squeeze. I blow my hair up from my eyes and see her smiling, hands clasped at her belly. I can’t help but smile. Indigo always has been the nicest person in any room.

“It’s me,” I say with a shrug. “We ran out of soy milk…and everything else.”

Indigo’s clasped hands raise to prayer pose, index fingers tapping her tiny nose. “Oh my gosh, I’ve been such a bad neighbor,” she says. “Of course you’re out of milk. You’re cooped up in there with your sick mama and at first Sara said I should give you space and now it’s been what? A week? I haven’t even brought you any baked goods. Gavin’s been getting his canine teeth…”

She drifts off and gestures toward a drooling baby staring up at us from his perch in a shopping cart. I glance between the baby and Indigo, trying to remember the details of Indigo’s family situation and failing.

“No worries,” I tell her. “We haven’t really been ready for company.”

“Hm,” Indigo says, guiding her cart out and into the produce section. She starts hurling fruit into the cart and I remember that she owns and operates the bed and breakfast here in town. I have forgotten a lot about my teenage years, but the memories of her cakes and cookies at school bake sales are baked deliciously into my brain.

I should stay a night at the inn just to have her make me breakfast,I think with a sigh. I poke at some of the containers of organic berries. Cooking has never been a strong suit of mine. Mom always cooked everything until I moved out and now I usually pay people to do that for me.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of prepared food at the co-op.

“You look like you’ve been through a tornado,” Indigo says, pivoting into the bulk foods aisle and handing Gavin a dried banana chip.

I unconsciously reach up to touch my limp hair and bare face. It’s been awhile since I did any sort of grooming. “Things have been…a lot,” I admit.

She is barely looking as she fills containers with various types of flour and I consult my shopping list, trying to figure out if this store even sells pasta or if I’ll have to roll that from scratch later.

“Hm,” Indigo says again. I find the bulk bin of elbow macaroni and decide that will have to do. As I’m filling a container, Indigo starts talking about going out for drinks. I barely pay attention. Going out and leaving my mother unattended seems like a reach goal.

Indigo snaps her fingers. “I know!” She cups a hand to her mouth and hollers, “Hey! Mary Pat! You doing anything Saturday?”

Mary Pat has managed the co-op for decades. She waves from her perch up at the front checkout, where she dispenses the town’s gossip alongside books of stamps. Mary Pat brings a plump finger up to her chin like she’s thinking about Indigo’s question and yells, “Nothing I can’t cancel in a heartbeat. What’s up, Indigo?”

Indigo does a u-turn with her cart and skids up to the checkout faster than I can trail behind. “I want to set up a visiting train,” she says, nodding her head and sending her curls bouncing every which way.

Mary Pat claps her hands. “Yes!” She shouts. She juts her chin in my direction. “That one is probably in over her head. I was saying to Levon last night, it’s time we barged in over at the McMurray house. We need the ladies of Oak Creek to get in there and…Thistle, what is it your mother can do these days, anyway?”

I flush, partly out of breath from dashing through the store and partly taken aback by how easily Mary Pat resumes talking to me like no time has passed. “Well,” I start. “She watches a lot of judge shows while she works on her physical therapy exercises.” Indigo and Mary Pat nod, like this is a commonplace way to spend the afternoon.

“And, I guess you know she’s on social media a lot.”

“Ooh that’s a great idea,” Mary Pat says, pulling out her phone. “We can make an event online and people can take turns visiting.” Mary Pat climbs down from her stool behind the register and looks at my cart. She clucks her tongue and hustles around the small store, grabbing things from the shelves.

By the time she returns to the register and rings it all up, Indigo announces that she’s got a whole schedule filled with my mother’s town friends to come and visit. “Now,” she says, reaching out and touching my shoulder. “You’re coming out with me and the girls on Saturday. Wear makeup. This will be fun!”

Before I can take the time to analyze why I would need to primp for a few beers with an unidentified group of women, she has bounced out of the store with Gavin and Mary Pat is adding fresh sage to my cart so I can make stuffing for Thanksgiving.

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