Page 30 of Two Marlboros

“Yes, I’ve noticed. How do we handle this?”

He hesitated for a moment. “You can come by tomorrow if you have time. I’d like to have it back quickly. You know, for work.”

Work, right. There was his life inside that phone.

“Sure, I’ll come by as soon as I can. Or I’ll bring it back when you finish your shift.”

“Okay, fine.”

The tone was different. Softer, almost relieved, but I still felt too unfair to him. I wanted to apologize to him for how I had behaved, but I also didn’t want to make that conversation longer than it needed to be.

“Whatever,” he said again, “I’ll see you tomorrow. If you can, stay a little longer, because I have a couple of things to ask you.”

There, he had caught me. And I could already imagine what he wanted to ask me:Have you read my texts?orYou found out about Oliver, didn’t you?

“Alright,” I replied in the most neutral tone I was capable of. “See you tomorrow. Good night.”

“See you tomorrow,” he whispered, then hung up.

I had called hima pain in the ass. He must have thought I was a fool, a naive man who knew nothing about him. Most of the time it was a mere catch phrase, but there was no situation more fitting than that.

I sank even deeper into shame. Why hadn’t I minded my own business?

The Best Deals flyer, with its dollar-and-a-half cereal and otherfantastic deals, proved to be a valuable aid in keeping me from dying for the heat; the morning shift at the mini-mart could indeed be deadly, especially around lunchtime. I put down that makeshift fan only to pull out crossword puzzles and a pen from under the counter, so with one hand I kept fanning myself, and meanwhile, with the pen in the other, I was thinking about whothe U.S. screenwriter persecuted by McCarthyismmight be.

“Hello, Nathan!”

I grabbed the crosswords at lightning speed to hide them, but there was no need: it was just Nelly.

“Hey! You scared me.”

She laughed, rested her elbows on the counter and rested her chin on her palms, her hair sliding forward to frame her face.

“I’ve noticed that. Can I help you with some definitions?” and she pointed to the crossword puzzle in front of me.

I looked contentedly at the number of words I had put in the previous days. “Never mind, thank you.”

Nelly’s smile died little by little, until it disappeared altogether, then her gaze was lost in the window of the mini mart, in thoughts only she knew. In the background there was only the roar of the engine of some car passing by the street and the ticking of the clock above my head.

“Listen here,” she said, and returned her gaze to me, “how did it go with that grumpy policeman?”

My stomach twisted nicely, but I didn’t want to go into details. Suddenly, puzzles captured all my interest.

“Back-up question?”

Nelly chuckled. “Was it that bad?”

I tapped my pen a few times on the crossword puzzle to relieve the shame.Oliver is up there looking at you...God, how embarrassing this was.

I sighed, and with my head pointed to the stool next to mine. “Come on, sit down.”

Nelly went around the counter, placed her bag next to the stool, and sat down on it.

“That’s it - his boyfriend died eight months ago.”

“What?!”

I looked at her for a second and found her distraught, proving that I had screwed up and that what I had done with Alan had been just plain shitty.

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