Faye stored the words, not sure what a fecker or a gobeen was. She would ask Cid to look them up for her when he returned from his excursion with Sally.
~
Sally looked over into Cid’s cart. “Why the basil plant when you can get the leaves?”
“Just trying to dress up the trailer. Plus, when you use up the leaves, they are gone. If you’re smart, you can pinch off enough and still have the plant producing more.”
“Do you have the room in there?”
“I’ll make room.”
“Why are you guys… um… nevermind,” Sally said, thinking she already knew the answer.
“Jesse likes his independence,” Cid said picking up the cue, “and since it’s best not to be alone in a place reputed to be haunted, I accepted his invitation.”
“I thought you were a couple.”
Cid stopped walking. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Something I overheard. Jesse is buying a two-bedroom house and wants to settle down.”
“Not with me.”
“So, you’re still pining for Ted?”
“No. Ted’s my best friend. He’s married to Mia. She’s very female. I’m not gay, and I’m a bit disturbed with your powers of observation. You were in the Army for cripes’ sake. Did you think all of the men were gay because they bunked together?”
“No.”
“Mia has two gay godfathers who are dynamic individuals, which is why I know there is no archetypical gay gentleman, but I’m a bit flustered. If I were gay, why the hell would I pick Jesse as a partner?” Cid shook his head and walked off down the aisle.
“Well, that put me in my place,” Sally said aloud.
“Honey, he did walk off in a snit,” commented an old lady who was examining the chili peppers. “If you’re interested in him, I wouldn’t let him get too far away, not with a body like that. There are a lot of us bored, rich, old women who like nothing better than to console a man like that.”
Sally turned and looked at the seventy-year-old. “I should say shame on you, but I agree with you.”
Cid was standing in line at the butcher counter when Sally caught up with him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, placing her hand on his arm.
Cid only just managed to not show what her touching did to him. He looked over at her and shrugged, not trusting his voice.
“Math isn’t my strong point. I sometimes put one and one together and get eleven. I overheard Carl and you talking. He said something about you and Jesse admitting you were gay for each other.”
“And I said, ‘Didn’t we do that in Chicago?’” Cid realized. He started laughing.
“I assumed Ted was Bi because you told me that meeting Ted turned your life around.”
“And you thought he was my first love,” Cid said. “I lived with him when I lost my job…” Cid sighed. “We do live in an unconventional environment. Usually it’s Ted’s wife who gets the abuse from the gossips. Living with two or more men…”
“So, there’s more?”
“Mia’s distant cousin Lazar runs the household. The PEEPs have an office there, and Mia has connections with several impressive males who follow her around town and pick up her children from school when she is away.”
“Poor girl lives in a sausage fest,” Sally said
Cid coughed and looked around him.
“Speaking of. Are the crew bratwurst fans or would they rather have a plain hotdog?”
“Brats. Pete likes the ones with cheese inside.”
Sally wrote it down.
The butcher called out a number still too distant from Cid’s. “You may as well stick around and use my turn,” he said, looking at the group of older women who were standing with tickets behind him.
“I think they’re here more to observe you than the butcher’s offerings.”
Cid didn’t understand what she was saying right away, and when he did, he blushed.
Sally fell in love with Cid in that moment. She would write later in her journal: All the trauma and hell I’ve been through in my life, along with eating my words in front of the butchers in a Whole Foods - somewhere in the Midwest - was worth it to see this handsome man blush. It proved he was unaware of his looks and puzzled by the attention he was getting.
Sally wanted to ask him the hard questions, the questions you waited to ask when you were months into a relationship. Did it bother him that she was a Norwegian Black American woman? That their children would look different? And that she wanted lots of children? Did he love kids like she did?
Their number was called, saving her from having to dive into the open freezer chest to cool down.
Chapter Five
It took longer to get back to the worksite because Cid needed to avoid the highways for the sake of keeping the refrigerator in the back stable. He didn’t mind. He and Sally talked about anything and everything. It seemed like he had known her for years. She pushed the shoulder strap of the seatbelt behind her, turning so she could pull one leg up and sit staring directly at the side of Cid’s face. Sally didn’t care how she looked because she was so comfortable in her skin.
“My parents never stayed in one place for too long,” Sally shared. “The number one priority when we paused was to find the library. When we were on the road, my parents never said no when I wanted to stop and buy a book. After, when I was left alone, a book was always there to comfort me.”
“I ran away from basketball camp after being humiliated by my peers,” Cid confessed. “There I was a fat blind child with no coordination, mortified by my
