Chapter 17 (continued)

Later that night Sedgewick had a short four-hour shift at work. His mind was distant and quiet. He stood in front of the time clock thinking. Some days the time clock confused him, not that he couldn't remember his code or which buttons to push, it was just that the machine had no mercy. If you screwed it up there was no going back again, you couldn't undo it or reset it.

You had to interrupt the customer service manager and fess up to your mistake. She'd sigh—first when you interrupted her, but again, longer and deeper when you told her what you'd done. All she had to do was make a note on the schedule and tell you to punch in again. It really wasn't the end of the world, though she'd act like it. And Sedgewick hated to put her through the end of the world. Enough customers did that with their own ends of the world.

Sedgewick punched in his code and the appropriate buttons, gave a weak smile to the customer service manager who had raised her eyes when Sedgewick paused in front of the time clock, and continued on to the back room.

He had hoped for aisle five. He wanted aisle five. That would have been such a help on a day like today. He even considered asking for it, though that would have been a bit much.

"Hey Sedgewick, glad you're here." It wasn't Jimmie, it was Dwayne, the grocery manager, the height of authority among those who still had to do actual work. Another step up required at least a tie and the caveat that you could walk around the store and tell everyone else what to do. Dwayne usually worked the day shift and Sedgewick didn't see him. But he still gave the orders and made sure everything was finished.

"I've got Jimmie unloading the truck tonight, it's a smaller order, shouldn't be too bad. But Ike in dairy called in sick today. I need someone to fill in. Can you handle that?"

"Sure." Sedgewick hated dairy.

"Just remember that everything must be rotated and you need to check the dates. You'll also need to stock the milk every few hours—it probably needs to be done now. Thanks, buddy."

Dwayne had just summarized the downside of working dairy. Rotating everything meant it took forever. There wasn't the same sense of accomplishment. You also had to keep refilling the milk or customers would interrupt you and send you to the backroom looking for a half-gallon of skim. On top of it all, it was a refrigerated section, obviously, which meant your fingers would be cold all night. It wasn't like the frozen foods section where you could put on a jacket and gloves and no one would think anything of it. But dairy wasn't quite cold enough to warrant it, and the manager would often wrinkle his brow if he saw you wearing a jacket in dairy. He had some strange fascination with customers being able to spot your red uniform from all the way down the aisle.

Sedgewick shrugged his shoulders and headed through the backroom towards the dairy section. He nodded at Jimmie and Alex as he passed, who both looked grumpy at the prospect of working minus one, even if it was a smaller truck than usual. Jimmie nodded back. Alex cursed for no reason.

The dairy section looked like no one had worked there all day. The milk case was more than half empty, starting to get the ugly point where the empty bottom shelf was showing. This store was old fashioned. Newer stores had back loading dairy cases where you could stock the milk from behind, automatically rotating it and avoiding getting in the customers way at the same time. It was a good system. But they didn't have that in Sedgewick's store. They just had regular shelves with a cooling unit on the bottom that had to be loaded from the front and rotated by hand.

On the plus side Sedgewick was working a new section, one he wasn't used to, and he had to pay attention more than normal. Not that it requires deep thought to stock milk, but he couldn't lose himself in his thoughts quite as easily. He couldn't dwell on Allison and his tender lip and where to go from here.

Sedgewick went back to the dairy fridge, loaded up a square dolly with milk crates, and got to work. He loaded the 2%, the best selling, then the 1%, the skim, the vitamin D milk, which he didn't understand what it really was, and the single row of chocolate.

Working dairy also gave you a workout. Each milk crate held four gallons of milk, which was fairly heavy to lift. You'd have to lift one crate at a time, moving then from stack to dolly and then push the dolly out to the floor.

He came back to the floor with another dolly of milk, restocking the half-gallons this time. They were easier. You could get 12 half gallons in a crate, which actually made the crates heavier, but you didn't have to bring out as many. 4-gallons per crate meant a lot of loads.

He stopped the dolly at the corner to the dairy case, where it wouldn't be in the way. He waited while a woman and her daughter picked out milk and moved on to the yogurt. The little girl had pigtails and reminded Sedgewick of someone.

A long time ago he'd gone sledding with a friend. His grandparents and her parents were inside staying warm and drinking coffee and Sedgewick and Taylor, the little girl he remembered, took off for the sledding hill pulling a single sled between them. It was just after Thanksgiving, an early snowfall, and they were so happy and eager to be out playing.

They went down the hill and dragged the sled back up and went down again. They slid down the hill until they were exhausted and both collapsed into the snow, eyes starring up at the dark winter sky. The sun had gone down while they were sledding, and the darkness took over. But out of the darkness came white puffs of snow, enormous snow flakes falling from on high.

As they lay on their backs and watched the snow flakes rush towards them and rush past, or occasionally land on them and make them shudder at the cold, they realized that it looked like stars rushing past, like the Millennium Falcon jumping to hyperspace.

They giggled and rushed home, dragging the sled behind, Taylor eager to tell her parents, and Segdgewick his grandparents, about the snow flakes turned stars.

The little girl pulled on her mom's sleeve and asked if she could get purple yogurt. The mom told her daughter purple wasn't a fruit, and picked out a flavor with real fruit on the bottom, even though the little girl would just scowl and eat around it. She never liked the mushy fruit and would have preferred the real thing in purple yogurt.

Sedgewick watched them continue down the aisle, and then turned back to his dolly.

"Oh, sorry. Ex-excuse me." His eyes met the soft brown eyes of a college girl, long blond hair framing her smile. Sedgewick stepped back, letting her continue reaching for her milk, a half-gallon of 1%. Sedgewick's eyes fell to the floor. She wore high heels and jeans, black heals with a toe that narrowed to a sharp point. Sedgewick wondered if they were painful to wear. They certainly looked like it.

"Thanks," she said in a cheerful voice, her eyes flashing at Sedgewick. She moved on towards the yogurt, carrying a basket in one arm.

Sedgewick grabbed another crate of half-gallons and rotated the older ones to the front, pulling off one that expired that day. He turned to look at the college girl, and saw her looking back at him. Their eyes met for a moment, and she looked away. He thought he saw her smile as she picked out her yogurt and moved on towards the cheese and butter.

But Sedgewick didn't smile. He wondered how long a pretty girl like that would catch his eye, how often his mind would take in every detail and ponder her good nature and if she had really smiled at him and why their eyes kept locking. There were just so many pretty girls. Hardly a girl walked by that wouldn't catch Sedgewick's eye. She might not be drop-dead gorgeous, she might not elicit a long, drawn out, "Fuck" from Alex, but she would have that smile, or that look in her eyes, or whatever it was that made Sedgewick wonder.

He didn't smile at this latest college girl in a line of thousands, but he did think about that fourth college girl, he did think about Allison.

He turned for another crate of half-gallons and she was standing there, next to the pop display. Her arms were crossed, embracing herself, her face looked tired and worn, and her eyes were still red—but filled with sorrow and tenderness and love and hope.