Chapter 2

"Break time?" the cashier asked. Sedgewick just nodded and gave a half smile, taking his pop and heading outside.

Alex was already there, sitting on the bench in front of Cub. Missy must have been busy with something else, or annoyed at Alex for whatever reason. The two of them had a strange, contentious relationship. Sometimes they flirted enough to make Sedgewick and Jimmie sick. Other times they hardly spoke.

Hardly speaking was fine with Sedgewick. It meant sitting outside on the bench would be a quiet, peaceful break, save for Alex's noxious cigarette. The four of them had spent most of the summer working late nights at Cub unloading trucks. They were all working close to full time then, and it made more sense, three major shipments per week, two days to catch up and deplete the back stock, two days off. With school starting there wasn't as much flow, not as much consistent help. But it somehow still got done. It just seemed more important in the summer.

Breathing the usually fresh air outside and seeing daylight motivated Sedgewick to come outside. Though he couldn't have put words to it, the fluorescent overhead lights were oppressive to him. Alex, on the other hand, came outside to watch for girls and smoke. The combination didn't make a lot of sense. But Alex didn't make much sense to Sedgewick.

Alex wore torn baggy jeans and a faded black Yankees hat. He slouched on the bench and liked to see how many times he could say 'fuck.' Sedgewick spent an entire break counting. 23 fucks. Alex averaged one and a half per minute.

"Oh, fuck." Alex said, yawning and stretching at the same time. Sedgewick didn't say anything. He looked at the ground and took another drink.

People continued to stream in and out of the store, mothers with kids in tow, grandparents poking their way along using the carts as canes. The elderly population of shoppers dwindled as the evenings wore on, but more single men would come in, buying frozen dinners and beer. There'd be the afternoon high school crowd, kids lucky enough not to be working, but unlucky enough to be sent on grocery store errands.

"How far along are you guys on the truck?" Sedgewick asked.

"Far." Pause. Puff of smoke. "Fucking far."

The sound of laughter echoed from across the parking lot, and both Sedgewick and Alex watched as a car emptied of four giggling girls.

"Oh yeah." Alex snubbed out his cigarette on the sidewalk. "Must be Friday night. The college chicks need some groceries." Alex leaned forward on the bench, watching the typical collegiate girls make their way into the store. Sedgewick slowly shook his head. He went to class with most of these girls and didn't understand Alex's fascination with college girls who had to buy groceries. He thought it was some kind of flirting game, they came in to buy milk and fruit and macaroni & cheese, but they really wanted to watch high school senior and Cub stock boy Alex hike up his jeans and lift a case of Prego spaghetti sauce off the floor. At least that's how Sedgewick envisioned the thought process in Alex's head, which wasn't so far from the truth. Though in reality it was more explicit.

"Everybody needs groceries," Sedgewick said. "C'mon, break time's over."

"By your watch. Sit down."

Sedgewick stood there, watching Alex enjoy the bench. He waited a full ten seconds, long enough to watch and a dad and help his toddler-age son from the car. Then Sedgewick turned and went inside without a word.

"Fuck." Alex got up and followed him in.

Sedgewick couldn't help smiling. Jimmie was in a productive mood and had managed to get most of the truck unloaded. He was working away at the paper aisle with Alex, Missy was busy in aisle eight with the personal products, and Jimmie had told Sedgewick to start on aisle five, baked goods. This meant Sedgewick could look forward to the next few hours working contently by himself in his familiar aisle.

When they came back in from break they could hear the college girls in the store. It was getting late now, around 10, and the store was generally quieter in the later hours. But that's when the night life came in, or the kind of night life a grocery store can attract, and you could usually track their progress throughout the store by outburst of laughter. Sedgewick could never understand what was so incredibly funny about grocery shopping.

He grabbed a case salt in one hand and toothpicks in the other, and started carrying them down and piling them in the appropriate places in front of the shelves. He picked up a package of brownie mix when he heard a muffled sob from the next aisle. He stopped to listen.

It sounded like a child. The sniffles and snobs, the restrained cries of a child. Sedgewick shifted his feet. He listened again. He could hear the thump as cases of paper towels landed on the floor in aisle ten. College girls were laughing in aisle two. The constant beeps and blips came from the front of the store as items were scanned at the register. In between it all he could hear the faint sniffling.

Tucking his price gun into his back pocket, Sedgewick slowly walked to the edge of his aisle and peeked out. A woman was inspecting hotdogs in the meat case to the right, and to the far left a few people were picking up milk and yogurt.

He turned to the display at the end of the aisle, the end cap, and pretended to straighten the Cheerios boxes, on sale two for $5. He started close to aisle five, but moved over a few rows of cereal boxes so he could peer into aisle six and continue straightening the display.

There on the far side of the aisle, twenty feet or so from Sedgewick, in the little alcove created by the end of cereal shelving and the start of the recessed section of cheap toys, sat a little boy. He was alone. He sobbed every few moments, his head tucked into his knees. There was a race car on the floor next to him, one of the plastic toys the store sold in the cereal aisle as another temptation for children and their poor parents, an overpriced piece of junk. No one else was in the aisle.

Sedgewick looked both ways, as if he were crossing the street, and left the endcap and closed the few steps between him and the child. His pulse quickened as he stopped in front of the child. He kicked at a discarded gum wrapper and then reached to straighten a box of granola bars. He looked both ways again, and then crouched next to the boy. The kid didn't look up.

"Um, hi."

Sniffle.

"I… uh, saw your race car there." Sedgewick pointed to the green and red car. "That's one of my favorites. Old number six."

Sniffle.

Sedgewick waited.

The boy slowly looked up, uncovering his head just enough to see Sedgewick. He saw an older boy, definitely older than his brother, but not as old as his dad. This guy was wearing a Cub uniform and had messy hair. He wasn't looking at the boy, but was staring at the race car.

The boy pulled his head back and dropped his hands to the floor.

"I can't find my dad."

Sedgewick could barely make out the voice, but he didn't ask the boy to say it again. He understood. The boy stood up, coming eye to eye with Sedgewick. He held out his hand.

"I'm Connor. Connor Olson."

"Sedgewick." The boy wrinkled his brow in response, but didn't say anything. He held out his hand to Sedgewick. He took Connor's hand and stood up, starting down the aisle after him.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Sedgewick asked.

Connor stopped and looked back. The #6 race car sat on the floor. Connor turned, picked up the car, and put it back on the shelf. Sedgewick watched him carefully.

"Sorry." They were about halfway down the aisle, towards the front of the store before Sedgewick responded.

"I thought, I thought you wanted to keep the car." Connor looked up at Sedgewick, and a smile spread across his face.

"I have more race cars at home." This apparently settled it.

Sedgewick led Connor up the cereal aisle to the front of the store and towards the customer service counter. He stopped a few feet away, while a customer picked out lotto tickets. Connor looked around, one hand holding Sedgewick's and the other pulling at his lip. Sedgewick could feel the eyes of the cashiers on him, their minds trying to decipher the scene, each of them softening as the situation dawned on them.

"Hey Meg," the cashier in the express lane called to the Customer Service Manager, who was busy with the lotto tickets. Meg looked up, and the cashier gestured with her head towards Sedgewick, her hands continuing to scan items. Meg turned to Sedgwick, who looked down to Connor without saying anything. Oblivious, Connor was still looking around the store.

"He can't find his dad," Sedgewick said after a moment. A warmth broke out in Meg's face, not a complete smile, but closer to it than anything Sedgewick had ever seen. The Customer Service Managers were in charge of the cashiers and things at the front of the store. Sedgewick rarely dealt with them and only saw their tired interactions with complaining customers or slumped over a Tupperware lunch in the break room.

Meg finished with the lotto customer and looked down at Connor.

"So your dad got lost, huh?"

Connor nodded.

"Well c'mon up here and we'll track your dad down," Meg said, patting the counter with her hand and looking up at Sedgewick. Connor looked up at Sedgewick, too, and Sedgewick hesistated for a moment, realizing what he was supposed to do but not sure how to go about doing it. He picked up cases of juice all the time, but not kids.

Sedgewick lowered to one knee and picked Connor up with a hand under each armpit. He turned to set Connor on the customer service counter, but Connor latched onto him instead. He hesitated, awkwardly trying to figure out where to put his hands to get a better grasp on Connor, before finally turning the kid and wrapping an arm around his back. Connor clung to Sedgewick's Cub Foods vest and Sedgewick tried to hide his panic.

Meg thought this was adorable, as did Nancy, the cashier in the express lane, and the two could hardly contain their cooing. Sedgewick could feel his ears turning red, could hear other cashiers whispering about it, could feel himself losing his grip on Connor. He shifted the child's weight and looked at Meg, hoping she'd do something.

"What's your dad's name?" Meg asked. Connor didn't say anything. He was burying his head into Sedgewick's chest, probably rubbing his face against the hard plastic name tag. Meg looked at Sedgewick.

"Hey Connor." Sedgewick mumbled to the boy in his arms. "Your dad… what's his name?" Connor didn't say anything.

"Olson. He told me before, his name is Connor Olson," Sedgewick said. "Is your dad's name Olson?"

Connor nodded and Meg turned to page Mr. Olson to the customer service counter. Sedgewick turned to lean on the counter, both to hold up Connor's extra weight and so he wouldn't have to look at Meg watching him. But now he was facing the rest of the store, and had to watch everyone else watch him and Connor. Another father had a knowing smile, as he turned the corner into the freezer aisle. An older kid, maybe eleven or twelve watched the two as he walked by, but turned away when Sedgewick looked him in the eye.

Then Alex came around the corner of aisle eight, headed for the trashcan by the customer service counter with a rolled up ball of tape. Surprised, he exchanged glances with Sedgewick, but didn't say anything. Sedgewick was sure he'd seen Alex mouth his favorite word.

As Alex walked away the quartet of giggling college girls approached, headed for the check out. Sedgewick saw them coming from the bakery, four girls with one half-full cart. They were stocking up on diet pop, bottled water, ramen noodles, bread, cereal, milk, the usual college survival food.

A few of the girls looked strangely familiar, but Sedgewick had that feeling about most girls approximately his age. He'd seen so many, and knew so many, and felt half-attracted to so many pretty girls his age that they always struck a chord of familiarity, even if he'd never seen them in his life. Most girls seemed pretty to Sedgewick, not just the skinny college blondes who had an eye for fashion and a fake smile. Sometimes the girls who wore baggy jeans and dyed their hair wild colors struck Sedgewick as incredibly beautiful. Sometimes the bigger girls, the plus-size ones who understood the futility of competing with checkout magazine covers had a beauty that attracted Sedgewick.

The ones who lived and died by these covers, the ones who flirted with the wrong guys, the ones who sometimes tried to buy alcohol at Cub with fake IDs (Who would ever think a corporate grocery store would sell beer to underage college girls? Cub had been to known to card grandmothers.), the ones that knew how jaw-droppingly beautiful they were—Sedgewick found them attractive, but not in the same way. While Alex would let a 'fuck' slip while his mouth dropped open at the site of one of these girls, Sedgewick felt a tiny hint of pity.

Of the four college girls stocking up on a Friday night, only one of them struck Sedgewick as the type deserving pity. She was already ahead of the others, paused at the magazine rack at lane one, her hand on her hip (coincidentally clad in a short skirt featured on pages 17, 34 and 114 of the actual magazine she was looking at).

The second of the four was tall and skinny, with her hair tied up in two oblong balls on the back of her head. She turned to the left, away from Sedgewick, when his eye fell on her, and the complete image reminded Sedgewick strangely of a giraffe.

The third girl was shorter and squatter and her eyes lingered on a display of pastries, but she kept walking. She had straight brown hair and blue eyes that Sedgewick could see from twenty feet away. She was smiling, chatting with the fourth girl. She wore a long khaki skirt and a tucked in blouse, reminding Sedgewick of a school teacher. She looked like the kind of girl Sedgewick would gladly ask for help from, the kind of girl most guys would gloss over, to their complete and total loss.

The fourth girl slumped over the cart as she pushed it; laughing at something the third girl said when Sedgewick looked at her. Her laugh was pure and real, not a giggly echo that could be heard across the store, but a quieter, softer, and funnier sound that made you think the comment must have been a good one. Her hair was dyed black, or had been at one time, and was tied into a short ponytail. She wore black cargo pants, the kind with big bulging pockets, and a baggy T-shirt. She had clompy shoes, the kind that just poked out from under the near-bell bottoms.

As Sedgewick watched them pass and join the line at register three, Mr. Olson had made his way to the customer service counter. Sedgewick hadn't noticed him coming, and neither had Connor, who by now was almost asleep in Sedgewick's arms.

"Connor!" the man cried out, quickening his pace. Connors eyes shot open in surprise. He had been asleep.

"Is that your dad?" Sedgewick asked before loosening his grip. Connor hadn't let go either, but he nodded with three short nods. Sedgewick lowered Connor to the floor and watched him walk over to his dad. Mr. Olson seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, nodded at Sedgewick, and took Connor's hand as he led him back to wherever he had left his cart when he heard the page.

Connor turned back to Sedgewick, smiled, and kept walking with his dad. Sedgewick couldn't help smiling himself, exchanged another glance with Meg, and started heading back to aisle five and his case of brownie mix.

As he turned he shoved his hands in his pockets and looked right into the green eyes of the fourth college girl, who had apparently been watching the entire child hand off with Connor and his dad. Her eyes quickly fell to the floor and the slightest hint of color came to her freckled cheeks. She hadn't been smiling, but a grin spread across her face as Sedgewick watched and continued past.

Just before it was too late she looked up again, right into Sedgewick's eyes, and this time it was his turn to look away. He self-consciously ran his hand through his shaggy hair and turned down aisle five, not knowing but feeling like that fourth girl watched him the entire length of the aisle. She did.