Things To Say Before I Go

Chapter 29: Jess

"Get in," Nate said. He had pulled one of the bigger shopping carts out of the rack at a Mexi-mart down the street from his house. 

"Are you crazy?" I asked him. "I'm pretty sure we're going to get kicked out for this." 

He looked at me doubtfully. "Seriously? Miss I Don't Live By The Rules, who almost gave me a heart attack, is going to chicken out on me now?" 

I stared at him defiantly, shook my head and climbed into the cart. I had to stick my feet out the front so that we had room for the very few items we actually intended to buy. 

"Ready?" he asked excitedly, his face lit up. 

I nodded, scared. He started pushing the cart as fast as he could. We soared up and down the aisles, laughing hysterically and buying mostly junk food. I was surprised that we hadn't gotten stopped yet. One of the employees present was the cashier named Roberto. He stood there lazily and watched us. I assumed he was judging us, but by the glassy look in his eye, I couldn't tell if he was really registering what was happening. 

"Why are we even doing this?" I cried in between laughs as went down an aisle with foods with labels completely in Spanish. 

"Because we're living, Jess. Just go with it!" 

By the time we made it back to Roberto to check out, we had accumulated $50 worth of junk food. We unpacked the cart, after checking out, into Nate's trunk. I was still sitting in the cart. 

"Alright, it's time to get out now," he said, gesturing for me to exit the vehicle. I gave him the best pouting face I could and begrudgingly got out. 

He replaced the cart in the rack and I said, "I feel like we owe them an apology." 

"Oh just get in the car," he said, opening the passenger door for me. 

Then, I asked, "So, where to next?"

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The next stop was a record store. Now, I didn't expect to find much, but I loved looking through old records. Something about vinyl just sounded so much better than cassette tapes and CDs. And, one of the things I had to have when I was redoing my house was a turntable. We walked into a little shop of the beaten path that was filled wall to wall with card board and wooden boxes filled with old records. We wandered up and down the makeshift aisles between stacks and paged through the various records. 

"Holy shit, look at this one," I said, holding up a cover with a man in possibly the ugliest turtleneck sweaters I had ever seen. 

"I haven't even heard of that guy, but that sweater has to be legendary," Nate laughed. He rooted through a box and found an Elton John record. 

"You could totally pull that off," I said, pointing to the animal print clothing and the colored sunglasses. 

"Oh shut up," he said, rolling his eyes. By the time we made it out of there, I had bought the Etta James' Greatest Hits record and Nate had bought Queen's A Day At The Races. 

"Are we going back to your house now?" I said, getting back in the car. He shook his. "We have one more stop." 

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Our last stop on my last day was to a cliff side. We pulled out a pack of Tastykake Mini Donuts and sat on the hood of his car as the sun was setting. It was like a scene out of a movie. 

"God, it's gorgeous, isn't it?" Nate asked, mesmerized. 

It was gorgeous. The sky was lit up with bright streaks of orange and red and yellow.