Ghostwriter

Chapter 3

I bag the woman's bread, milk, and honey jar, then offer to help carry her groceries out to her car. The woman blinks, her eyeballs peeking out from their hammocks of flesh, then nods. Her hair's askew, but no more than mine (though mine's noticeably more contained in its haphazard bun).

I follow her out and make faces at the child that's attached to her hip. He giggles, then stuffs his face into her neck. The mother peers at me again before smiling and pressing a button on her car keys. A minivan's back eases open, and I set the groceries inside.

"Thank you. Say thank you, Donny."

"Ank poo."

She tips me, and I jog back into Piggly's. My pale pink stiff apron presses against my body, and the pig's tail logo stands out in bright yellow. The street, aged and grey, smells of oil and city. I step into the too-cold grocery store and shiver—outside had been so warm, why?!—and reunited myself and my bagging station.

Yeah. Not my dream-job. But jobs in Gotham don't come easy, especially without a college degree. I wanna get back to college, but until Colton gets older and money gets reliable, I'm stuck here. Sure, my birthmother helps out with finances sometimes, but it's not enough to pay for Colton, let alone college.

I bag for long skinny people, short stocky people, rounder smiley people, beanpole grumpy people, children with candy bars and adults with wine. I do em' all. The shapes, the colors, the features, the odors, the expressions, the moods of people dawn on me, shopper after shopper, until my shift almost terminates. I glance at the clock and the door from time to time, wondering and waiting. About three quarters way through my shift, my check-out partner ducks out and I'm left to fill both positions.

Then, close to dark when most of the customers have long since parted, a certain man drops in. I smile at him and wave, and he smiles back. His mouth is about the only feature I can read from beneath that cowl.

"If it's your usual, I already got it up here," I call out to him, and he grins before snatching a couple of energy drinks off the shelf.

"Cool! May I add more to it?" Red Robin tucks at least three Monsters under his armpit and comes up to the register for me to check him out.

"This all for you?" I raise my eyebrow and start scanning his caffeine.

"Yep. Cases and stuff making me restless. How are you, Antigone?" I grin because he always remembers my name; and he usually remembers what I tell him, too. He's not like the other customers, and I'm not just talking about the whole vigilante thing.

"Restless too, I guess. Colton still gets up at random hours of the night for the sole purpose of crying to high heavens, but we're getting there. It's happening less and less." My eyes light up when I talk about Colton. I hand him his bags.

"That's great. Same guy taking you home?" He doesn't move, he knows that the store is almost always empty at this time and therefore I'm in no hurry.

"Yep." Hilton Grey. 'Hill' to me.

"Good." He checks his wrist, then walks out. "Tell Colton I said hi! See you tomorrow."

"See you."

Hill's there about a half-hour after that, and I untie my apron and hang it in the employee room. I snag my brown coat off the rack, shrug it on, and leave. Tonight, I'm not a part of the shut-down crew.

Hill's the kinda man a gang would wanna hire until they get a good look at him. He's tall and buff like a linebacker, but his mouth sets into the sweetest smile and his heart's too tender to hurt a stray cat. His home is filled with a host of strays, just to prove my point. He works at one of the Wayne animal shelters full-time. He used to work at one of the city ones, but then he quit because they would kill the animals after two-years of not getting adopted. Or they would try, I'm not quite sure Hill went through with it.