Our Bridal Shop

Chapter 16 - Charlotte

The produce section of the Food Saver, five minutes before closing time, was the last place Charlotte thought Alex would come clean about Boston. Her sister pushed the basket like she was leading a funeral procession to honor forsaken carbohydrates. As gastrointestinal dictator of her household, Charlotte made it a point to shop exclusively at the store's periphery. But a two-week old secret spilled out on aisle twelve.

"I got fired."

Charlotte thought Alex said she was tired or was talking about the gallon of milk riding in the basket at her fingertips, expired. For one, her sister never divulged anything personal; and for two, Alex went to the second floor of the shop each day to carry out her busywork. Charlotte thought it important enough to stop her adrenaline-fueled supermarket sweep to clarify.

"What?"

Alex drifted away from the anchor of the cart and sagged inside a fake-grass display designed for everything parents would need for the upcoming baseball season—a fold-up chair surrounded by game snacks and sports drinks. Not a bottle of Xanax in sight, so they'd really missed the demographic on this one. Charlotte looked closely at her sister and put it together: black cap pulled low over Alex's brow, hair jacked through the back opening, jeans—almost a never in Alex's book, skin as white as the Michael Bublé piped through the store's speakers. If Charlotte didn't know any better, she'd think her sister was a dugout mom on a bender.

She had said fired.

Charlotte felt the weight on her shoulders.

The store's lights dimmed and turned back on. An announcement urged shoppers to make their final selections. It was cute how management thought that would happen when Charlotte was on the cusp of Alex opening up to her. She joined her at the display, settling her backside on the strip of plastic grass beside her sister.

"Oh, honey. Want me to send him a present from Tibbs?"

Alex smirked. Bless her heart, she thought retaliating with ostrich droppings was a joke. Charlotte opened a nearby bag of cheese puffs, ate one, and angled the bag toward Alex. The powdery white-cheddar starch bomb was a mouthgasm.

"What happened?"

Her sister extracted a cheesy fistful. Around chews, she said, "I screwed up. Also, they didn't appreciate my vision. It wasn't like I put drones in the warehouse to distribute blood—although...."

Damned if she wasn't considering it. One pint of blood dropped from a drone clip would've turned any warehouse into the soundstage on a slasher film. Charlotte didn't go there. "Always were ahead of your time."

The lights flashed three more times—aggressively, if such a thing were possible with florescent bulbs. Michael Bublé cut to silence, no longer "feeling good."

"You mark my words. That boss of yours didn't know what he had until it was gone." Charlotte popped open a nearby can of grape cola. She took a swig and passed it to Alex. "Like I'm regretting this salt. Oof, I'll retain enough water to float a battleship with these. But I'll tell you one more thing."

"What's that?"

"The flipside of regret. You don't know what you're missing until you find it. I predict you'll find it here."

"Devon?"

She said Devon as if it was geographically situated on the underside of a sweaty man's balls.

The announcement repeated, verbatim. Charlotte went another round with the puffs and soda.

"I know it's not the cradle of the founding fathers and this here fake grass is a sloppy substitution for Fenway Park, but it wasn't that long ago when the people here were your people."