One Pacific Away

6 || Jonathan

"Hey, do we need soap?"

I turn around to see Tyler holding a bottle of foaming hand soap. "No, we do not. I swear, you are obsessed with those things. Last time I checked, we had a perfectly usable bar of soap at home." I roll my eyes.

"Bar soap makes my hands feel so rubbery," complains Tyler, but he puts the soap back on the shelf. "You wanted daikon, right? I put it in the cart."

The two white radishes are indeed in the cart, nestled in a plastic bag. "Yes. Let me see, what else did we need..." I pull out my phone and open my notes app. "Right, we needed a new flyswatter, because someone lost it last week."

"I did not lose it. I am completely innocent." He raises his hands up, like a criminal when they are caught.

"Uh huh. Go upstairs and get another one. I am going to get some mangoes— they are in season right now." The supermarket has two floors. Ground space is pretty tight in Taiwan, so we build upwards instead of sideways.

I head over to the produce section and rip off a plastic bag from the dispenser. I choose three orange-yellow fruits with as little bruises as possible, ones that will yield tender, sweet mango flesh when I cut them open with a knife. Delicious.

After picking out a few Fuji apples as well, Tyler returns with said flyswatter, tossing it carelessly into the cart. I refrain from scolding him in the middle of the grocery store, wincing a little. 

"Hey, can we get some apple milk? Please?" He asks, in an almost begging tone of voice. He loves it. Personally, I prefer juice milk.

"You are paying for it all by yourself if we get it. You know I do not drink apple milk."

"Okay...what if I get juice milk instead?" One side of his face tips upward in a questioning, smiling gesture.

I sigh. Tyler has hit my Achilles heel. "Fine. But at least get the brand that is on sale." The one thing we can agree on.

After we get everything else that we need, we head to the checkout. The older lady working the register, sporting not a standard-issue granny perm but an easily managed pixie cut, smiles at us. "Did you get everything that you need?" She asks us this in Mandarin, but her accent betrays a hint of Taiwanese.

"Yes, auntie," Tyler replies. It is a common courtesy to call your elders who are not related to you uncle and auntie. That is, unless you are serving them at a more formal place. Like MYST.

"Good, good. Sometimes you young people get things that you do not need every time you go to the store and one day, poof— you are very behind on the rent and you have a new set of dishes. Those dishes will not pay the rent, you know?" She laughs. We allow ourselves a small chuckle.

She runs each item across the scanner, nodding at each price that comes up on the screen next to her. "That is a total of 1124 NTD."

New Taiwan Dollar. Also called yuan when casually speaking. I hand her my credit card and shoot a look at Tyler. I am hoping that that look gets my message across— Do not forget to pay me back. Since we are housemates, we always split the cost of things for our apartment evenly. Fifty-fifty.

He nods almost imperceptibly. The cashier gives me back my credit card. "Receipt?"

"Yes, please, auntie," I say.

She tears it off from the machine and hands it to me. I notice out of the corner of my eye that Tyler is bagging our groceries. "Have a nice day." The cashier smiles a warm smile at us, a real and caring turning up of the lips that makes us smile back.

"You too, auntie." Taking our bags, we walk out the sliding doors. I park the cart next to all the others. The rain has stopped, so there is no need to pitch our umbrellas.