Loveliest

Chapter 5

But now the poor child was all alone in the great forest, and so terrified that she looked at every leaf of every tree, and did not know what to do.

 It was only when she was halfway down the canned goods isle that Rose realized she had never been in a grocery store before. Her servants had been in charge of the groceries; there had never been a need for her to venture into the local Whole Foods.  Worried he would notice something was wrong with her, she tried to hide her unfamiliarity with even the simplest things. It wasn’t that hard.

They passed through the coffee aisle where Archie picked up the store brand coffee grinds, and then the cereal aisle, where he had Rose pick a cereal.  In the candy section, a bag of gummy worms was  selected and placed lovingly in the child's seat of the cart.  

Making their way leisurely through the supermarket, they made small talk in between selections. 

“So you’ve already met Zach, Dorian, Seth and Ethan-”

“Ethan?” Rose interjected, the name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

“Yeah, he’s the one who found you on the way to night school. You probably won’t see him much, he sleeps all day.”   

“Oh.” Rose tried to process what he was saying while she looked at the sea of labels along the shelves.

“Yeah, but he lives next door with Carlos and Dmitri. Hey - what kind of soup do you like?” Rose looked at Archie to see him staring expectantly at her.

“Um, soup?”

“I’ll just get Campbell’s, everyone likes Campbell’s. Yeah, but you probably shouldn’t go in their apartment, Carlos is perpetually ill. I don’t understand it, he lives a healthy lifestyle and he doesn’t come in contact with any foreign illnesses.” He sighed.  "I'm pretty sure he just has the immune system of a petri dish."  Archie dumped several cans of soup in the cart. “Let’s go to frozen food. Right, also Dmitri is usually out of it because of all of the medication he takes.”

“Medication?” Rose cried, alarmed.

“Oh, don’t worry, he isn’t sick, like Carlos. He does drug tests for money." At that second they turned out of the isle into the fresh foods section. Rose almost gasped in relief.

“Do you know how to cook, Archie?” she asked. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

“Cook?”

“Does anyone?” she pressed.

“Well, Zach can but he's always going off about the intrinsic importance of maintaining a predominant position in our communal living situation.”

“A what?”

“Don’t ask. And the rest of us can make coffee but not much else. We get by on frozen food and takeout though.” Rose looked longingly at the fresh produce. If there's anything she really missed about her house, it was the food. She didn't eat much, not really, but she loved food just as much as the next person.  

“Don’t you want home cooked food?” she wheedled.  

He pushed his glasses up his nose and shoved his hands deep in his pockets; twitchy. “Well, in an ideal world-.”

“I can cook,” Rose said. And she could. Often she would venture into the kitchens and talk with their cook. Then, under the chef’s watchful eye, she remembered sautéing vegetables and stirring  broths until she was finally allowed to cook alongside her.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Archie started, but it was clear the offer was tempting him.  

“Seriously, you’re letting me stay in your house. And besides, I love cooking; you’d be doing me a favour,” she argued.