The Someday Shoppe

I sat my basket down and began looking for three quarts of the biggest and best strawberries I could find. Oblivious to those around me, I diligently searched and filled each container. Just as I finished off the third quart, I heard a voice beside me say, “Are you stalking me?” I didn’t look up for fear the voice was aimed at me. That voice. I’ve heard it before. Since I was looking down, I knew by the shoes. Mr. Gray Temples. I slowly lifted my head and found myself face to face, as opposed to back to back like our first encounter. “Excuse me, were you saying something to me?” I asked with a bit of sarcasm. “Uh, yes. Weren’t you the girl at the café that just opened the door on me?” “Well… I am a girl. I opened a door at a café. But like I said when I apologized, I didn’t mean to slam it into you.” “But you followed me here.” He said with the same smugness he had used earlier at the café. “No, I didn’t follow you. You see, you have a really fast car and I rode my bicycle. I wasn’t looking for your car, and I’m sure you weren’t looking in your rear view mirror to see if I was behind you. If you had, I’m sure you would have put it in reverse to give me a little taste of what I accidentally did to you. Once again, don’t flatter yourself.” There, that was the way to go. Defend yourself first. That’s a sure fire way to get a date! What the heck; I’m on a roll. “Furthermore, following you would mean that I came here with the intention of getting your attention. And since that was absolutely never my intention, then I would say that you are misinformed.” “I don’t think we’re getting off to a good start. Hi, my name is Luke.” He offered his hand. The beautiful, manicured one that held the fork and used it ever so gracefully to animate his conversations. “Hi, Luke, my name is Andi.” I offered my strawberry stained, sticky hand in return. “And I have to get these strawberries back home. So if you would be so kind as to excuse me.” “Sure. Here let me get your basket for you.” “No, I can get it myself, thank you very much.” I leaned down to grab the basket I had placed on the ground at my feet. Yep, you guessed it. So did he. I dropped the tower of strawberries to stop him. My free hand grabbed the edge of the strawberry counter. The board used as a support to fence in the mounds of fruit broke. The sound resembled that of a thirty-ought-six. As I fell, he reached out to keep me from falling. Instead, his finger caught my eye and my hat flew off. I had a flashback of the Junior Miss Memphis contest. There was no sound around me—again. You could have heard a pin drop on the sand to which I was now affixed. I sat there for a minute trying to decide how I could walk away from this with any amount of dignity or pride whatsoever. I was covered with piles of strawberries and sitting on the rest. Luke reached for my hand. I didn’t have a choice at this point, having survived the landslide. I took his hand and squinted my right eye—the one he had just attempted to put out. Infamous for making an impression, I was in my most natural form. There I stood, hat half on, hair all mussed and filled with strawberries, one eye squinted with a look of contempt that was meant to make Luke disappear. The crowd dispersed, chuckling behind them. I stood there staring at Luke with fire blazing inside of me. Not just the fire I felt in my eye. Nor the kind of fire that you want to feel when you’re standing face to face with the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. Fire as in dragon. Man eating, fire breathing dragon! “Please get away from me,” I said. “But I was just trying to help.” “Look, if something like this happens every time I run into you, and I don’t mean literally, maybe we should make it a point to avoid the same places. What do you think?” I said, fuming. “I think it was serendipity.” “What on earth can you say is serendipitous about this?” I felt the heat rising in my face, or maybe it was the strawberry coloring. At any rate, I wanted to become invisible as quickly as possible. “You know what serendipity is, don’t you?” He grinned. “Look Mr. Gr… Luke, don’t let the accent fool you, I’m not some small town hick,” I said as I held my hand over my eye. “Hey look, I’m sorry we got off to a rough start, let’s start over. And by the way, I think the accent is cute.” “Cute? Thanks, but I live in the North. You know Tennessee. The North. See, geographically speaking, Florida—where you live—is the South. If you will excuse me now, I have to take these strawberries home. Then I have to get ready to go back to Hooterville. It’s rutabaga pickin’ time.” I marched past him, but not without slipping one more time on the strawberries I had crushed with my fall. Luckily the basket of fruit balanced me and I didn’t make an even bigger fool of myself. “Just one more thing,” Luke said, as I was walking away. I turned around to face him one last time. “What?” He gently wiped a piece of smashed strawberry from my nose. “I love your bunny nose and you smell like strawberry shortcake.” “Goodbye, Luke. And please don’t touch me again; I’m scared of the pain it might cause. And don’t flatter yourself with that comment. I mean physically.” I could feel his gaze burning into the back of me as I paid for my fruit and offered to pay for the damage. The cashier generously declined my offer. She probably felt sorry for me or at least embarrassed. I loaded my bag into the new basket on the bicycle and headed back to the house, my hand covering one eye and the other guiding the bike for the mile ride back.