“What happened?”
Paul’s face was inches from mine. “Relax. You fainted.”
My hands were wet and sticky. So was my back. So was everything. I tried to focus my eyes but everything was blurry and lit-up, like I’d just spent fifteen minutes staring into a sky filled with fireworks. I attempted to sit up but he held me down.
“Hang on. Jenna went to grab you something to change into.”
“What?” I pushed his hands away and raised myself to a half-sitting position.
I was sprawled on the floor of the produce aisle, covered in something red and sticky.
“You fainted,” he repeated. “And, uh, you sorta took out the tomato display on your way down.”
My shoulders sagged and I sighed. Of course I did. A couple of curious onlookers had stopped and were staring at me, their expressions a mixture of horror and amusement. It reminded me of the looks on the faces of the wedding guests and I immediately wondered which event they were reacting to, my current situation or my past transgression.
Jenna appeared then, holding up a Minnesota Gophers shirt that looked more like a sail.
“This is all I could find,” she said, breathless.
Paul frowned.
“It’s a grocery store, not Target,” she said. “She should be happy I was able to find something that wasn’t covered in tomato paste.”
Paul took it from her. “Can you stand?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
He held out his hand to me and helped lift me off the floor. Jenna waited, watching.
“The bathroom is over by the deli,” he said. “You can go in there and at least change your shirt.”
I shuffled out of the produce section and toward the deli counter. Paul hovered next to me, his hand on my elbow. “I need to pay for it first.”
He ripped the tag off the shirt. “I got it.”
“No.”
He steered me toward the bathroom. “Don’t argue with me. Just go change.”
“Do you need help?” Jenna’s voice was laced with honey. I didn’t know she’d followed us.
“You’ve already done enough,” Paul said.
Her face brightened and I knew she missed his intended meaning. “OK. Well, let me know about that lasagna. I’m free tonight…”
“Yeah. I’ll let you know.”
“Here.” He shoved the shirt into my hands. “Go change. And don’t leave. I’ll meet you back here.”
I opened the door to the women’s room and got a look at my reflection in the mirror. My hair was plastered to my head and my white t-shirt was stained a sickly, pale pink, speckled with tiny white seeds. My denim shorts were splattered with tomato juice. The dark splotches made it look like I’d wet myself.
I found an empty stall and stripped off my shirt. I wore an elastic hairband on my wrist, mostly as a holdover habit from my volleyball days, which I took off and pulled my hair together into a slimy ponytail. I slipped the Gophers t-shirt over my head. It hung to my knees and had all the shape of a muumuu. What did it matter? I was already the laughingstock of the town.
I pulled down my shorts and peed, washed my hands and dried them and headed out of the restroom, my stained t-shirt wadded into a ball.
Paul was waiting, his arms looped with plastic grocery bags.
“Better?” he asked.
“Uh. Sure.” I suddenly remembered my own groceries. “Oh, hey. You know where my cart might be?”
He smiled. “Relax.” He held out one of his arms. “Your stuff is right here.”
“You bought my groceries?” I groaned. Along with the Frosted Cheerios and Rice A Roni, my cart had also held a month’s supply of tampons and pads.
“You needed them, didn’t you?”
I shook my head as we walked through the grocery store to the exit. “Well, yeah. But you didn’t need to buy them for me.”
“I wanted to.”
The sun blinded me as we stepped outside and I fumbled for my sunglasses.
“Here.” Paul pulled my glasses from his shorts pocket.
“How…?”
“They flew off your head when you passed out.” He grinned. “They ended up in the avocados.”
I sighed. “Awesome.” I reached into my purse. “How much do I owe you?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I pulled two twenties from my wallet and thrust them at him. “Here. Thank you.”
“Really, don’t worry about it.”
I pressed them against his chest. “Seriously. You’ve already done enough for me. I’m not letting you buy my groceries, too!”
He reluctantly took the money and set his groceries down on the hood of my Volkswagen bug. “You sure you’re OK?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you faint often?”
I unlocked my car door and pulled the lock up on the passenger door. It was a ’72 bug. Nothing was automatic.
“No. Never, actually.”
Paul put my groceries on the back seat. “So, that’s a little weird, right?”
I shrugged. I was feeling better. Except for the humiliation and mortification of having passed out into a bin of tomatoes.
“I didn’t eat much for breakfast this morning.”
Come to think of it, I hadn’t eaten much of anything for almost three days. I’d been too nervous to eat on Saturday and too mortified to eat the day after. When I’d gotten up this morning and hadn’t been hungry, I’d thought maybe my stomach had shrunk. Kinda like my brain.
“Hmm.” He stood next to my car and waited.
“What?” I was anxious to leave. I wanted to get home and lock myself away for the rest of the day. Maybe for the rest of the week. Maybe for all of eternity.
“I just…” He hesitated. “I just wanna make sure you’re OK. That’s all.”
“I’m fine. Really. I just need to eat and I’ll be good as new.”
“Not what I meant.” He looked down and kicked at a pebble with his sandal. “I mean about Chase. The wedding.”
“Oh.” I straightened. “Uh, yeah. I’m OK.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I think he made the wrong choice.”
“What?”
“Angela. You.”
I swallowed. “Really?”
He nodded and chewed his lip as he glanced back up at me. “Yeah. If it were me…hell, if it had been me, there wouldn’t have been a choice. None.”
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