A middle-aged man, presumably forty, forty-five, stood in front of a counter, putting away his wallet.
"Here you go, sir."
"Thanks."
"Have a nice day, sir."
Leslie Burke, twenty-two, stood behind that same counter, wearing the store jacket that all employees wore. She briefly glanced at her watch; it was still an hour before the end of her shift. Giving herself a mental kick, Leslie tried to look pleasant and not completely bored. It was, after all, her sixth month into the job. "Next in line, please."
Things were almost exactly the same as Leslie worked five days a week, two hours a day. There were the accidents that would happen once or twice a week, but other than that, nothing could've made the job more uninteresting. In fact, the only reason she had taken the job was because it was close to her apartment and she needed the money, since she was on her own. While ultimately working towards a PhD in psychology, she needed to sustain her own income, and that meant paying bills for her own apartment, gas for her car, and food for…well, eating. Bill and Judy had insisted that they helped with her funds, but Leslie said that she best go on her own, and only ask for money during crucial times. "I think it would help better prepare me for the future, when you guys won't be around to be with me and support me." Naturally, the young adult's parents couldn't argue with her logic.
Around three months ago, out of absolute boredom, Leslie found entertainment in observing the consumers. In the brief minutes between the employee and the customer, Leslie would try and "figure out" the person, just by appearance and speech. Sometimes she could actually verify her suspicions when the person used a credit card; she could then have further information from the person's signature or their address, etc. etc.
The person that was next in line stepped forward.
This one looks interesting.
Brown haired, this man looked around the same age as Leslie. He wore a pair of dirty jeans, which either meant that he was from the country and not from town, or he was just a lazy college student who partied every night. The look in his eyes as he approached the counter confirmed Leslie's first suspicion; rather, Leslie knew he couldn't have been a lazy college student. He couldn't have been from around here. The young man was probably just a farmer boy from the countryside, here to buy weekly groceries as an errand for his family's basic needs.
A closer look revealed that his arms were, for a lack of words, very muscular. To Leslie, that meant that the person was either hard-working, or just worked out a lot to impress girls, as a lot of boys her age did. Given her previous observations, Leslie concluded that he indeed was hard-working.
He wore a white shirt, covered with semi-transparent mud stains, under his rough brown jacket. Inside the jacket's left pocket, a pair of glasses was poking out at the top. To Leslie, this meant that the person probably read a lot, or did a lot of work involving computers.
Probably reads a lot. I think I like this person already.
As the man pulled out the items from his shopping cart onto the conveyor belt, Leslie noticed the speed and consistency at which he did his work, another sign of a young, hard-working country man. Before she blinked twice, all of the items were on the belt. She reached for the item in the front, a loaf of bread. She scanned it with the scanner gun at her counter, and it made a pleasant beep.
Twenty more beeps followed.
"Do you have our savings card?"
"No."
Usually, Leslie would say "would you like to get one, sir", but something told her that he wasn't about to buy one of their savings cards anytime soon. Taking a bag from the bag rack, she started putting some of the products into the plastic container.
"Your total is forty-seven, twenty nine."
The young man took out his wallet from his left pocket on the back of his jeans, and, to her surprise, took out a credit card. He slid it through the credit card slider. Not paying much attention to her screen, she looked curiously at the man putting his wallet away.
"Is something wrong?"
A little shocked, Leslie quickly replied "No, sir. Please enter your pin number in the number pad."
He did so.
Leslie didn't want to look at the screen yet, for it would provide information that would easily answer all her suspicions of the man. She wanted to further "investigate" this person; he was quite an interesting figure indeed. But as she stood there, she noticed that the man was now staring at her with a puzzled expression. Leslie suddenly realized that there wasn't anything she could do that didn't involve looking at the screen… besides looking at his license. After all, one of his items included a pack of beer, presumably for a celebration of some sort.
"I need to see your license for a moment, sir."
Sighing, he took out his wallet again, took out the license, and held it up for Leslie to see. She skipped the name, as it was just a waste of time; her eyes proceeded down to the DOB. The year printed on the card was 1992, which meant that he was twenty-two. He was as old as she was.
"Thank you, sir."
There was only one thing to do now; Leslie slowly turned her attention away from the man and onto her screen. On the top left corner, it showed the total. Below it was the credit card information and, more importantly, his name, telephone number, and address.
Her eyes widened. Her hands trembled, as if they didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to do.
"Is there a problem, Miss…" the young man glanced at the name tag on her store jacket.
His eyes widened. He had a good reason, too.
For Jess and Leslie hadn't made contact with each other for over nine years.