A New Life

Angela found a newspaper outside her apartment door in the morning. As she reached down to pick it up, she heard the door across the hall open. Out stepped none other than Paul Young, reaching for a paper of his own.

Angela briefly thought of ducking back into her apartment, but it was too late. Paul glanced up and recognized her immediately. She could tell he was mortified as he froze in his doorway. He broke eye contact quickly and turned to retreat, but something compelled Angela to say something.

"Good morning."

Paul stopped, confused.

"Listen, about last night..." said Angela. "Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. We're next door neighbors now and I can't have you scared to open your door on my account."

"Fair enough." Paul replied. He smiled a small, wry smile. "I moved in three days ago."

"Ah, the irony. It's a nice building. You made a good choice."

Of course having only spend one night in the place, Angela had no idea how accurate that assessment was, but it seemed like the right thing to say at the moment. Was it deja vu or were these words necessary?

There was an awkward pause. The first, Angela was sure, of many.

"Well," Paul said, fiddling with the rubber band that secured the newspaper roll. "I'll see you around then."

"Sure."

Angela closed her door, separating the classified ads from the rest of the paper, and thought Someone definitely has a sense of humor.

"When can you start?" asked the general manager of the Fields Market on West Main Street. Somehow Angela had bluffed her way through her first interview.

"Uh, today?"

"Excellent. You'll be paid for the training."

Angela knew the store well. She'd shopped there on a weekly basis when she lived on Wisteria Lane as Mary Alice. She knew everyone else from Wisteria Lane shopped there too, and wasn't surprised to see a familiar face during the second hour of her first shift.

Timmy, the teenager who was training Angela in the checkout line, mumbled a hello, but Angela had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from reaching over to hug Lynette Scavo.

"Hi!" Angela blurted out, like a sun shining through Timmy's clouds.

Lynette looked up, thinking she'd been recognized.

"Hi." She stared into Angela's eyes, but the moment passed. "Sorry to stare, you just look so familiar. Did you check me out last week?"

"Probably not. I just started today."

"Oh..."

"OK, pay attention." Timmy interrupted them. Angela smiled at Lynette, then did as she was told. There was a problem with the cash register, and Timmy slowly stopped explaining what he was doing as he fiddled with the finicky machine. Angela watched Lynette search through her purse for a credit card.

"How are you today?" Angela asked, the only cashier in the history of the store that genuinely wanted to know about the customer.

"Fine," Lynette replied. "Aside from my step daughter's mother."

Anyone else might have missed it, but Angela could see Lynette's mental hiccup. She hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"You do look stressed." Angela said. A flash of annoyance crossed Lynette's face, and Angela realized that it must have sounded pretty rude coming from a stranger, no matter how sympathetic her tone. She had to stop doing that - no one else knew who she was.

"Kids tend to do that to a gal." said Lynette, brushing it off as she always did.

"How many do you have?"

"Four. No, five. Well, four full-time. It's complicated."

"Isn't it always?"

Lynette sighed. "It really is."

"Finally!" Timmy muttered. He jammed a button on the cash register and the drawer slid open with an oblivious ding.

"Are you sure we haven't met before?" asked Lynette.

"You never know. Fairview is a small enough town."

Timmy finished running Lynette's card through the system, and allowed Angela to tear off the receipt and hand it to her customer.

"Baby steps." Angela joked.

"Right. I guess I'll see you around." said Lynette, stuffing the paper into her purse.

Angela watched Lynette, who was so distracted on her way out that she almost ran over a floral display on her way.

"Well that is just going to bother her all day." Angela remarked idly.

Two hours later, another familiar face appeared in her aisle. Paul couldn't help but smile when he saw Angela grinning at him.

"Fancy meeting you here." Angela greeted him, again sounding much more chipper than she intended.

"I'd accuse you of following me, but you always seem to show up first." said Paul.

"Well as you can see, I've made a radical career change."

"Good for you."

She felt relieved that he took her quip well. He seemed charmed, and it filled her with a strange hope. It was as if she was getting to replay their romance over from the beginning.

"It's walking distance from our building." Angela said, though Paul obviously knew that already. "We were bound to run into each other even if I wasn't a cashier."

"No car?"

"You guessed it. You?"

"Same. I had to sell it to pay for..."

Timmy, still standing behind Angela, cleared his throat. Paul used his wallet to distract himself, as if he'd realized he was sharing too much.
"They tell us not to talk to the customers too much." the trainer whispered apologetically. "It holds up the line."

"OK." Angela whispered back, even though they seemed to be the only three people in the store at the moment. She took a peek at Paul and caught him peeking right back. She started scanning his items in silence, and couldn't help but take a mental inventory - milk, instant coffee, store brand toilet paper - oh, how he'd fallen from the suburban standard of living.

"I mean, small talk is fine," Timmy added. "But you need to keep things moving."

"Right."

Even with permission, Angela couldn't think of anything clever to say. It really was like starting over.

She finished scanning, and told Paul his total. He was taking forever finding the right bills.

"Sorry..."

Suddenly Angela remembered the last time Paul had given her money. Memories...they felt strange after they way she'd experienced the world for the past two years, wherever she'd been before coming back.

"It's OK, take your time." said Angela. It was starting to sink in, how absurd the events of the last 12 hours had been, and she felt a laugh form in her diaphragm. The more Paul fumbled with his wallet, the more awkward and pathetic he became, and the less she could control it. A tiny giggle escaped Angela's mouth and, though it proved less than contagious, she could tell Paul was beginning to feel the absurdity as well.

As Paul walked away, wondering who this bubbly bombshell was and why she was making him feel like a normal person again, he realized he had just had a pleasant interaction with another human being. Sadly, it was the first time this had happened in a very long time. And of all the people to have it with...

Before he got to the sliding doors, he gave in to his curiosity and glanced back at her one more time. She'd been watching him go, and when she saw him looking she gave a little wave goodbye. She'd looked so plain when he picked her up on the other side of town, nothing remarkable. Now he couldn't wait for the next time he'd run into her again.