Chapter 2 - Hard Bargains
-o-o-o-o-
"Ma'am, you can't pay for this with food stamps."
"Diapers?"
The clerk shook her head, replying as if she'd had to say this a hundred times already: "No, Miss. Only food."
Bonnie wistfully slid the Pampers off the conveyance belt and into a random shopping basket. A mechanical hum was deafening as the rest of the items continued to move down the belt, the cashier quickly scanned each item's bar code, heard the satisfying beep, then pushed the jars of baby food and lunch meat down to the bag boy. The kid, who couldn't be no more than fifteen, methodically stacked the food into paper bags.
"Wait! Could you double-pack those in the plastic bags with the handles? Thank you."
The kid rolled his eyes and reached under the metal counter, producing several plastic bags, and began to hoist the full paper bags inside of them, effectively making the bags more durable and easier to carry.
"Do you have a WIC voucher?" The clerk casually asked now, ringing up the total.
Bonnie clumsily sifted through her messenger bag, finding a bent blue and white folder and handing it to the clerk, who in turn checked the paperwork tucked inside.
"This ticket is expired, Ma'am." The clerk handed the folder back to the girl.
Bonnie's mouth dropped open, incredulous. "What?!"
The cashier's expression went from indifferent to sympathetic and she glanced nervously at the line that was forming in her checkout aisle before leaning in to whisper to her. Although the clerk's approach was tactful, it was obvious Bonnie couldn't afford the groceries now, and had to put them back.
Bonnie did not heed the cashier, but opened her bag again, removing lip chap, a compact mirror, a travel pack of tissues and other girly things before she found her coin purse at the bottom, hastily unzipping it to find a ten dollar bill crumpled inside, she handed the money over to the clerk.
"Will this cover it?"
"You're still short."
As the clerk began to take her items from the counter, Bonnie's agitation and desperation was rapidly brewing to the surface. "Can I get the formula on credit?"
"We don't do that here --"
"Look, could ya hurry it up!" -- that from the middle-aged woman third in line, trying to hold a shopping cart full of microwave dinners and frozen pizza while her two little boys begged for candy they wanted but she wouldn't buy because the sweets would rot their teeth, as if the processed food and fatty oils in her basket wouldn't stunt their growth. The woman added bitterly, "...please?"
"Just a minute!" – Bonnie snipped, she turned back to the cashier, lowering her voice, she pleaded: "Lady, could you just give me the cans? I'll come back with the cash, I promise..."
The store's manager – a guy shaped like an egg in a blue shirt a size too small and a shiny gold name tag that read "Greg" – was looming in the background the entire time the drama in checkout lane nine was unfolding. He stood by a rack of magazines a couple of aisles down – failing to look occupied. He was obviously keeping a wary eye on the customer he just knew was going to start trouble. He sidled up next to the clerk, folding his arms. Greg's thick, droopy mustache quivered as he blew air out his red nose.
"Ma'am, we don't want no trouble."
Bonnie didn't like to be reduced to groveling, even worse the manager was now here trying to write her off without even knowing her situation. She almost didn't know what to say, she always had something to say but the only choice words she had for these two hassling her presently consisted of four letter words.
"I got it."
Lo and behold, all eyes turned to the man standing next in line that spoke up. Greg narrowed his eyes warily. It was Sonny; he fumbled in his pockets and pulled out his wallet, counting out the correct amount. He put the 12-pack of beer he stopped in there for on the belt, a beat later he picked up the bundle of diapers discarded in the basket and placed that on the belt too.
"Ring those up too, would ya?"
"Sure, Sonny." The cashier replied and scanned the box. The bag boy, bummed he didn't get to see an altercation between Bonnie and his boss, solemnly put the beer in a plastic bag; the diapers went in one of Bonnie's bags.
*
"Thanks." Bonnie said once they left the counter, the bag boy was behind them, lugging her packages with some effort. They stepped onto the rubber "Thanks for Shopping at Johnson's Grocers! Please Come Again!" mat at the same time and the automatic doors swished open, Sonny let her go first outside into the parking lot.
"No problem... Bonnie, right?"
Bonnie looked momentarily shocked at having her name being spoken, her cheeks were still flushed with humiliation resonating from the altercation in Johnson's; her coffee-brown eyes were lackluster and desolate from stress. Sonny felt a pang of dread in his chest, for she appeared to have no recourse of ever having met him. "How' you know my name?"
"Well, I --" he tripped over his words; he didn't think she might not remember him. "We've met before, I live on Everwood? You were at my house last week and you had a camera --"
"I remember now." Bonnie said, and stopped walking, the bag boy almost ran into the back of her but looked up in time, veering around her to stop and wait quietly off to the side. "You just look different in that uniform, is all."
Sonny couldn't help but chuckle at that, and tugged anxiously at the untucked, wrinkled hem of his black correctional officer uniform he still had on. Hank would have a fit if he saw it in such disarray.
"I got to go now." She announced, bringing her hand up to rest of the bag boy's shoulder, he got the message and handed Sonny his beer, who took it and nodded his thanks. "Thanks again for helping me."
"You're welcome." Sonny and the bag boy replied in unison, and then exchanged confused glances. Bonnie did not specify who she was expressing her gratitude towards, or perhaps she had been referring to both boys...
"Want me to take these to ya car, Miss Bonnie?" The bag boy proposes. Bonnie nods her answer.
"...Well, I'll see ya 'round?" Sonny asks Bonnie, a tinge of anticipation in his voice.
The notion of further ill-timed encounters didn't sit well with Bonnie. "I don't know 'bout that, Sonny." She says ruefully. "My daddy don't normally do deliveries on Everwood. I only tagged along that time to take pictures, so..."
"Okay," he says lamely, pulling out his keys. "…Bye, then."
"Bye." ...and then she's gone. Sonny climbs into the cab of his Jeep Comanche and sits there for a minute, the key goes in the ignition but he doesn't turn it over yet. The sun's setting, and he can make out Bonnie gradually getting further away as she and the bag boy weaves between parked cars.
She says something to the boy and he places the bags on the ground, in the middle of the parking lot, and darts back inside the store.
Bonnie picks up the bags, and begins to walk down the road, an arm full of bags in tow. Sonny squints at this, flustered for a moment.
He starts up the truck.
*
Bonnie adjusts the shopping bags and side-steps a pothole. In the distance the orange sun setting above the horizon. She moves a little faster now – mentally slapping herself for not having worn her closed-toed shoes – loose pebbles jammed under her heel and the sole of the sandals, yet she trudges on because she has to. Her house is nowhere in sight.
A dingy black and gray truck is on the road and approaching fast, she moves off the road's shoulder and ends up in the dead grass of a field. The truck honks –
"I can't move over anymore…"she groused under her breath.
The truck pulls up beside her, slowly moving to match her pace, and she distinguishes it's the guy that helped her at the supermarket... Sonny. Bonnie halts mid-stride, the bags jerked in her hand – she drops one.
"Damnit!"
The pick-up pulls off the road and stops a few feet in front of her, Sonny hops out and comes over.
"I got it." He calls and picks up the busted bag and the cans of formula that rolled out into the ditch, blowing rusty red dirt off the tops. They put the groceries in the bed of his truck. Bonnie, having little choice, reluctantly gets into the passenger side. Sonny pulls back onto the road.
A few minutes later Sonny asks "Where to?"
"Huh?" she says dumbly. A horrid thought was flashing before her eyes - it's of her lying in the backwoods, barely breathing with Pampers and frozen hot dogs scattered around her bloody and broken body. "Uhh..."
"You alright?"
"I'm fine," she slides closer to the door, making sure it's unlocked. "Just drive."
*
Sonny politely listened as she let up on her guard and complained about those unreasonable clerks back at Johnson's.
She punched her fist into her palm with a loud smack, miming what she wanted to do to that scared, fat cow of a manager – Greg. "... and that bitch that checked me out might have had a stick up her ass…"
"Booter?"
"You know her?"
"Sort of.. well... We went to high school t'gether"
Bonnie nodded in understanding.
Sonny shrugged a shoulder and shifted gears. "Booter's one of those gals..." She waited as he struggled to find the right words to describe the cashier, maybe having a flashback to his school days, "...she's all bark and no bite."
Bonnie laughed at that. "Like I said: bitch."
Some ditty plays low on the radio, and Bonnie idly raps her knuckles on the window to the vocals of what sounds like an old folk song. Expansive fields change to unkempt lawns of badly kept houses spaced widely apart and then residential streets. She debated on whether she should allow this man, a jail-cop no less, to drop her off and ultimately know where she lives; or have him drop her off a block away and she just walk the rest of the way.
"Are you hot? I could roll down the windows for you..."
Bonnie stopped humming and pried her eyes away from the window. "Mmm? Oh, I'm fine."
"Sure?"
Bonnie gave him a reassuring smile. "I'm sure."
"This station okay?" Sonny asked, his brows pinched. "I can turn it off or --"
"Why are you being so nice to me?" Bonnie interjected. "I mean, if anything you shouldn't've gave two shits about me back there at the store."
Sonny pursed his lips. "Jus' tryin' to help."
"Well, I don't want your charity – just because I'm Black doesn't mean I'm poor too."
"Don't you think I know that?" Sonny wasn't watching the road, the truck swerved into the oncoming lane before he set it right again. After that, a half-baked idea struck him. "If it bothers you --"
"I didn't say --"
"-- Then you can pay me back..." Sonny said, quickly adding, "- but it can't be with money."
Bonnie narrowed distrustful eyes at him. "Then how?"
Sonny wrung the steering wheel, he saw this would either go one of two ways: she could accept the terms or refuse, leaving him with a bruised ego, but not broken.
"Your phone number."
"My phone number?"
"Your phone number." Sonny echoed resolutely, with courage he never knew he had. "Deal?"
"You drive a hard bargain." Bonnie said, and gave the arrangement some thought. "Magnolia."
"Magnolia?" Many scenarios of how she would respond to his request came about, but this was one he hadn't expected.
"Two more houses down and a left on Magnolia. That's... where I live," Bonnie says and he just looks as if he'd been thrown a curve ball and misses, but follows the directions.
The ride is over too soon, and Sonny wordlessly gets out of the pick-up and carries all her bags up to the house. Bonnie opens the mesh screen door to unlock the front door and goes inside the house, leaving Sonny to wonder if she'd just rejected him. Just as Sonny is pathetically leaving the porch, she returns, grinning. Bonnie hands him a piece of paper.
"Don't make me regret this, okay?" Bonnie said, facetious.
Sonny doesn't say anything, only offers her a crooked smile and slips the paper into his shirt pocket. He gets into the black/gray truck, the big thing kicks up a cloud of dust as he peels off. Bonnie lingers on the porch, watching the pick-up get smaller until she can't see it anymore.