2. Saige
1481 Words
2
Saige
The cashier in the line beside mine did nothing but talk. Chatter, chatter, chatter, complain, complain, complain. She also filled the air with cloying, cheap perfume.
“Ellie had me up three times last night,” she grumbled. “Three. And the second time, she woke up Eli. He screamed for an hour straight.”
I listened because I didn’t have much choice, considering our proximity.
“Billy couldn’t be bothered, so it fell to me to take care of them. Big surprise. Some days, I kinda wish I never had the twins, you know?” She huffed and crossed her arms under her large breasts, angled my way while waiting for our first customers of the day.
She’d said similar things before, irking me to no end.
I knew what it felt like to be an unwanted child. I also knew what it felt like to wish for a husband and children like she had. A family of my own. People to call my own. A man and children to love like I craved to be loved.
My timidity kept me from both.
“Then Ellie was up at five,” she continued when I didn’t comment. “What two-year-old wakes up for the day at five in the freaking morning? Like, seriously?”
A hungry one? A thirsty one? I wanted to ask if Ellie had a wet diaper.
I shrugged, leaning down to rearrange items beneath my counter.
“And Billy is goddamn useless.”
Fighting against the need to roll my eyes, I bit my tongue and let her spew out all sorts of s**t about her husband, complaining about his getting home at night and sitting in front of the TV while she made dinner, fed the kids, bathed, and put them to bed by herself.
She could always ask for help, I wanted to tell her. Tell him she was exhausted rather than her co-workers. Or maybe she didn’t communicate, and he just didn’t give a s**t. Dad was that sort of husband and father.
Finally, a customer came through her line, shutting her up.
Fake smile, chatty and happy—at least she made the customers’ experience a pleasant one.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d smiled, let alone sang like a canary before I knew the truth of my life. While hostility never crossed my mind, I did my job with efficiency. Unhurried, yet thorough. Packing bags properly, making sure they weren’t too heavy for the elderly or frail.
I’d also given up singing even though sad ballads often ran through my head while I lie in bed wishing for…more.
The new girl continued to gab as I rang up my first customer, taking care as usual. Initiating conversation didn’t come easy for me, so I kept my silence, simply doing my job.
“Have a good day,” I quietly stated once handing off the customer’s bag, keeping my gaze averted.
“You, too, young lady,” the old man said before shuffling away.
Dozens of such transactions a day. Impersonal, but not cold.
Hardly fulfilling, but I got an occasional, “Good job today” from our boss.
The window beyond my co-worker drew my focus in between customers, and an ache spread through my chest as a flock of birds flitted between trees. A breeze rustled the new leaves, and I closed my eyes, imagining it on my face. Fresh air. Quietness. Peace.
“Hello, Saige.”
My eyelids popped open at the voice I remembered from the summer before, and my lips actually twitched.
“Callan.” No butterflies lit in my stomach, but I didn’t mind. I held his gaze all of two seconds before my timidity flitted my attention to the cart he pushed.
“How was your winter, beautiful?”
Heat flushed my cheeks. I started scanning items the second he set them on the belt. “Long. Yours?”
“Longer.”
I believed it, living out in the bush like he did. “Survived it, though,” I murmured.
“Would it make you smile if I said looking forward to seeing you this spring made it easier?”
Sure that my cheeks blazed enough to cover my freckles, I gulped. No smile, but funny flutters finally woke in my belly.
“I’m in town for the next two weeks,” Callan said, setting the last item on the belt. “I’d like to pick up where we left off in the fall—if you’re interested.”
Pick up…
I glanced up to find his blue eyes serious. Nice eyes, but guarded and bland, not filled with the heat of passion like the heroes in the tattered paperbacks I got from the library’s free stack.
Callan had talked me into getting coffee with him the few times he’d been in town the summer before. My first real dates, but he hadn’t tried to kiss me. Hadn’t held my hand. Hadn’t seemed interested other than telling me about his homestead and trying to get me to talk more about my almost non-existent life.
“What do you say?” He smiled, and even though it didn’t reach his eyes or warm me between my thighs like my romance novels did, I considered my morning. My depression. My desire for something new. My need for such a thing.
Hope pushed to life inside my chest for the second time that day.
A change.
“Same place?” I asked, my voice sounding rusty even though I’d wished good mornings to dozens of people in the previous two hours.
“I was thinking instead of coffee we could get some dinner.”
A dinner date. My very first one.
“I-I’d like that,” I sputtered, heat once more flooding my face.
“Want to meet over at Dilly’s Diner? Say, six?”
My head jerked in a nod as I glanced at the register for his total. “Okay.”
Two minutes later, he walked out with his loaded carts, and I caught my attention staying on him far longer than it had the fall before. Broad shoulders beneath his flannel. A bit shy of six feet, dark hair, and beard neatly trimmed.
“You f**k him last fall?”
I jerked my focus across the aisle, my jaw dropping as my co-worker laughed. “N-no!” I sputtered.
“God, you’re a virgin?”
That damn heat returned to my face, and I clamped my lips shut, grabbing a bottle of cleaner to wipe down the belt that didn’t need it.
“You are, aren’t you?” She snorted with laughter. “Girl, you need to get out of your shell and live a little! You’re what—eighteen? Nineteen?”
“Twenty-four,” I mumbled.
“Shit.” She huffed. “I lost mine at thirteen. Hurt like a bitch.”
Not a conversation for work… I glanced around to find us alone—for the most part—but that didn’t ease my feet shifting in the new sneakers I’d bought myself from aisle thirteen before we’d opened for the day.
“He was hung like a horse and didn’t take it easy on me. Your man, there, didn’t look the gentle sort, either,” she continued running her inappropriate commentary. “Bet he’s aching to f**k something other than his fist after a winter out in the wilderness.” Another snort. “You aren’t much for conversation, but I’ll bet after spending that longer winter in the middle of nowhere, he’ll be more interested in getting his d**k wet. Perfect opportunity to give it up if you ask me, Saige. Just sayin’. You’re kinda shy, I’m thinking, to lose it on your own merit.” At least her voice lowered as a customer approached. “Find everything okay today?” she called to them, all bubbly.
Thoughts swarmed my brain.
A dinner date with a man I wasn’t even sexually attracted to.
Something new.
The perfect opportunity.
Was she right about Callan hoping to get between my thighs? Did I want him there?
I hadn’t been saving my first time on purpose—I’d just never had the chance to give up the V-card. No boy had shown interest in me during high school, but I hadn’t looked up from the floor long enough to see if anyone even glanced my way, either.
Those funny flutters twisted my insides, and I glanced out the window again.
Callan had already gone from the parking lot.
He’d been widowed eight years earlier, he’d told me. Hardly spent any time in town, choosing the wilderness and quiet, instead. He’d spoken of his land, his cabin, as though she’d become his mistress. He trapped and panned a bit for gold to make a living.
No electricity. No running water.
A simplistic way of life that honed a man into something a woman could be proud of. Callan wouldn’t get home from trapping and sit on the couch all night watching TV. He wouldn’t have pills and beer readily available. From how he’d spoken of his homestead, I knew he treated both with care.
His cabin wouldn’t be filled with trash.
He’d become something of a friend the year before—even if I hadn’t been the one to fill the silence that sometimes rose between us while sitting down to coffee.
Callan appreciated my quietness, my meekness, he’d claimed. Women, he’d said, oftentimes spoke too much.
I glanced at my co-worker who had her back to me while ringing up Mrs. Dembrook, her chatter a buzz in my ears.
My agreement went with Callan about chatty women—and I looked forward to dinner with more excitement than I’d ever experienced in my life.
- Writer
