NOLA: Found a Peanut, pt 2

[amichan]

Part One

We make sure Peanut doesn't need to use the restroom and we head down to the car, locking everything up behind us again. I open the back door of the car and start to get in the front but Peanut's sorta fixed to the spot not letting go of my arm. Shit, of course. She probably doesn't remember ever being in a car before. I close the front passenger door.

“Okay. I'll get in back with you,” I tell her, “Mags, can play chauffeur.”

“Gee, thanks,” she says.

I get in the car and usher her in after me, and then show her how to buckle in for safety. This makes her nervous again.

“Everyone has to do it,” Mags assures her, “In all the cars. Kieran is going to do it too.”

“Yes. Yes,” I agree, as I try to finagle a way that my legs are comfortable, “We'd have had to do it in an Uber as well. It's just...”

“It's a precaution. It's for safety,” Mags says, terse, “Nothing's going to happen but if we don't do it the cops can tell us off for it, so it's best just to do so.”

“Right,” I agree, shifting in the seat again.

Mags closes the back passenger door and gets in so we can set off. She pulls her seat forward a bit which gives me a little more room.

“It's not going to take us long to get there either,” Mags says, “Not much longer than it took to get from Kieran's and get the pastries and up to my place,” the car starts up with a little bit of coaxing and we pull back out into the street traffic after a few moments of grumbling on Mags' part about people not letting us out despite her actually using her turn signals and then we're off.

Peanut hunkers down against me, holding my arm so tightly you'd think we were on a roller coaster.

Then we're pulling to a stop with a creak and slight jolt.

“Good morning,” Mags jokes as Peanut releases her tight hold on my arm and looks around.

“Wasn't so bad, was it?” I ask her.

“No...” she says, scrabbling at the belt and the moving towards the door, as I unbuckle myself with great relief and climb out the closer side, “Everything moved by so quickly.”

“Yeah, that's why we came by car,” I tell her, “It gets us here...what a fourth of the time?”

“Easily,” Mags says, locking everything up.

She grabs a shopping cart as we're walking towards the door and pushes it in front of us for a moment, “Non-food side first, I take it?”

“Yeah,” I nod, “Seems best.”

I'm expecting it this time so I don't go into defensive mode when Peanut grabs onto my arm and holds on as we go through the entryway and Mags goes to the left by the bank and the eyeglass place, and the money order center on one side, and the registers on the other and then through one of the open registers between the rows of candy and sodas and into the area where clothes are. Peanut is looking all around for different reasons than I tend to. Her head cranes from one side to the other taking in everything that's all around her.

“Are you going to get all weird if I turn the corner?” Mags says, suddenly, turning to me.

“What?”

“Well, I figured we'd get undies and stuff out of the way first,” none of us say anything for a moment, and finally she sighs, “Just hold onto the cart,” and dumps her bag into the kid carrier part of it and steps around it and goes around the corner.

I shift slightly to hold it while I still have a blonde teen attached to my arm and turn the corner after her. We're flanked on either side by shiny things, on one side they're in groups and packets and on the other they're just hanging loose on racks, shimmering and lacy strips of fabric some cups of bra held together by ties and wire, others thongs or undies.

“Oh,” Peanut says, “Undies. They go under the other things.”

“That's the stuff,” Mags says, waving towards her, “Come on. Let's pick you some out. What do you think, Key? Three packs?”

I shrug, “Sure.”

“I'm pretty sure I could say ten right now and you'd agree, huh?”

“No.”

“Lucky guess.”

She takes Peanut a little way ahead of us on the side of the aisle that's full of hanging packets and there's some messing around with labels and pants and checking her back, and after a little while and reassurance from me that it is in fact okay three packets of brightly colored fabric are tossed into the bottom of the cart, along with a couple of hangers of something else. I stand back up.

“Okay!” Mags says, “First task accomplished. On to clothes via socks!”

On the back of the “undies” rack avoiding the section full of spanks and things is pantyhose and all that mess. Peanut is quite taken with the middle area where all the character socks and bright patterns are, and soon alternately neon and pastel patterned fabric has joined the rest in the cart. I wonder if she recognizes any of the cartoon characters on there. It's not like I have any idea who they are.

I'm beginning to feel as though I'm in some sort of strange movie reel leaning against the cart with my back towards the registers, one foot wrapped against the front wheel to keep it still, flipping through messages on my phone as Mags guides Peanut through the racks of shirts, sweaters, pants, skirts and dresses, pointing various things out. Some times things will get held up against her or held up for me to look at and it's just sure, whatever, if you want. After a bit Mags waves me back closer towards them and puts a shirt with longer sleeves and a pair of pants in the cart.

“It's about another thirty-five dollars,” she says.

“Okay,” I answer.

“Well, I don't know what sort of budget you're working with here...”

“It's fine,” I look down at what's in the cart now.

Peanut looks at me, warily.

“It's fine,” I repeat.

She nods. She's going to probably need at least comfy pants to sleep in as well...and this stuff can't really be kept in my room.

“Where's she going to put it all?” Mags asks, echoing my brain's line of thought as we walk further through clothing and Peanut grabs shirts and things here and there remarking how tiny some things are or frilly or how not comfortable they'd probably be.

“Oh, hey, there,” I point, “Are those night clothes things?”

Mags glances over, “I think that's sports...but there might be something near there. Some times guys clothing is more comfy for that anyway. I sleep in—anyway...let's look, Peanut. Definitely better to sleep in than jeans.”

They come back with some more things that go into the cart, and Mags stops short of telling me how much it is. Which I'm glad. Perhaps she's also noticed it makes Peanut more on edge hearing the numbers tossed around.

“Have you seen anything you like?” I ask her.

She shrugs, “Anything I need I can get myself.”

“That's not what I asked you.”

She doesn't say anything to that, “Peanut needs something to put her clothes in,” she says instead, “{Where exactly is she going to sleep? On your couch? In your room? And if you have to do...things? I have extra room, you know?}

“Are you sure you wouldn't be more comfortable at Mags' place?” I ask her.

She looks at me with wide eyes then and I feel like I might have just punched her, “You said you wouldn't kick me out,” she says in a small voice.

“{Phrasing, Kieran. Way to go}” Mags remarks.

“{Well, what? You have said before how shitty my place is.},” I tell her.

“{I have said that I'm sure you could live in a better place if you wanted to, but you don't seem to so it's not for me to...and the point is the zana's comfort}” she puts up her hands.

“I'm not saying you have to go,” I promise Peanut, taking her hands, “I just—my place is small and not in the greatest shape so most people I've ever met would much rather stay at a place like Mags' than mine. So, I'm...confused is all.”

“I want to stay with you,” she says, “Mags' place...” she shakes her head, “no.”

“That's fine then,” I tell her, “You'll stay with me and we'll make sure that you're comfy.”

She nods fervently and Mags leads the way towards the household stuff section. Peanut runs ahead up the aisle a little way when she sees a small plastic dresser with zebra print pattern on it's three drawers and then stops looking at it hesitantly.

“You like that?” I ask, knowing the answer.

She nods. I take it down and put it in the bottom of the cart, standing up carefully. Peanut is looking at the price written on the shelf with curiosity given there are more of them along the way under the wider and taller ones.

After much encouragement she admits she wants to know, “What are these?”

“That's how much it costs,” Mags says.

“But don't worry about it,” I tell her. I don't think she understands what the numbers mean compared to each other, but given the looks I've had thrown my way so far she's still concerned that she's doing something wrong somehow with the money and the working—or the not working anyway and I'm not going to tell her, “Hey, don't worry about it I have a ton of money stashed away from my second job as an assassin because it's not like I need to buy my drugs they pay me with those too.” I suppose there is an easier way to explain that but damned if I can think of it right now so “don't worry about it” works, hopefully.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“Yes,” I tell her, “It's covered. It's fine. There's enough.”

We walk down the next aisle which is one I was going to suggest we look for, cushions, pillows, bedding and so on. Mags encourages her to feel things and see if anything attracts her attention which is how we wind up with a round, dark blue pillow in the cart and a paler blue fleece blanket covered in suns, stars, bears and flowers as well. I figure why not and pick one up for myself, going for something that feels super soft, purple with lighter swirling patterns, and soft black plush fabric on the other side.

“You sure you don't want something?” I ask Mags.

There's a beat and Peanut looks between the two of us again, and then Mags takes a bundle blanket tied with ribbon, more of a red than purple with swirly shapes that after a moment I make out to be sort of clouds and puts it in the cart. She seems frustrated but then she gives me a smile, which I hope means things are okay.

“Come on,” she says, “Let's get you guys food things.”

 We come into the grocery section near fruit and vegetables. Given Peanut liked orange juice I sugget oranges and maybe some apples would be another safe fruit. She holds the orange in wonder.

“This is an orange?”

“Yes,” Mags says, “It's also the color. Like Kieran's sweater is gray and brown and my shirt is mostly blue, though there aren't any foods named those—well there is a blueberry, but...”

“And those are oranges?” she points to another bin.

“Those are a type of orange. They're called clementines,” Mags explains, “They only grow to that smaller size and they taste a bit different,” we get a few of those as well, and a couple of apple and a small pack of raspberries seeing as she like that pastry and it doesn't seem to have “fought back”.

Mags suggests lettuce given it goes good in sandwiches and puts a few other veggies in the cart too as they're good to snack on by themselves instead of just dry cereal—which we are in need of. She spends a few moments rearranging the non-food things in the cart to give us more room and Peanut investigates more of the produce section: those are apples but they sell them already cut up, that's just a different type of lettuce like clementines are a different type of orange. We wind up with a cucumber and some grapes before Mags is done (as it was easy to sneak samples of those) and then we're off again.  

There's a brief stop to make sure we have enough toilet paper now that there's going to be two people in the apartment and that reminds me that Peanut is going to need her own bath soap and shampoo and things which I point out to Mags in the hopes that saying it out loud means I'll remember or instead she'll remind me later, because none of that stuff is around here anywhere. Now we find ourselves at the deli section given I need to replace the rancid lunch meat. I need to remember to throw the trash out too before it stinks up the entire apartment.  

There are a couple of people hanging around the deli counter and Mags pulls a ticket and checks the sign behind the counter. I normally only get one thing of lunch meat and one thing of cheese but if Peanut's going to be there I might need something else to cover the extra stomach.

She's gone over to the counter area itself and is looking at the assortment of things on display, “What's that?” she asks, pointing at one of the cylinders of cheese.

“Provolone,” Mags tells her, “It's a type of cheese.”

“And what's that?”

I peer at the label, “Cheddar. It's a different cheese.”

“That one has holes...”

“That's Swiss.”

We're getting some curious looks from the people standing around as to why the pre-teen doesn't know what stuff is but fuck them.

“What about that?” she's pointing to the other side of the case now, and I'm not entirely sure what she's pointing at specifically.

“Chicken?” Mags queries, “That's a meat though, not a cheese.”

“A meat?” Peanut asks.

“Yeah,” I nod, “Urm...”

“What's that?” she asks, before I can finish the explanation.

“That's ham,” Mags says, definitively.

“What's ham?”

“Ham's also a meat.”

“{Now, we're really attracting attention}” Mags remarks, as Peanut presses closer to the case.

“So, meat and cheese are?” Peanut turns around.

Mags looks at me. Fuck. Cheese. Cheese. Cheese is that. How am I going to explain that? It comes from cows, like milk, but cow is another animal that meat comes from...like chicken and pig, and pictures, phone. Shit, how did parents and people do this before the internet was in their pocket?

“Siri,” I tell the phone, “Show us a chicken.”

“Chickens are a type of animal,” Mags takes pity on me and starts explaining, “We can get meat from them and they also lay eggs, and well...” she frowns, “you already know about the eggs...”

The browser opens up and I click on the most suitable looking picture I can find, a red-orange feathered chicken, captured mid strut through some grass and turn the phone towards Peanut. It reminds me a bit of Henny Penny from the children's book. 

“There we are. That's a chicken.”

Peanut, however, doesn't seem to find it cute. She stares wide-eyed at the phone, “I'm sorry for eating eggs,” she says in a horrified whisper, “I won't do it again,” and then she bolts around behind me, cowering.

Fuck. Fuck.

I try to turn around but she turns with me. Mags is also trying to soothe her. I put the phone away and that helps. She comes to my side at least.

“What upset you?”

“The chicken--” she waves a hand.

Mags has a bit of a “duh” look, and I should have phrased that different but word.

“Yes, right, but what about the chicken?”

She's struggling for words again. Poor kid. I vaguely hear Mags switching numbers with the person behind us in line.

“Watching,” Peanut says, “Angry with me.”

“Oh, shit...no,” I shake my head, “It's just a picture of a chicken. It's not—it can't see you.”

She doesn't look convinced, and starts to hide again when I go to take my phone out of my pocket. Okay, we'll deal with that later.

“Mags?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you get some...” not chicken, “ham and beef, and provolone and cheddar? I'll take Peanut and get her soap and stuff.”

“How much?” she asks.

“What?” what's it matter how much soap?

“How much meat and cheese, doofus?”

“Oh, right. Half of the meats, quarter of the cheeses.”

She nods.

“Thanks.”

She gives a goofy salute, “Take the cart.”

“What? No—I--”

“Trust me—just take the cart. I'll find you guys.”

I have Peanut walk next to me holding on to the cart and we walk down back through where toilet paper and towels and things are and skirt the edge of clothes and shoes to find where all the pharmacy things are.

“I'm sorry,” she says, after a little while.

“It's okay,” I tell her, “I don't realize how much you don't know about is all. I should say sorry. I'm the one who scared you.”

“The chicken scared me.”

“Well, yes, but...” I lean down on the cart a bit as I try to sort this out. She looks over at me and her expression is kinda focused to. I wonder if she's trying to sort out words of her own. I can't even imagine, “...it was just...on the phone.”

“Angry with me,” she says.

Oh, fuck. She doesn't know it's a photograph. I smack my head at my idiocy, and get the phone out of my pocket again. She gets nervous but I stop and then move us in between one of the shelves.

“It's okay,” I tell her, “No chicken. Okay? Let me just show you how this works, alright?”

She nods.

I really don't know how I rated this level of trust but we're just gonna go with it. I make sure the chicken is not actually on the screen because I did kinda shove the phone in my pocket quickly and all.

“Okay, so...I talked to Mags on here, right?”

She nods.

“And I brought up the picture just before, because that's something else it can do. It shows pictures, and it can take pictures, because it has a camera in here...” not that she probably knows what a camera is, but oh well. I turn the camera on and show her the phone screen now as it's scanning over the floor of the store and then the shelves and the products there. I put my hand in front of the screen and snap the picture and pull that picture back up and show it to her, “...see that's a picture of my hand, like this...” I point to the photo behind her of some model showing off lipstick that they want everyone to buy, “...chick was photographed in a different town and then printed out to make people want to buy the make-up she's wearing.”

“It takes photos,” she repeats.

“Yeah. The chicken was just a photo too. I looked up to see if there was a photo someone had shared somewhere so I could show you what it looked like.”

“It's just a picture,” she says again.

“Yes,” I go back to the browser and the search is still there all the different images thumbnails, “See—all these are different chickens from all over the country—lots of places--”

She looks over them.

“Touch one and you can see it closer.”

She presses one where a person is surrounded by a group of chickens feeding them, “Chickens are small?” she asks, incredulous.

Oh, shit, of course, there was nothing else in the picture it could have been some fucking monster.

“Yeah,” I make a size with my hands, “this is about as big as they get.”

“And it's not angry with me? It's not watching me?”

“No.”

“I still don't want to eat eggs.”

“That's fine. I don't want to risk you throwing up anymore. Let's find you some soap and shampoo.”

She nods.

If we're by make up bath stuff has to be somewhere nearby. The next aisle is hair dye and hair styling things: grips, clips, brushes and combs and so on which is something else I hadn't though of so a brush goes in the cart. Shampoo and conditioners are on one side of the next aisle and body wash on the other. The easiest thing is her picking out what color of sponge she wants. The next part is harder.

“But if it smells so good why isn't it food?”

“Because it's not.”

We're getting a bemused look from the lady next to us who is going through some loofahs.

“And it would actually taste really bad because of the soap part.”

“Okay, but then I would smell like food. I don't want to smell like food. What if the chicken wants to eat me?” she says, that terror creeping into her voice again.

“That wouldn't--”

“I'm not stronger than eggs. How can I be stronger than a chicken?”

“No, that's not...” I trail off, again. My head's getting muzzy and I'm not sure how to best explain things. I rub my forehead.

“Honey, you don't have to worry about chickens,” I hear from nearby. The loofah lady has come a little closer, “they don't hunt people, and they're not roaming around in packs. They're kept on farms.”

Peanut doesn't say anything to that.

“How about we find you some that smell like flowers and not food?”

She nods. We're almost done finding her things when Mags shows up and drops the meat and cheese into the cart.

“How're things going?” she asks.

“Well, we're getting there,” I tell her, “There's still some understanding things we're working through.”

“Oh?” she says, “Maybe I can help?”

“Maybe...” I lean on the cart as Peanut, who has some lavender and something shampoo and conditioner, is now smelling various body washes. Mags starts to head over, “Oh, we're not getting things that smell like foods,” I warn her.

“Okay?” she asks.

“It's easiest right now to just say yes, and go with flowers.”

“Okay?”

 “And don't bring up chickens.”

“Oh-kay,” she crosses the aisle to where Peanut is and they chat for a little while and then Peanut brings over a bottle and puts it into the cart, “Toothpaste?” Mags asks.

“No. We didn't get that yet,” I confirm.

“Well, it's the next row,” she says.

Toothpaste is pretty much all mint flavor, so there's not much to be done there. We just get something that's supposed to be fairly gentle and a not electric toothbrush because that seems like it'd be the safest bet.

“I'm not sure what else...” I tell Mags.

“Didn't you say something about towels?” she asks.

I shrug.

“Even if you didn't. Towels of her own is a good idea,” she points out, “I think they're back over that way.” Peanut picks out some fluffy towels, a white set with sunflowers and one covered in cartoon style fish.

“Is this all the food you ever have?” Mags asks, looking in the cart, “because I think you're going to need more,” she waves a hand at me, “Earth to Kieran. Don't you ever do dinners?”

“I tend to be at the bar then...”

“And where's she going to be when you're at the bar?”

Shit. Peanut holds on to the cart warily. She could stay at the...apartment...with all those things you have? Yeah, that's a great fucking idea.

“Or if you have to go away again?” Mags presses.

“That shouldn't be for a bit. There are rules,” I say it automatically, but we did. We laid it down in the contracts five days, three days minimum if there's some sort of extenuating terrible circumstance. Not that she needs to hear anything about all of that mess. I can list the four people I'd trust to babysit on one hand and they're all Mags; but I can't assume that they'd be willing, able or that'd be okay with Peanut considering she's very...conflicted about Mags.

“Well, we'll have to see...” I start, “I mean, the only other person she knows is you. If you're willing to watch her and she's okay with that. Otherwise...there's my apartment...but...”

Mags gives me a raised eyebrow.

“Well, she'd be by herself, and...”

“Would be safe,” Peanut cuts in, “Not sitting behind a...” she makes motions with her hands which I think is trying to show where she was when I found her, “...and no one to blow stinky at me.”

“Stinky?” I ask.

With the lost expression on her face I think she's upset because she doesn't know how to explain what she meant so that we'll understand it.

“Okay, never mind,” I pat her shoulder, “but if you need something there'd be no one there.”

She looks confused, “What something?”

“Food...or...” what else to say? If someone from “God” shows up she just doesn't answer the door.

“Food,” she answers, pointing to the shopping cart. She has a point.

“Well, if you want to cook something,” Mags says.

“If there's enough snacks that don't need it that'll be fine for an evening; and that's time enough to get to know you better before I potentially have to...go away for a couple of days and cooking needs to be done,” though who knows if we'll have found her family by then even.

“...why go?” she asks.

Blah, well, that's something I at least have a simple explanation for like I gave Mags before things were clarified, “I have a second job and so sometimes I have to go out of town for a couple of days to do things for my...other boss,” the asshat.

“Oh. Okay.”

Phew. Thank you for not asking any more questions about that.

“Well, then,” Mags says, “Let's go find a few more snack type things and easy nutritious things. I get the feeling turkey and beef might not be up her alley.”

I start pushing the cart back towards the grocery side of the store and we go towards quick breakfasts and things. There's oatmeal and such but that needs hot water.

“Do you have a kettle?” Mags asks.

I shake my head. Oh, now things are all blurry. Way to fucking go.

“Well, there are ways without using the stove top--” Mags says, “Micro—you don't have a microwave either,” she remembers.

“No, it had a—it broke.”

“Oh, well, there are pop tarts,” though she seems turned off by the thought of those, “and cereal bars and things further down,” she gives me a friendly push, “{Maybe you could at least pick up a toaster, then you could get strudels those are tasty and much better than the sugar cardboard}.”

“It's a thought.”

“And a toaster is pretty simple to operate. {Slide dial slightly, push down, wait for it} Ping. {Because, I mean...can she even read? The whole prices and numbers thing had me wondering...}”

“{What are you asking me for?}”

“I wasn't--” she stops and gives me a look, “{You know damn well what I meant}, don't you?”

“They don't look like the picture,” Peanut says, suddenly. She's holding a box out in between us. The top's been pulled open and she has one of the bars in her hand—still in it's crinkly purple blue wrapper, but, of course on the front of the box the bar is shown square and oats and shining with fruit pieces looking ready to be eaten.

“Shit,” Mags murmurs, but then adds in a more amiable voice, “Well, it looks like we're getting those.”

“But--” Peanut says, pointing to the front of the box with the bar in her hand.

Well, we're getting them anyway, “They put the bars in wrappers in the box so you can tell the different flavors apart and to keep them fresh longer,” I tell her, at least I think that's it, suddenly I'm doubting things I think I know because I have to explain them to her. What if I'm saying the wrong things? I tear open the wrapper and show her the bar inside, “See? On the inside it looks mostly like the box picture.”

She breaks off a small piece and puts it in her mouth and her eyes light up, nowhere near the level of excitement that she got from the chocolate croissant but I'm not surprised when she declares it tasty. I give her the rest of the bar and Mags takes the box, and puts it in the cart.

“Where'd you get it from?” she asks.

Peanut points mouth full of granola, and Mags pushes the cart over in that direction and I grab three more boxes of the mixed flavors and put them in the cart as well.  

“Did you want to hit frozen foods?” Mags asks.

“What?”

“Strudels for the toaster?” she says, “{Nice toasty warm fruit pastry things? Easy to make?}”

“Right. Sure.”

“{How are you alive?}” she mutters as she walks ahead of the cart towards the frozen food section.

At Peanut's request we wind up with strawberry, raspberry and chocolate strudels. I grab an apple one as well and in the cart they go. Mags is looking thoughtfully at something else and pulls the box out of the freezer.

“{Do you think that's a good idea?}” I ask her.

“Well, she has to have some {kind of protein in her system that's not going to be evil chicken.}”

“What if she's allergic to peanuts?”

Hearing her name she turns around. Idiot. Mags is giving me the same look.

“{There's a reason...}”

“{I know. I know.}”

“It's okay,” I tell her, “You see anything else that looks interesting?”

“You have a point,” Mags says, “{But if that was going to happen it would have after DuMonde. That place isn't exactly nut allergy friendly.}”

“Okay. Fine.”

Mags puts one box of Uncrustables in the cart.

“What are those?” Peanut asks, point to them.

“They're a sort of sandwich,” Mags says. This is going to be interesting: her explaining peanut butter to a girl we just named Peanut, “It has fruit in it like the strudels do and also a kind of creamy paste,” she points to where it says peanut butter, “that's really tasty and really good for you. If you don't like how it tastes I'm sure Kieran will eat them.”

“Okay,” Peanut nods.

Mags looks over at me then, “{Okay}” she says, “{Now, I'm sure she can't read.}”

“{One thing at a time}.” I tell her.

But fuck—what is she going to do to keep occupied at the apartment while I'm at work? All I have is the couch and a few stacks of books and she can't read; and what was I thinking that would keep a teenager entertained anyway. I was always bored when I was—and then there were other things I got up to when I was about that age. Somehow I don't think a girl who has lost her memory is going to be running off all over town with kids from school sneaking into people's houses or their cars and taking things to pawn, drinking, trying out pot or just doing random stupid shit like moving for sale signs and lawn decorations and switching street signs.

“Key--” Mags is saying, “Toaster, yeah?”

“Yeah, right. Let's do that.”  

“Yes, before things start to melt.”

The appliance section takes a little bit to get to and we wind up grabbing Peanut a jacket and a pair of slippers along the way. Then we wind up with a simple four slice black toaster.

“You sure you don't want to buy another microwave?” Mags asks, pointing them out at the end of the aisle, “They're not that expensive.”

“We'll see how the toaster fairs,” I tell her, “I don't really want a repeat with the microwave.”

“What happened to the microwave?”

“I...shorted it out,” I tell her, “It was after I got back from one of my other jobs I was kinda...out of it.”

Mags is surveying me intently at that which is uncomfortable making but...too late now.

“Not entirely sure...I was trying to make food, and there were sparks and fire and I was just fuck it and went back to bed. Well, once there wasn't fire any more, anyway.”

“That's good,” Mags says.  

 Peanut follows me dutifully towards the toy section after a small argument about the cart which almost ended up with Mags taking it this time, but she won at the last moment with the uncertain size of toys and pointing out she was going to walk right past where the carts and small amount of baskets were and we weren't no matter how close the toy section was.

After a little while Peanut is holding on to the left hand side of the handle with one hand and I'm resting on the main part as we turn into the toy area, and we have another moment of her looking about with wide-eyed wonder/slight confusion at everything.

She cautiously touches some of the feet of the dolls as we walk by, looking at me for reassurance that it's okay, but shakes her head when I ask her if she's interested in one. She looks at the Barbie dolls with not exactly distaste but she definitely doesn't want one. She seems sort of intrigued with some of the plush toys but even if we get one or two they're not exactly going to be enough to keep her entertained for a whole evening or two. Playing cards and dice games probably aren't a good idea either, but, oh, jigsaw puzzles, those are right next to the games and she's very interested in all the pictures, and it's not as if I don't have space for those to be put together either.

So, three jigsaw puzzles go in the box, and I lead her out through the learning toys section, having a quick look at the things there and their various games and things and wonder if any of them would be worthwhile picking up. There's so many though who knows which is better? Or if it wouldn't be best just to buy an iPad and install teaching apps on it. Mags would know more than me on that front. So, we leave with just the jigsaw puzzles, and a multi-colored plush creature of some sort. It's mostly purple, but if you move your hand across it's fur it shifts to a more pinkish orangish color. I can't quite tell if it's a cat or a bear but she likes it and that's what's important.

We head back out to the main aisle of the store and move towards groceries given we haven't, at least I don't think there are any messages from Mags. I reach for the phone in my pocket and there aren't, so I call Mags to find out where she is. She meets us in the main aisle and puts a basket in the cart, it has a couple of packets of frozen vegetables in it and a couple of cans, and packages of noodles, and a sauce jars.

“Stir fry,” she explains, and then she pauses, “Do you have a wok?” there are tones of should I even ask? To the question.

“Actually I do,” I retort, not that I remember where it came from but she doesn't need to know that. I know I didn't buy it, did someone give it to me? I don't...who would? Was it there in the stove or a cabinet...? “and cooking utensils too.”

“And a saucepan to cook the noodles in?” she asks, undeterred, “and a means to drain them?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then,” she nods, “I'd say we're good to go, unless there's anything else you need or Peanut wants?”

Peanut shakes her head, fingering the ear of the cat-bear thing.

“Fair enough,” Mags says, and turns the cart, and therefore us back towards the cash registers and the way out, “How come you have a wok, anyway?” she asks, as we line up somewhere in the middle of the bank of beeping nonsense and Peanut huddles close again.

“I have no idea,” I tell her it comes across so well though it takes her a moment and then she smacks me in the upper chest.

“You!”

“Me? What?” I ask.

She shakes her head, “Start loading things up, I'm gonna go get us another cart so there's a place to put the things once they're rung up,” she slips by the side of the shopping cart and around the couple in front of us who are making small talk with the cashier as she finishes ringing them up. They see her doing that and put a divider up for us, giving Peanut and me a once over look as well as following Mags with their eyes and then looking back at us. I give them a grimace smile, and move around to the front of the cart myself and start putting things on the conveyor belt.

The other two have taken their receipt and are leaving just as Mags comes back with the second cart.

“Find everything you were looking for?” the cashier chirps, automatically, reaching for the first items before looking up from her station.

“Yes,” Mags replies, equally cheerful, “Thank you!”

The cashier looks up then, and pauses for a moment. Her smile gets that sort of glassy look, given we're somewhat opposite to the previous cookie cutter couple that were chittering at her. I tend not to think about the fact that Mags has a partly shaved head of reddish-brown hair. She's wearing a fairly tame outfit, tight dark jeans and a cropped t-shirt with some sort of strange logo on it and low slung shoulders over a tank top, and me, in slightly ratty jeans and a sweater over a t-shirt under a jacket, dark hair on my head and face, slightly darker skin than Mags, but I'm sure we're still both clearly Romany, and then this little blonde angel in yesterday's clothes, slightly grubby and wide-eyed, and staring at the candy display...

She's clearly not Ours, but she's also clearly not One of Us.

I wonder if the Goody Two Shoes thought we stole her from somewhere. Dastardly evil gypsies and their criminal ways. Not only are they thieves they're kidnappers now. Horrible kidnappers letting their quarry out in public and buying her tons of things. Yes.

Such evil. So terror. Wow.

“Everything okay?” Mags continues in the happy tone.

“Uh, yes,” the cashier says, as I continue unloading.

“Good,” the smile threatens but doesn't quite sharpen.

“Are you okay?” I ask Peanut.

“What's all this stuff?” she asks.

“It's candy and chocolate,” I tell her.

“Are you sure?” she sounds nervous.

“Yes,” I tell her, wondering what's going on, “What did you--?” No, she's worried, idiot, she does't want anything, “What's wrong?”

She points to a bag of M&Ms where the cartoon characters are on the bag, “Candy is chopped up those? Are they like chickens?”

“Uh...” Shit...how to explain this. First things first, “No. Candy is...sometimes it has chocolate in it, sometimes it's fruit flavors and mostly sugar but those...are just characters the company made up figuring it would make people more likely to buy the candy if they had a cute pictures on them.”

“...I don't want those,” she says, breathlessly horrified.

“That's fine,” I assure her, “No one's saying you have to.”

She curls partially behind me peeking out towards the display, “How do you know what's in them if there's no pictures?”

“Hm...well, they show pictures and video of the candy and things on television and in magazines...” there's gotta be something, ah, there. I grab a People off the rack at the end of the aisle and try to find something that's food related and not creepy. There we are, cereal, there's a chick laughing and eating a bowl of cereal, “Companies do things like this, or they record video of people enjoying the food, with cameras, kinda like on my phone but bigger...they show people sharing the food and enjoying it so you'll want to try it too,” bad idea to pull up an M&M commercial though, half the time people are taking chunks out of the actual M&M cartoon characters.

“Hey,” Mags says, “Things are stacking up all over,” she shoves my shoulder, “Were you unloading, or reloading or—what's going on?”

“I'll go back to unloading, sure,” I tell her, “You can explain advertising.”

“I...”

I scoot around them and look towards the belt again.

Mags seems to be getting off easy though because Peanut is just asking her which candy she likes best.

The cart is about halfway empty but the full bags are piling up so I switch to loading some of the things into the empty cart Mags brought.

“You sure are stocking up on things...” cashier says, hesitantly.

“Well, you know how it is,” I answer, grabbing half a dozen bags and putting in the cart. I grab the dresser thing and she scans it having given a sort of “yeah” to my statement and put some of the smaller bags of things in it and it into the other cart before I continue putting things up.

“So they're your...sisters?” the cashier asks, hesitant like she might get bitten or sick.

It's so very tempting to say wives to fuck with her but do not need alarms and social services and nets and all sorts of shit raining down.

“No,” I say, and just leave it at that.

Mags is showing Peanut things to put up from the original cart onto the conveyor so I stay there loading the full bags, and the things that don't fit in bags. The cashier gives up on small talk until she gets to a couple of candy bars.

“You want these out?”

“Sure,” I tell her, and she puts them up on the little table by the credit card machine and I hand them back to Mags who shakes her head, and I toss them towards the cart instead. We're almost done now, which is good I really don't want to be in the store much longer. I lean against the edge of the counter and push my legs back against the edge of the aisle as far as they'll go stretching myself out and uncurling my back, feeling things crackling inside me. It helps a little bit.

“All done,” I hear Mags say, from by my side, “Unless you want some candy or gum or something?”

“No.”

“Okay,” she answers, in a way that suggests my tone was more snippy than I thought.

“So, um...” the cashier gives a worried cough, “It's $627.33,” she coughs again, looking in our direction cautiously, “How are we paying?”

I go into my pocket and pull out my wallet, and count out six hundreds and one fifty and hand them over to her, where she turns the stack backwards and forwards in her hand for a moment.

“Problem?” I ask her.

“No,” she drags it out a little too long glancing back towards Mags and Peanut and then picking up a thick black pen from the top of the register and fans the bills out on the conveyor belt and pulls the cap off the pen with her teeth and then draws a line from the top of the lowest bill over each of them down to the bottom of the top bill on the fan. Then she stares at them for a while as though she wasn't expecting the result she got. She swipes them with the pen again.

“Something wrong?” I ask her.

“Nooo,” she says in a way that clearly says she's not exactly sure, and the light on the top of her register starts to flash and a message starts scrolling along the digital display on the top of her register saying that she's called a manager to come over. Much as I hate the mind powers they'd be useful about now.

“Really?” I ask her, “Nothing's wrong?”

“I just want to double check I'm doing this right,” she says, slightly more convincingly, “I've never had this much cash before.”

“Mm-hmm,” I say.

“What's going on?” Mags asks, joining me.

“She's not sure what she's supposed to do with the money,” I tell her.

Mags rolls her eyes, “Wait—what?” she looks across the counter.

“I've not had this many this high bills before,” the cashier continues.

Mags narrows her eyes, slightly, but also looks at me, curiously for a moment.

“What?” I ask her.

“Nothing,” she says, “[For right now],” she adds, which gets us another wary look from the cashier, who is toying with the pen she swiped the bills with. The one that tells if they're counterfeit, I realize now, which, of course, said they weren't because Stephenson isn't going to pay me fake money, but we're disreputable types after all.

The manager shows up, a tired looking man with an unexpectedly bright red fake nail manicure. It jogs something in my memory. He's not come in to our bar but I've seen him – I was casing another, sniffing someone out, and he was – she was singing – is it she if you're a drag queen?

“What's going on?” he asks.

She leans over and murmurs some things to him about the money and about us and her concerns. That is one epic eye roll on his part. Mags make comment on it in romanichal tongues too.

“I'm very sorry for the delay in finishing your transaction,” he tells us, giving the money a cursory swipe with the pen and then tossing it down on to the conveyor belt, “Take the money, drop it below. Give them their change and receipt,” he points to a slot in the drawer of the register, “and then take break and we'll have a discussion,” he advises the cashier, “about proper procedure. Again,” he turns back to us, “I am very sorry for the inconvenience that Bev has caused you with her mistakes. I'll be re-educating her shortly as you can tell. Apologize.”

“Thank you,” Mags assures him, “We wouldn't want to have to report anyone to corporate. It's nice to know that someone here knows how to treat customers.”

She does so, and rings us out, gives me the change, tells us shakily to have a nice evening, and we head back to the car.

Part Three