Imogene Peabody seemed surprised to see Mary Bliss.
“Oh,” she said, looking down the rim of her half-glasses. “You came back.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mary Bliss said, lifting her chin.
Meemaw wasn’t going to give her a dime, she knew now. Had probably known it deep down all along. Nobody else could, or would, help her out of her predicament. She thought of the story-book she’d read to Erin every night when she was still lap-sized. The Little Red Hen. Nobody would help the little red hen feed her chicks. Not the rooster, who was long gone. Not the cow, not the pig, not the sheep…nobody.
“All right,” Mary Bliss told herself. “I’ll be like the little red hen. I’ll just do it my own self.”
Ms. Peabody scanned the clipboard on her desk. “Your first day didn’t go too well, did it?”
“It was a disaster,” Mary Bliss said.
“You’re on station G today. Produce department. You’re off at nine tonight.”
“All right,” Mary Bliss said. She tied the strings of her blue apron and straightened the bill of her baseball cap. “I brought my own gloves today,” she said, pulling them from the pocket of her jeans.
“Swell,” Ms. Peabody drawled.
Mary Bliss turned to leave the cubicle, all set to plant the wheat and harvest and grind it and bake it into bread all by her own self. And take care of her chick. All by her own self.
“Ms. McGowan?”
Mary Bliss stopped thinking about wheat. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Bargain Bonanza has decided to immediately discontinue the sale of Mrs. Korey’s Kod Kakes.”
“Really? Why?”
“Consumer feedback.” Was that a glint of amusement in Ms. Peabody’s eyes?
“Virtually everyone who bought that product yesterday returned it to the store this morning. It wasn’t very pretty, I can tell you. Cases and cases of the stuff, and naturally, the Kakes had started defrosting. We had to disinfect the consumer service area, and then truck the remaining Kod Kakes out of the store.”
“My goodness,” Mary Bliss said. She was starting to feel a little better. “Can I ask what you did with all those fish sticks?”
Ms. Peabody’s lip twitched slightly. “It’s supposed to be highly confidential. But, since you were involved, I guess I can tell you. Half the product went to the Clayton County Animal Shelter.”
Mary Bliss shuddered, thinking about all those helpless puppies and kittens, subjected to Mrs. Korey’s Kod Kakes. “And the other half?” she asked.
“Do you know anyone in New Jersey?”
“No. Why?”
“Let’s just say there’s a certain toxic waste dump outside Trenton that’s going to require quite a bit of backfill in the near future.”
Mary Bliss’s feet felt lighter as she sped toward the produce department. Maybe her career as a product demonstration hostess wasn’t doomed after all.
Station G was another card table, covered with a green plastic tablecloth. Big tubs of cream-covered stuff were stacked in the cooler beside the station, and Art, the man she’d met the day before, was emptying bags of baby carrots and celery sticks into a tiered plastic tray on the table.
“Well, look who’s here,” Art boomed when he saw Mary Bliss. “You came back.”
“Yes,” Mary Bliss said. “Did you hear about the Kod Kakes?”
“Shhh,” Art said, putting a finger to his lips. “What Kod Kakes?”
“Right,” Mary Bliss said. She could take a hint. “What are we demonstrating today?”
“Zippee Dip!” Art said joyously. “It’s great stuff. Wonderful. Low-fat. Low-calorie. A tasty addition to any healthy snack.”
He showed her how to use a funnel to pour the dip from the half-gallon tubs into little fluted paper cups, and instructed her to let shoppers take a handful of carrots and celery to dip into their own individual cups of Zippee Dip.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just put the dip in a big bowl and let people help themselves?” Mary Bliss asked, eyeing the mess Art had made on the tabletop. Glops of Zippee Dip spotted the table and the floor around station G. Art’s thick-lensed glasses were spattered and his blue apron was streaked with the stuff.
“Good God, woman!” Art said. “Everybody dipping into one communal bowl? Haven’t you completed your hostess hygiene class? Think of the implications.”
After Art had gone, Mary Bliss did her best to clean up the area with the paper towels she found stashed under her card table. During a lull in business, she surreptitiously tasted the Zippee Dip. It had a vaguely sour-cream-and-chives taste. Nothing like delicious, Mary Bliss decided, but nowhere near as aggressively nasty as the Kod Kakes.
For hours and hours she poured dip, pushed carrots and celery, and cheerfully handed out coupons to the shoppers who ebbed and flowed through the produce department. Slowly, the cooler beside her emptied, and each time she saw a shopper add a tub of Zippee Dip to their cart, she felt a little zing, heard the ka-ching of money in the bank. Jeff Robertson still hadn’t told her what her quota was, but she was positive she was close to meeting or surpassing it.
She was funneling dip into the paper cups when she felt a presence beside her. She looked up and almost dropped the tub.
“Randy!” she said. “What are you doing down here?”
“Bargain hunting,” Randy Bowden said, gesturing toward a cart filled with food. “These grand opening specials are pretty good. And you know how it is with teenagers. They never stop eating. So what are you doing down here, Mary Bliss?”
“Oh, just keeping myself busy,” she said, trying to sound happy and carefree. “Parker’s out of town on a consulting job for most of the summer, so I thought a little part-time job would keep me from getting bored.”
She could feel her face burning with shame and wondered if he really believed she was only working as a lark. And how must she look, with that goofy baseball cap and apron, not to mention the elbow-length rubber gloves?
“Careful,” he said, steadying her hand with his. “You’re spilling.”
A lavalike puddle of dip was spreading over the card table. She busied herself mopping it up, to hide her embarrassment at having her cover blown.
He stuck a finger into one of the paper cups. “Zippee Dip, huh? Is it any good?”
“It’s not bad,” Mary Bliss said. “Try it with a carrot.”
Randy took a baby carrot and plunged it into a cup of dip. He chewed slowly, thoughtfully.
He was not really so pathetic, Mary Bliss thought, watching him eat. He had nice brown eyes, and the glasses made him look intelligent. His hair had been trimmed since the last time she’d seen him, and he’d gotten some sun, so he didn’t look as pale or needy. He was dressed in a good summer-weight suit, not the baggy shorts and T-shirts she usually saw him wearing around the neighborhood. He looked like a handsome young banker. No sign of divorce cooties.
And she looked like a loser, Mary Bliss thought.
Randy took another carrot and dipped it in his cup. “I like it,” he decided. “And anything that will get Josh to eat a vegetable has got to be a good thing, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” she said. “I guess girls are different from boys. Erin loves vegetables. Especially carrots. I’m going to buy some for her before I leave tonight.”
“Then I’ll do the same,” Randy said. He took two tubs out of her cooler. “Do you get a commission or something, if I buy more?”
“No,” she said. “But it helps me make my sales quota.”
“Anything to help the cause,” he said, laughing. And he added another tub of Zippee Dip to his cart. And another.
“What time do you get off?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
She checked her wristwatch. “Another half an hour, thank God. I wore comfortable shoes today, but my feet are still about shot.”
“I’m just about done shopping, myself,” Randy said. “Want to get some dinner, after you get off?”
“Dinner?” Was he asking her for a date?
Two little pink spots appeared on Randy’s cheeks. They were actually quite appealing. “That’d be all right, wouldn’t it? I mean, Parker wouldn’t care if we had dinner together, would he? Just two neighbors sharing a meal, right?”
She considered it. Erin wasn’t speaking to her. God knew she was getting tired of eating by herself.
“What about Nancye?” she asked. “What would she think?”
“Good question,” Randy asked. “Knowing Nancye, she’d probably assume we’re sleeping together. She thinks because she’s sleeping around, I must be doing it too.”
“Oh.”
“Would that bother you?” His voice was gentle, his brown eyes just the shade of Hershey’s milk chocolate. There was a tiny spot of blood on the collar of his white shirt, probably from where he’d nicked himself shaving.
Would it bother her? To have Nancye Bowden thinking the same thing about her that she thought about Nancye? But she knew the slutty things Nancye Bowden was doing. And she, Mary Bliss, wasn’t planning on any bad behavior in the Winn-Dixie parking lot. All she wanted was a real dinner, with a person who didn’t despise her. Maybe some quiet conversation. And a chance to forget that the wolf was at her door.
“I’d love to have dinner with you,” she said. “Where were you thinking of going?”
“My place,” he said. “I bought a dozen steaks over in the meat department. Rib-eyes. And I’ll pick up some baking potatoes, and they’ve got some frozen cheesecakes on special.”
“Great,” Mary Bliss said. “But you have to let me bring the wine. And I’ll fix a salad too. You know, Zippee Dip is a great substitute for sour cream on baked potatoes. And it makes a wonderful salad dressing too.”