CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Seriously. How hard was it to find one poblano pepper? Edith pushed her cart down the produce aisle, past a stand of peaches, and sighed. Apparently hard. When one didn’t know what a poblano pepper looked like, Edith might go so far as to say it was very hard.

She sighed again—something she couldn’t seem to stop doing ever since moving out of Henry’s house a little over a week ago.

Henry. Edith smashed her lips inward before the thought of him provoked another sigh. Just focus on finding the pepper.

A wooden crate filled with bell peppers caught her eye. Now those she recognized. Green, red, yellow, yep, uh-huh, familiar. She had to be getting close. “Poblano, poblano . . .” Edith scanned the labels on the crates next to the bell peppers. “Aha. Finally.”

Last one too. She pulled it out of the container and held it in front of her face with a frown. Kind of small, wasn’t it? Maybe they had more in the back somewhere. Edith dropped the pepper into her cart.

Forget it. Last thing she wanted to do was talk to anybody. Not when her goal the rest of the summer was to lie low—a feat even more difficult to accomplish in this town than finding a poblano pepper. The sooner she got back to Kat’s house, the better.

Edith pushed her cart to the checkout lane. Why she thought she needed a cart for one pepper, she didn’t know. “Find everything okay?” the cashier asked.

Not really, but Edith kept that to herself and nodded as she handed him the pepper. The young man adjusted his glasses and turned the pepper over in his hand. “Um, do you happen to know what kind of pepper this is?”

“A poblano,” Edith said, digging into her purse for her wallet.

“Poblano? Oh no, honey, sorry to tell you, but that’s not a poblano pepper.” A middle-aged woman with a tight brown perm pushed her cart into the checkout lane behind Edith and held her hands up about half a foot apart. “A poblano is like this. That—” she pointed to the pepper in the checkout boy’s hands—“is a jalapeño.”

“It is?” Edith looked at the pepper, her cheeks warming. Surely she knew what a jalapeño looked like. “The label said it was a poblano.”

Perm Lady shook her head. “Oh no. No, no, no. Definitely a jalapeño.”

The checkout boy pushed his glasses further up his nose and squinted at the screen, mumbling to himself. “Oh. There it is.” He punched some buttons and $3.99 appeared on a screen.

An older gray-haired man in the next checkout lane guffawed. “Three-ninety-nine? For one poblano pepper?”

“It’s not a poblano. It’s a jalapeño,” Perm Lady quickly corrected him.

“Either way, she ought to get a whole bag of peppers for three-ninety-nine. That’s highway robbery.”

Edith chewed on her lip. Three-ninety-nine was an awful lot to pay for one little pepper. The checkout boy seemed to agree. He kept hitting more buttons.

“It’s too light to weigh.” Gabby appeared, wearing a name tag and a red polo shirt containing the grocery store’s name on the front. She continued speaking to the checkout boy as she bagged the older man’s groceries. “You’ll have to get the manager to punch in the special code.”

The manager? Great. Edith twisted her bangs. The line behind her grew longer.

“What’s the holdup?” a man with a bushy mustache asked.

“She’s paying three-ninety-nine for one poblano pepper,” the older man said.

“Jalapeño,” Perm Lady said with a huff.

“Sure it’s not a serrano?” Mustache Man said, craning his neck to see.

The checkout boy shrugged. “We can try that.” He punched more buttons. The price jumped to six-ninety-nine and everybody groaned, including the checkout clerk from the next aisle.

“Let me handle it,” she said, ambling over to Edith’s lane and yanking the pepper out of the boy’s hands. “All right. Now what kind of pepper did you say this was?”

A cacophony of voices responded with different answers.

“Oh, just give the lady the pepper for free,” Mustache Man hollered.

“And get arrested?” the checkout clerk said.

“As if anyone’s going to arrest you over a pepper,” Mustache Man grumbled.

“He might.” The clerk’s gaze swung pointedly to the back of the line, where James, dressed in his police officer’s uniform, stood holding a basket of apples and frozen meals.

Mustache Man pointed his finger at him. “You didn’t hear anything.”

“Here.” Edith reached into her purse. “Let me just pay the three-ninety-nine.” She’d pay thirty-nine-ninety-nine at this point just to get out of here. Maybe. If she had the money. Her fingers clawed at the bottom of the purse. Oh no. Where was her wallet? It should be here. Why wasn’t it here? Did someone rob her? Someone must have robbed her. Where would someone have robbed her?

Anywhere. It could have been anywhere. That was the thing about small towns. They lured you into letting your guard down, then boom! Stole your wallet the first second you weren’t looking.

Where was James? She needed to alert him.

“Aha!” the clerk shouted in victory. “I figured it out. Your total is twelve cents.”

“Twelve cents?” Mustache Man yelled. “My ice cream is melting for twelve cents?”

“I still say it’s too much.” The older gray-haired man from the other checkout lane adjusted the bag of groceries in his arms. “Honey, next time you want a poblano pepper—”

“Jalapeño!”

“Serrano!”

“—come over to my house. My wife’s got a garden in the backyard. I’ll give you the address. You can pick out a whole bushel of peppers for free. She’ll even throw in some grape tomatoes.”

“Cherry tomatoes,” Perm Lady said. “Not grape. Cherry.”

“What’s it matter what you call the tomatoes so long as they taste good?”

As they continued arguing, Edith leaned toward the checkout boy. “I have a bit of a problem.” She blew her bangs to the side. “This is going to sound crazy, but I think I’ve been robbed.”

“What’s she saying?” Gladys drove her motorized wheelchair to the back of the line.

“Not sure. Something about a robbery,” Mustache Man yelled. Edith was starting to get the feeling he didn’t know how to speak in anything less than a shout.

“A robbery?” Gladys spun her chair in reverse and banged into a display of potato chips. “James, do something.”

The police officer rescued a stand of candy from toppling over. “Like what, Gladys?”

“Arrest her. She’s obviously trying to steal that cucumber.”

The doors to the grocery store slid open. Edith’s feet twitched. Forget the pepper. How fast could she make it out of the store? She shifted her weight that direction, only to see Henry enter. Her breath hitched as his eyes connected with hers and he drew up short. His blue eyes flickered with some sort of emotion—one she didn’t have the heart to name—before transitioning to an emotion she had no trouble naming. Dismay. His eyes had locked onto the scene taking place around her.

“James, are you going to arrest her or not?” The freezer door rattled as Gladys kept smacking her wheelchair against it in an attempt to reverse.

“Gladys, I’m about to arrest you if you bang into one more thing.”

The gray-haired man shoved his receipt in Edith’s hands. “I drew a map to help you find the house. Just go on around to the back and pick whatever you want. Do you like zucchini?”

“What’s it matter if she likes zucchini?” Perm Lady said, tossing her palms up. “I grow yellow squash.”

“That’s my wife, by the way,” he said, pointing at Perm Lady. “We discovered we get along better when we shop separately.”

“Everything okay?” Great. Now Henry had limped over, looking all concerned and wonderful in his paint-stained T-shirt and jeans.

Edith opened her purse. “Not really. I need twelve cents and I can’t find my wallet.”

“The one under your arm?” Henry asked.

Edith glanced down. Her wallet. Tucked in her armpit. Right where she’d placed it as soon as she entered the checkout lane. She released a long exhale. Henry had already dug change from his pocket and handed over a dime and nickel. “Keep the change, ya filthy animal,” he told the clerk with a horrible gangster accent.

The young clerk laughed and pointed at Henry. “Home Alone. Nice.”

Nice? Hardly. It was awful. Edith’s lips twitched, desperate to tell Henry so. Desperate to hear him laugh. To hear herself laugh. Which was why she needed to get away from him. How did that one proverb go? Too much laughter makes the heart . . . confused? Something like that. “Thanks,” Edith mumbled and bolted for the door.

“Edith.”

What now? Edith looked over her shoulder. Henry held up her pepper.

Could she drag this scene out any longer? She scurried back, not even bothering with the cart. “Thanks,” she said again. His fingers grazed her palm as he handed the pepper over, sending a spark of energy up her arm and down to her belly. Whoops. She made the mistake of meeting his eyes.

Lord, why did you make one man so handsome? Couldn’t you have sprinkled it out a little more among the general population? She swallowed. “I need to go. I’m making a stew. I just forgot the pepper. But now I’ve got the pepper, so I should really add it to the stew. It’s supposed to simmer for several hours. I’d hate for it to . . . you know, not simmer.” Walk. Away.

Henry nodded. “Nobody likes an unsimmered stew.”

“It’s the worst.”

His eyes crinkled at the edges. “It was good seeing you again. We should—”

“Good seeing you too.” Edith took a step back. They shouldn’t. Whatever it was he wanted to say, they shouldn’t. “I better get back to the stew. Now that I’ve got my pepper.”

“Of course.” Henry motioned to the door. “Don’t want to keep a good stew waiting. Especially on a stifling hot summer day.”

“You wouldn’t know a jalapeño if it bit you on the nose,” Perm Lady interrupted them before Edith could respond. She elbowed Henry out of the way and yanked the pepper out of Edith’s hand, still harping at her husband. “The only reason you don’t recognize it is because it’s not wrapped with bacon.”

“I still say it’s a serrano,” a voice shouted from the checkout lane.

Perm Lady rolled her eyes and twisted back toward the checkout. “If it was a serrano, would I do this?” She popped the entire pepper into her mouth, held her palms out in a there-you-have-it motion.

Edith gasped. “I can’t believe she just did that. That was the last pepper.”

“I know.” The gray-haired man shook his head in wonder. “Isn’t she amazing? That’s why I married her.”

“I’m not so sure that was a good idea,” Henry added.

“What, marrying her?” The man turned on Henry. “Hey, pal, what are you saying?”

“I was talking about eating the serrano,” Henry said.

“Oh? Well, maybe you didn’t hear what my wife said. It’s a jalapeño.”

“It’s not,” Perm Lady croaked. Her face had flushed bright red, sweat popping out on her forehead.

“Ma’am?” Edith stared at the woman’s face. “Are you okay?”

She clutched Edith’s arm, her eyes bulging. Her husband was too busy arguing with Henry to notice her face had transitioned past the shade of tomato, heading straight toward eggplant.

“Uh, you guys?” Edith said.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha—” The woman began panting worse than a woman in labor.

“Hey, I googled it. I know what it was now.” Mr. Mustache held up his phone. “It’s a ghost pepper.”

A ghost pepper? Oh, dear.

He turned his phone sideways. “Or maybe a habanero. Kind of hard to tell.”

Either way. “Can somebody grab some milk?” Edith hollered. “It’s going to be okay, ma’am.” Maybe. If this woman stopped cutting off the circulation in Edith’s arm. “You guys? A little help.”

“The only person allowed to say marrying my wife wasn’t a good idea is me. Got it?”

Henry lifted his palms and took a step back, triggering the automatic doors to open. “I think marrying your wife is a wonderful idea.”

“Oh, really. So now you’re saying you’ve got a thing for my wife?” The doors continued closing and opening and closing behind them.

“I would never have a thing for your wife.”

“Why not? Something wrong with my wife?”

“Her entire throat is on fire for starters,” Edith shouted as the doors closed, both men now on the outside of the store.

“Did somebody say fire?” Gladys zoomed over in her electric wheelchair, stirring up a flurry of plastic grocery bags behind her. “Where’s the fire? I don’t see a fire. James, do something.”

“I am.” James jogged over, holding a gallon of milk and twisting off the cap. “Try this.”

“An entire gallon?” someone murmured. “That seems a little overkill. Did anyone even see him pay for it?”

Perm Lady grabbed the gallon, tilted her head back, and dumped it over her open-mouthed face in front of all the gathering onlookers.

“Oh, my—”

“Cleanup in aisle five.”

“I still don’t see the fire.”

“This exact same thing happened two weeks ago.”

The woman guzzled, sputtered, and coughed her way through the gallon of milk as if she were waterboarding herself. Finally she allowed herself to come up for air. “Ahhh,” she wheezed out. “Better . . . Much better . . . I think . . . I might . . . live.”

A flash of red curls streaked past the window, past Henry and the woman’s husband still arguing outside. The automatic doors opened a second later. “Here, let me through.” Gabby, winded, elbowed her way next to Perm Lady. “I ran out to my car and grabbed this.”

“Grabbed what?” Edith asked.

Gabby crouched down, hiked her arm back—

Edith should have known. “Gabby, don’t—”

Too late. She stabbed Perm Lady’s thigh with an EpiPen.

Perm Lady shrieked, looked down at her leg. Looked at Gabby. Looked at Edith. Then dropped the milk carton, her eyes rolling back, as she slumped to the ground.

Edith felt everyone’s gaze immediately swivel her direction. She was a nurse, after all. So she did what any nurse would do in that situation. She said, “James, do something.”