Bjorn! on the Fourth of July (A Barbara Marr Short Story) (2 page)

"That would be so kind of you," she
cooed. She pointed a crooked finger. "The green bag, please."

I gladly plucked a bag of sour cream and onion
potato chips from the shelf and placed them in her cart.

"Thank you, sweetheart."

I smiled, happy to have made amends for my
transgression, and turned to complete my shopping. Her weak voice stopped me.

"If it's not too much trouble, darling,
could you grab me two of those pretzel stick bags as well?"

My eyes scanned the top shelf. No pretzel bags.
She interrupted me mid-bewilderment. "Down there, pumpkin." The
crooked finger now pointed to the bottom row a few feet away.

I cleared my throat. "No problem. Two bags
it is." I tossed them into her cart, this time attempting a quicker
getaway by only nodding, turning my back, and moving my cart forward.

"I see you're heading toward the orange
sodas,
dearie
. Those twelve-packs are so heavy and I
have five adorable grandsons at home that just guzzle that stuff down like
there's no tomorrow. Do you think—
"

I reached for a twelve-pack.
"How
many?"

"Three."

Four bags of cheese balls, five packs of peanut
butter crackers, and six gallons of bottled spring water later, Amber and I
escaped to the meat aisle where we were told it would be seven to ten minutes
before the butcher would be able to restock the hamburger. This naturally threw
my original battle plan off kilter, but Amber and I made the best of it by
running to the bread aisle for hamburger and hot dog buns. What we ended up
with were two loaves of day-old white bread, leaving the bread shelves entirely
empty save a few bags of red, white, blue, and green bagels at the end. You
guessed it: the green wasn't intentional. It was mold. I guess people don't
generally celebrate the Fourth of July with bagels and cream cheese.

Finally, with the two pounds of hamburger in
hand, we avoided the pet food aisle where hunched-over little old lady was
asking some other
dearie
to help her with a
monstrously large bag of dog food, opting instead to tear down the feminine
products aisle which proved not-surprisingly free of other shoppers. I quickly
snatched a box of Pretty Lady panty liners for "sports-active women who
leak a little," because, well ladies, I know you'll understand this: I
never liked to be caught... unprotected. We landed happily and firmly at the
end of the line number ten. There were only two other shoppers in front of us
and thankfully their carts weren't too full.

Amber held up her wrist and pointed to her
Harriette
Houdini watch with a great deal of concern
shrouding her freckled face. "I think this says one minute after eleven
o'clock, doesn't it?"

I peeked and sighed. "Yes, it does. This
took a little longer than I thought, but don't worry, I can make up the time by
calling Peggy on the way and having her come to the car for the
groceries."

Predictably rapid and efficient, Brenda the
checker had the two customers in front of us scanned, bagged, and paid in practically
nothing flat. We were next.
"Hi Brenda!
I said,
handing my frequent shopper discount card over. She returned my smile, but held
up a hand, rejecting my card. "Hang onto that for just a minute, Mrs.
Marr. I'm going on my break." She punched some keys on the register in
front of her and recognizing the fear in my eyes, offered what she probably
thought was consolation. "Don't worry – another checker is taking over for
me. He'll be...
" I
saw her gaze fall on someone
behind us. "There he is now. Arthur, you'll take good care of Mrs. Marr,
right?"

Arthur? Not Arthur! Curse you, Karma!

See, if Brenda is the Mario
Andretti
of grocery checkers, Arthur is the polar opposite. He's... well, I really don't
know that much about car racing except I know Mario
Andretti
is fast and Arthur is
not
. The earth orbits the sun faster than Arthur
checks. A giant redwood can grow from seedling to its majestic maturity before
Arthur can get five items scanned and bagged. I kid you not. The man was slower
than a tortoise on
Ambien
, and I was stuck in his
line like a desperate fly on a pest strip.

"Hey there, Mrs. Marr," Arthur said,
moseying up to the register then giving it a long look as if he'd never seen
one before. He pressed one key on the number key pad,
then
turned his attention back to me. "How are you doing this Fourth of
July?" He looked at the machine,
then
pressed
another key. "You and the family have..." one more key pressed,
"...any plans?" His index finger hovered over yet another key which I
knew, from my many years of shopping at The Food Mart, would be the last key in
his secure checker code that would re-activate the register and allow him to
commence his service.

"Actually," I said, staring at his
hovering finger, praying he'd punch that darn number and get a move on,
"we are on our way to the Independence Day Festival..." Press it,
Arthur! Press it! "Amber wants to see the magician at noon—"

"Bjorn!" Arthur shouted. "Isn't
that the coolest name? Bjorn!" He shook his head sadly. "I really
wanted to see him. But, as you can see, I had to work." Then, Bing!
he
pressed that last number on the key pad and the register
began to hum. Arthur picked the bag of avocadoes from the belt. "Hey, if
that's at noon, you'd better get over there soon." He held up the bag. "Are
these the California avocadoes or the Mexico organic
avocadoes?"

"Mexico organic," I answered
quickly.

"Are you sure? Because you know those are
a whole lot more expensive and you don't want to overpay."

"I'm sure.
Very sure.
And like you said, we need to be getting to the Festival if we want to catch
that show, so if you were able to speed us through, I'd be so grateful,
Arthur."

"Sure thing, Mrs. Marr.
Sure thing."

To Arthur's credit, I do think he moved
somewhat faster than his regular glacial pace. And he didn't start a
conversation about every single item I was purchasing as was his custom. In
fact, I really thought things were going quite well. That was, until the panty
liners.

Why, oh why did I grab the darned panty liners?
He scanned the box, and that was okay, but then he happened to look at the
register screen and that's when it all went very, very wrong. "Hmm,"
he said, just staring at the screen.

"What? Is there a problem?" I asked.

Amber tugged on my shirt. "This isn't
going so fast. Are we going to be late?"

I patted her on the back. "Arthur, what's
wrong?"

He tapped a couple of keys then scanned the box
again, then shook his head.
"Nope.
That can't be
right."

Before I knew what was happening, before I
could stop the horror, Arthur was on the store's intercom system. "I need
a manager's price check on," he stopped to focus more closely on the box.
"On Pretty Lady Panty Liners."
He pulled the
intercom away and my face flushed warm. I lowered my head, thinking that was as
bad as it could get, but you know what? I was wrong. Suddenly, that stupid
intercom was back near his face and he was talking again, the words echoing
throughout The Food Mart for the world of shoppers to hear.
"For
sports-active women who leak a little.
And can you make that fast? Mrs.
Marr is in a hurry."

My face flushed red pepper hot.

"I'm pretty sure these are on sale,"
he said, returning the intercom phone to its cradle. "Two dollars off, if
I remember right. Don't want to pay more than you have to, am I right?"

Not only did the manager
not
hurry on
the price check, but then there was some heated discussion about the difference
between those "for sports-active women who leak a little" and those
"for sports-active women who leak a lot."

That's okay. Things got moving again when I
ripped the box from Arthur's hand and threw it halfway across the store
screaming, "I don't want the bleep
bleepity
bleep
bleep
panty liners anyway! We just want to see
Bjorn!"

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I'm
permanently banned from The Food Mart now.

***

Once we were in the van, Amber pointed out with
great concern that her
Harriette
Houdini watch now
said the time was eleven-thirty. "Isn't that when we wanted to be in front
of the stage so we could see
good
?"

She had me there. I couldn't keep telling her
that we'd be there in plenty of time, when we, in fact, were not there when
we'd planned. However, it wasn't noon yet, so there was still hope, and I was
nothing if not hopeful. The time had come to get more creative. I had Amber use
my phone to text Howard and see if they, by some miracle, had already arrived
and nabbed some prime real estate in front of the stage. Meanwhile, I sped like
a demon to Peggy's house. Forget calling her and asking her to come to the van.
That would take too much time because it would involve inevitable conversation.
No. She was getting the drive-by drop-off. She was a dear friend. She'd forgive
me some day. While I was sliding up to Peggy's curb, the text reply from Howard
confirmed that he was still en route. Darn! More reason to get those groceries
out of the car and run. I slammed the gear shift into park, left the engine
running, hit the automatic door button, ran around and quickly, but gently
placed the four bags onto the sidewalk, slipped the recipe into the bag with
the avocadoes, ran back around, jumped into the van, and tore off like a
criminal.

Once I was safely a good distance from her
house, I had Amber dial Peggy's number and put me on speaker phone.

"Peggy," I shouted while tearing down

"You were able to shop and make the
avocado dip that fast?"

"Not exactly.
But
I left you the recipe. Don't hate me. Bye!"

I motioned for Amber to hang up the phone. If all
went well, I figured we could be finding a decent viewing spot by eleven
forty-five.

But all didn't go well. Not only did I hit
every red light on the way, but once we approached Muir Lake Center, flashing road signs directed us
away from the main parking lot, announcing that all Festival attendees must
park in a satellite lot two miles away where shuttle buses would transport us
to the Festival.

Our goose was cooked. Even
Harriette
Houdini's face on Amber's watch looked defeated.

Just when I was ready to tell Amber that all
hope was gone, my cell phone rang. Amber looked at the display and her face lit
up. "It's Daddy." She answered.
"Hi, Daddy!
Are you at the festival yet?"

She listened for a minute,
then
spoke to me. "He wants to know where we are."

"We're about ready to turn on

She listened some more. "He says ignore
the signs and go straight. Tell a man in a yellow vest that you're Barbara Marr
and he'll let you through." She talked into the phone again. "What
else, Daddy?" She nodded. "Daddy is holding a parking spot for you
close to the stage. You'll see him."

I'm not Catholic, but I genuflected anyway. And
thanked Karma, Buddha, Oprah Winfrey, and anyone else who would listen.
"Who did he pay for this privilege?"

She clicked the phone off. "Something
about a nice lady and he'll explain when he sees you."

Not planning to argue with Howard or nice
ladies, I did as he'd instructed and was soon parallel parking in the space
he'd managed to snag.

"Quick!" he told us as we climbed out
of the van. "She was able to give us two seats in the front row, so you
and Amber can have them. He hoisted Amber up and took me by the hand pulling me
to a sprint.

"Where are Callie and Bethany?" I
asked.

"Getting ice cream."
He wasn't slowing down and I was having trouble keeping up.

"Who is this nice lady that helped
us?" I called out. Beads of sweat fell like rain water from my forehead.

"Ever hear of Vikki Cleveland?"

"The thriller
writer?"

"That's the one. She's the master of
ceremonies during the festival – Colt introduced me to her earlier this morning
at the 5K. She's hiring us to investigate a little problem she's having. She
thinks she's being stalked. When I mentioned that Amber was desperate to see
the magic show, she pulled some strings and here you are!" He set Amber
down in one of the two white folding chairs with "RESERVED" signs
taped on the front. Then he pulled a business card that he'd tucked between his
shirt and shorts waistband. "That's her phone number. I don't want to lose
it. Call her tomorrow to set up an appointment, would you?"

Since taking on the new job of administrative
assistant for Baron and Marr Investigations, I was glad to call anyone who
could be a potential client, but I was especially glad to call the woman who
saved me from ruining my daughter's dream of seeing Bjorn!
on
the Fourth of July. As Howard meandered to the back of the crowd, I slipped the
card into a very safe spot in my wallet just as a statuesque, auburn haired
woman appeared, making her way to the microphone center
stage
.

"Hello, everyone!"
Her smile was wide and despite the brutal heat and humidity, she looked happy
to be there. The crowd hollered back. "Hello!"

"I'm your master of ceremonies, Vikki
Cleveland, and I want to thank you for coming out today in celebration of our
country's declaration of independence!"