Cool Kings

“Can you keep a secret?

           I almost miss the question. If the woman hadn’t leaned in at me from behind, something – her hand? Her purse? Her breasts – brushing up against my back, I would have missed it entirely. We are standing in line at customer service in the grocery store. I’m buying a pack of cigarettes, something I’ve never done as an adult. I suppose I should feel grown up. Instead I feel just a little bit sad. I miss my mom. 

           “I’m sorry, what?” I smile. Its forced, I don’t care.

           “You just looked like someone who can keep a secret,” she shrugs. She is in her mid-thirties with an unremarkable face. Her eyes are bland. Her lips badly lined. I immediately feel pity for her, and then guilt because maybe I really am an asshole.

           “I’ve actually been told that before.” A loudspeaker requests assistance at the butcher’s counter.

           “By who?”

           “My mom. She said it would get me into trouble.”

           “Mom’s are usually right about that things like that.”

           I nod. Noncommittal. I hope it conveys the sweat at nape of my neck. I feel like I can smell my own feet, its been so hot today, and now I regret standing in here.

           “I’m getting married.”

           “Oh.” How boring, I think. I was expecting a tabloid secret, fleeing the country or getting a sex change or running over her neighbors’ dog. Marriage? Everyone does that, I think. Well – not everyone. Not me. Not even really. Eight years of live-in commitment but no rings, no cake. I take a shallow breath. “Congratulations.”

           “Next year.” She smiles a little. “On a lake.” She smiles more. Lakes aren’t that exciting, I think.

           The line shuffles forward.

           “When did they ask?”

           She thinks about this for a second. I notice the buttons on her Walmart t-shirt are missing in places. I try not to stare.

           “About forty minutes ago.”

           “Oh!”

           She brightens at my response. I smile again, and it comes easier. I shift in place. No one has ever even bothered to ask me to marry them. I had thought for a long time, all those hopeful youthful years between twenty-six and thirty-six that it would happen, someone would ask. Last month I turned thirty-seven. I’ve been mostly single for the last two years now. Something in my belly loosened at some point during all those unfulfilled years with him. Some kind of thread finally broke, I was able to walk away. I no longer keep regret in my womb though. I don’t love him anymore.

           “Were you expecting it?” I ask.

           She shakes her head. Her hair is nice. Its fluffy, clean, naturally a warm color and later I will realize I can’t remember what that color is. Probably brown. No one ever remembers brown.

           “Have you been with him long?”

           “Her.”

           “Cool. Shit, sorry.”

           She shakes her head. “Social norms, everyone does it.”

           “What is her name?”

           “Sarah.”

           “She sounds pretty.”

           “Really?”

           I blink, and then nod. I don’t know what I mean but I know its true. Sarah is a stunner.

           “She is. We’ve been dating for about 18 months. Her parents don’t know that she’s --”

           “That’s why it’s a secret.”     

           “Yes.”

           “Do your parents know?” The line moves again. I hitch my purse up on my shoulder. I’ve forgotten the brand of cigarettes I want. I feel so dumb. Like I’m eighteen or thirteen or just…dumb.

           “Hell, they’ve known since I was ten and they got me kissing my cousin Becky.” We laugh. That feels good. God, I’m so hot.

           “It’s hot in here, right?”

           “Yes, and it smells like chicken!”       

           “Oh, that’s probably me. I’m so sweaty,” I admit.

           “Me too. I can tell I had garlic last night, you know?”

I laugh. She’s funny, I think, this newly engaged lesbian. “I’m here to buy my mom’s brand of cigarette.”

“What kind?” she asks, non plussed. We move forward with the line. The edge of the counter is now close enough to touch. The smell of the deli hovers in the air just above our heads, a miasma of fried foods.

“I can’t remember,” I shrug. “I remember going to the store with her, you know? As a kid. And I’d run over to the counter, where they had all the cigarettes and booze behind glass? And I’d ask for her brand, two packs. Green, I think. Mentholated something.”

“You’re not a smoker,” she says, pushing her hair away form her face with the inside of her palm.

“How do you know?”

“You’d remember the brand,” she smiled.

“Its funny the things we forget.”

“Cool Kings, menthol. Those ones.” She points. I turn around, lean in. I see them. Green and silver. My mom always dropped the packs so easy into her purse. She’d complain about losing them later.

“Oh.” My throat goes tight. Stupid, I think. Don’t cry. “Thank you.”

“My neighbors smokes those on her porch. Her dog always runs in and out of her house, one those tiny barky dogs. I told Sarah, yes on kids, no on dogs. Do you have kids?”

I shake my head. No kids. No husband. And tonight, I don’t have to make dinner if I don’t want to. I can smoke my mom’s cigarettes and miss her and my thoughts will be all my own. I don’t have to make space for anyone else’s. That feels liberating. I am liberated. Or selfish. Sometimes I’m not sure.

I wonder what my mom would say. Or – I wonder if she would be proud of me. I like to think there is no way she would be as disappointed in my life as I sometimes am. She would be kind, gentle. It would not feel like pity, it would feel like love.

“Do you smoke?” I ask on a sigh.

“Gas station dollar brownies are my vice.”

She gives me a little grin. I grin back. “I hope you and Sarah are really happy, for a long time.”

“Do people get that much happiness?”

“Maybe. We can hope.”

“I think it’s your turn.”

I blink. My belly tightens. “Uh?”

“The line?” she nods past me. The line has moved on. The counter is right there.