Paper Kisses

Dear Diary/Journal,

In the time of this virus, I didn’t think I’d be taken with anyone given the social distancing going on. Everyone is holed up in their homes or they’re swamped with work. I figured I’d go grocery shopping because the beer is low and I need some way to cope with being temporarily away from my retail job.

I kid you not, I ran into the most gorgeous human being I’ve ever seen in my entire life. There I am, cleaning the handle of the cart before I wheel it around and there she is, smiling and waving at everyone from behind her register. I only walked in to refill my beer but I made the conscious decision to pick up various non-essential things to steal glances at her. 

Her name tag read “Beatrice” and her golden-brown eyes said “hello”. I'm not usually a fan of brown eyes being that I'm not fond of my own but wow. I couldn't see anything else when I pushed past her and I honestly didn't want to.

I remember rolling up the cereal aisle and there she was, causing me to draw a blank on why I went shopping. I grabbed a box of raisin bran by accident but I let it slide. Of course, I was hoping to come to her to be face-to-face but I couldn't yet when it hit me that I was missing milk. 

Thank God there weren't that many people around and with the few who were there, they had masks and kept several feet away from me. I wish I remembered my mask but I forgave myself with a sample of pistachio ice cream, dairy-free of course because masochism would trigger my lactose intolerance. Besides, I could have spoken to Beatrice without having to remove the mask except I didn't wanna infect her or whatever because that was totally a possibility. 

I strolled down the milk aisle and picked up oat milk because new year, new me and I'm almost deathly allergic to soy so that was not gonna work for me anymore. Beatrice was there ringing up customers spread six feet apart from one another and all I wanted to do was drown in her eyes. They were there, noticing me I'm sure when I was far too shy to return her glance or maybe they weren't noticing me since I'm not exactly the catch of the day. 

I knocked a box of oatmeal raisin cookies in my cart since we're talking non-essential junk to stall and a dodgy fruit bowl with mostly pineapples inside. All the while, I was wracking my brain trying to add more stuff to my cart on top of thinking of something clever/funny/interesting to say. Beatrice didn’t seem like the type for the weather nonsense and oh, maybe I could get some kombucha. 

I motored to the section with the kombucha and other healthy food items as the store labeled them and there were two employees (neither of them wore masks) making banter behind the seafood counter. My ears perked up when I heard “Beatrice” come up at least once. The other employee didn’t seem invested because she was interested in him but she played along for his sake.  

“Hey there! Can we help you with something?” went one of the employees with a believable smile while the other one mirrored him as much as she seemed as though she didn’t want to. 

I had this gut feeling the guy was practicing what to say to Beatrice or droning on about how she’s drop-dead gorgeous and he can’t wait to have his shot with her. I wanted to get some seafood to interrupt the conversation or pretend to check something out nearby to eavesdrop but I didn’t bother. I let seafood guy have his time though because I planned on sweeping her off her feet first with gloves of course; safety first. 

I scooped up the kombucha, jogged through the seafood section and checked the canned fish in case the tiny calico I wanted to adopt was still available. I wondered if Beatrice had a cat or any animals at all since I could get insight on what it’s like, advice and maybe even her number. I knew I was jumping the gun, putting my cart before the horse and all those other sayings with the same meaning but it didn’t hurt to plan ahead.

This tiny woman who brushed past me without a mask coughed and sneezed into her sleeve. She was lucky it wasn’t on me because I was prepared to punt kick her. It made me think of Beatrice and how much of that she probably came into contact with since this whole pandemic started. 

I checked my cart and calculated everything on my phone. It came to roughly $20 and that was mostly from the pistachio ice cream and the kombucha but naturally, I would forget the reason why I’m here; the beer. I wondered if Beatrice is a big beer fan but I wasn’t about to spring the question on her as I was better off watching how she reacted to it in my cart. 

I was glad I muted the notifications on my phone. For one day, I wanted to be ignorant about the madness happening in the world even if it was at my doorstep. I planned on keeping quiet with that topic at her register as it could have been a sensitive topic for her and I was not about to be the jerk to ruin her day. 

I checked the time on my phone and an entire hour passed by since I rode my bike here because I was not about to pay for gas regardless of an unemployment check coming weekly. I figured there were some things I could skip out on during this mini-apocalypse and driving was one of them since everywhere I needed to go was within reasonable biking distance. I wondered how Beatrice got to work and that’s fantastic; every other thought was her. 

When I headed down the beer aisle, I proceeded to cram my head with a subway station full of thoughts: what was gonna be for dinner, what was I gonna wear despite me most likely going nowhere, and most importantly, what type of beer was I gonna purchase? The light stuff was too light and the best stuff is too expensive. Then in came my brain, thinking what type of beer Beatrice would drink or if she drank anything at all aside from if she drank water? 

I chose some beer with alpines and headed to her register which was the only one opened. Seafood guy was coming towards us in the corner of my right eye and I panicked so I fumbled the oatmeal cookies onto the conveyor belt. 

“Is everything okay?” Beatrice giggled and her eyes did too and my heart did backflips and somersaults and I had to respond in spite of my suddenly dry throat. 

“Yeah, I guess the cookies got away from me there” which was so smooth, she giggled again and Seafood guy kind of marched away when he noticed. Better luck next time. 

“Cookies can be slippery little devils, especially these which are my favorites by the way”, she cooed and I melted because I knew she had me in the palm of her hand right where I wanted to be.

“What?! Clearly, the two of us meeting today was fate”, I grinned in a real false confident way because it was all nerves deep down. 

She grinned when she rang up the beer and I knew we would click even more. 

“Alpine is my favorite beer but my boyfriend prefers Oak Ale.” 

And that was when my heart thumped in my ears. Sweat was beginning to seep out from under my arms. I wanted to cry more than anything until she snapped her fingers in front of me several times. 

“Hey, I said I was joking. I don’t have a boyfriend.” 

Everything in me that was freaking out and bracing for a total malfunction slowly began to cool down. 

“Are you okay?”, she asked and her brown eyes clenched me tightly in their grasp. 

“Alpine too, I mean me too for Alpine that is.” 

Down went my coherence and up came my nerves but she giggled which made me feel kind of okay not pretending to be confident. 

When she rang everything up, I never quit gawking at her which was rude but she didn’t seem to mind too much. I don’t know if she realized it when she told me my total was “$34.25” though I doubt she ignored it. I inserted my card and we traded genuine smiles for a solid 30 seconds while the payment was being confirmed. 

Beatrice tore the receipt out the machine and while I was bagging my groceries, she was scribbling something on the back of it before she handed it to me. 

“You never told me your name”, she purred and I completely forgot how close we were to each other and I hope I didn’t get her sick or anything. 

“It’s Casey and I’m sorry about, I mean, if I infect you or something”, I stumbled over my words and fell into a whisper right at the end. 

She snickered and shrugged and I don’t know, diary/journal but I biked home the happiest human being on earth. 

I danced while I prepared cauliflower nuggets and called Beatrice right when she was getting off her shift so she called me back when she got home. I kind of gave her directions to my place for cauliflower nuggets and she said yes even though she never had them before having grown up in a family of carnivores. I laughed and mentioned it was the same for me but I branched off and at least went vegetarian. 

When she arrived, we danced together with our masks six feet apart in some distance dance-off. Then when the music slowed down, I brought us matching hazmat suits from when I and one of my old friends pretended to be contamination experts or something. We swayed from side-to-side, hand-in-hand in these yellow rubbery suits laughing and shared beers later on outside the suits, of course. 

A month into making this a routine thing, Beatrice informed me she had to go somewhere far and though she didn’t give more details beyond that, she wanted us to be together. Once she reached where she planned to go, I promised I’d send her messages every morning and she promised to read them. She also filled me in on what she was doing and it’s related to slime but I don’t understand it though I understand why she had to leave. 

To this day, we have conversations about our days and how much we miss one another. I let her know I’ve been drinking beer in her honor and she hopes that I’m not turning it into a nasty habit. She lets me know that her new job can be dangerous and stressful but it’s the most fun she has aside from speaking with me. 

The days seem to stretch out longer for me and zoom by for her but we meet halfway over video calling to make everything feel the same length. I show her dishes and she shows me the slime she works with which seems like more of a handful than some little tempeh burgers. One day, she’ll be back and we can swap stories in person without having to worry about potentially getting each other sick. 

Well, diary, I am exhausted and I’m ready to hit the hay but I’m glad that I could speak about her. The distance isn’t ideal but we make one another happy and isn’t that all that matters? We admit that some days are tougher than others without each other and we shed our fair share of tears over the matter but everything will be okay in the end as cliche as that sounds. 

Good night for now, 

Casey