Encounter in the Card Aisle

Patrick dumped a bag of coffee into his shopping basket and wracked his brains, trying to think if there was anything else missing from his cupboards or fridge. There probably was.

“This is why smart people make lists,” he muttered to himself as he headed for the self-checkout stations. 

Still, he wasn’t doing too badly, right? Lots of his friends were still at the mercy of college cafeteria meal plans. At least he got to choose what he ate and keep it in his own kitchen, even if that did mean eating dry cereal some mornings if he was in a rush and had forgotten to buy milk. 

He walked briskly past the greeting car aisle, trying to match the pace of the city natives, but suddenly stopped and backed up. Greeting cards. Wasn’t it nearly Mother’s Day? Or maybe it had already passed. His schedule lately had been equal parts bewildering and numbing. It was hard to remember what day of the week it was, much less when holidays came around. 

Originally, Patrick hadn’t been slated to do any press for the movie he’d managed to snag a minor role in last year, but apparently his character had gone over well with early audiences. The last few days had been a blur of hotel rooms and lunch meetings, Zoom calls and emailed question lists, aggressively cheerful interviewers and the constant uneasy balance of trying to think of different, entertaining answers to the same five questions over and over without sounding insane. 

He pulled two cards off the shelf at random and frowned. Definitely not the comedy one. His mom was more of the sincere poetry type. He pulled out another card. But why did all the sincere ones have to be syrupy? He would never say anything like this to her in real life. It would be weird and cringey. But that was the whole point of cards, he supposed.

A sharp gasp interrupted his thoughts. He turned his head to see a round-eyed girl, maybe a couple of years younger than him, clutching the cuffs of her sweatshirt and gaping at him. 

“Oh. My. Gosh,” she uttered in a sort of whispered scream. “You’re Patrick Mearns.”

“Uh.” He smiled uncertainly. “Yeah.”

“Don’t worry,” the girl said quickly, holding out her hand. “I’m not going to ask for a photo or anything. I just wanted to say I’m a huge fan. Archie, your character? Best part of the entire movie.”

“Wow, I…thanks. I mean, we can take a photo if you want one.”

“Seriously? Are you sure? I really don’t want to bother you. Here, you can hold the phone. Your arms are longer. My friends are going to scream. We’re all fans of you together.”

The girl leaned in close, bumping his shoulder. She opened her mouth wide in a look of exaggerated excitement. Patrick mirrored her expression and immediately felt stupid. But she took her phone back and hopped up and down in obvious joy. 

“Thank you so, so much. This is the best day ever.”

Patrick nodded and smiled again, expecting the girl to move on. Instead, she craned her neck to look at the cards he was still holding.

“Who are you buying a card for? Oh, your mom? That is so sweet of you! I could just tell you are so down to earth like that, and this proves it. You aren’t the kind of person to let your fame make you self-centered or anything like that.”

Patrick’s face felt hot with embarrassment. “Thank you,” he said with a stuttering laugh. “But I don’t think I exactly count as famous.”

“No, you totally do,” the girl insisted. “I run a fan account for you on Twitter, and there’s like, already two thousand followers. Almost. And mine isn’t even the only one. There’s at least three, and we all follow each other. They’re so going to freak out when I post this photo. It turns out we’re all basically into the same stuff, not just being fans of you. We’re already like best friends even though we haven’t even met in real life.”

“Oh, that’s…that’s nice,” Patrick said. His arm was beginning to ache from holding the shopping basket, but he felt somehow pinned to the spot, as if any change of position might have dire consequences.

“I do agree with you though,” the girl continued earnestly. “You were totally underused in the movie. Like, everybody I’ve ever talked to says you should have been the main character.”

“Oh, no I—” Patrick began in consternation, but she cut him off.

“But we all think there’s going to be a sequel, and you’re going to have a way bigger part, right? No, no I totally get it. You’re probably not allowed to talk about it. But like, the producers aren’t stupid, right? They’ve got to see how much everybody liked you. Like, we were all so much more invested in your storyline than the main character’s.”

Patrick had no idea how to respond to this. As far as he knew, there were no plans for any sequel, let alone one with him at the center. But the girl seemed so positive that he didn’t want to disappoint her. He opted for a non-committal smile. “Well, we’ll have to see, I guess.”

The girl grinned conspiratorially at him and winked. “Yeah, I guess we will just have to wait and see.”

The emphasis she put on the words gave Patrick the sense that the girl had taken his remark as some sort of confirmation, but he decided not to pursue it. The wire handles of the shopping basket were biting into his elbow viciously, so he forced himself to set it down by his feet. He raised the two cards slightly to indicate that he’d better get on with his shopping. But instead of taking the hint, the girl stepped even closer. 

“Which one are you going to get for her?”

“Uh. I…I haven’t decided yet.”

“Oh, you should totally get her this one.” The girl reached out and tapped the card in his right hand. It was sky blue, with a hazy watercolor of a tree and some sentiment about nurturing and flourishing. “She’s obviously so into nature and stuff, I bet she’ll love it.”

“How do you know?” Patrick asked, startled into abruptness. 

“Well, she follows your Instagram,” the girl explained, not at all fazed by his bluntness. “So a bunch of us follow her, and she’s always posting pictures of flowers and trees and stuff. She seems really cool. She even responds to our comments sometimes. I bet she’s why you’re so grounded.”

“Heh. Yeah, she’s definitely grounded me often enough over the years.” Patrick made a mental note to call his mom later and tell her not to post anything too personal.

The girl burst into a peal of laughter. “You are so funny! I bet your mom will really appreciate that card. This is the first Mother’s Day since you moved out of her house, isn’t it? Your new apartment is in such a great location though, you’re so lucky.”

Patrick stared at her. “How…why do you know where I live?”

“Remember that one Insta Live you did in your living room? Well, somebody screenshotted it and like, sort of edited the exposure levels or whatever until we could see the view out your window. We just kind of figured it out from there. It took some pretty impressive detective work, actually. The FBI should totally hire us.”

She laughed again, and Patrick produced a weak echo, too stunned to form any coherent thought.

“Actually, I…” The girl glance up and down the aisle and lowered her voice. “I even went over there last week and tried to figure out which window was yours. I don’t think I got it right though, but I definitely narrowed it down.”

Some of Patrick’s alarm must have showed on his face, because the girl hastened to add, “Don’t worry though, I wouldn’t, like, stalk you or anything I’m not one of those fans.”

Patrick opened his mouth and shut it again, attempting to formulate an appropriate response. “I mean…”

He was interrupted by the girl’s phone buzzing. 

“Omg, I wish I had my volume turned up right now.” The girl pulled her phone out of her pocket. “My text sound is, remember in the movie when you answer your phone like, ‘what do you want, Kyle?’ That’s my text sound right now. Wouldn’t it have been so funny if we were just standing here talking, and then all of a sudden your voice came out of my pocket like ‘what do you want, Kyle?’ That would have been so funny.”

Her voice trailed off as she glanced at her screen. “Oh, oops. I’m late to meet my friend for lunch. She is going to freak out when I tell her why. She’s a fan of you too. I guess I’d better go now. Okay, wow, well it was so nice meeting you and chatting. You’re so nice. I hope your mom likes the card. Tell her I said hi. Bye! Thanks for the photo. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again some time, since you live so close.”

Patrick stared after her for a long time, blinking slowly. It gradually occurred to him that she’d never even mentioned her name.

A store employee appeared with an impersonal smile. “Finding everything you need today?”

Patrick flinched, but mustered a responding smile. “Yeah, thanks. Hey, do you…do you guys do home deliveries by any chance? For people who can’t leave their house?”