“What’s for dinner?” he says, telling us he can see into our nasal cavities.
Delia says, “Didn’t Mrs. Moorehead feed you over there?”
My phone buzzes with a voicemail—I must have put it on vibrate. But it’s just my mom. The Glenwood pool is like heaven, she says. You’re coming with us next time. It will open all your pores. She obviously knows nothing about the shooting.
“You should call her back,” Delia says.
“What for?” I say, thinking Mom would hear it in my voice, like she always does—something is wrong. “I don’t want to interrupt the orgy,” I say, whispering so Gregory doesn’t hear and knowing full well that my parents are probably sharing haricots verts and braised halibut—just for the halibut—with this new couple. My parents are good at joining things. They like groups. They don’t get moody in crowds but light right up and collect people. I don’t understand them at all.
Gregory raises his voice. His yell carries through the house, amplified by the space under the coffee table. “What’s—For—Dinner?”
Delia’s mom’s head pokes in the doorway, eyes red with sleep. She looks at Delia, then Gregory. “Don’t know yet, babe.”
Maybe it’s just the wine cooler, but the house feels hot—stuffy, overwhelming, smells-like-cat hot. I try to make eye contact with Delia. “We could go pick something up,” I say. You’re supposed to avoid crime scenes, but now that part of it has been on TV, I kind of want to see this one. Maybe I’d mention it to Ernie later. It’s the whole car crash idea. Who doesn’t look? And when will we be able to walk around in a crime scene again? “It would be quick,” I say to Delia, who gives me a weak smile, one that says: This is my house.
Her mom reaches for a stack of mail from the counter. “Naw,” she says. “We can call for pizza.” She shuffles through coupons. “Soon.”
“Okay,” I say. There are other ways to get to Albertsons. I could say I’m out of tampons or something, or I could let it go. Maybe we’d all sleep better not going. “Never mind then,” I say in a way that might sound sarcastic. I bug my eyes out at Gregory, who wiggles like an octopus on the floor.
But Delia looks back at me. I can rely on her to be adventurous, and she seems to catch on. “No, Linds, that’s a good idea. We can go.”
Her mom relents only when we promise to go to the King Soopers just off Kipling, far from the shooting site. We just don’t promise that we won’t go to the other store, too.
My car doesn’t have time to heat up on the drive over, so we’re electrified by chill, as though our bones have turned to steel, joints and ligaments cold wire. I barely notice the yellow police tape when Delia and I pull into the Albertsons parking lot. We see the last of the news trucks heading out. Already the ground is covered with bundles of flowers, probably from the nursery across the street. Someone tied Mylar balloons—maybe to lift the dead up to heaven—around “Caution” signs near the speed bumps. I wonder for a second if we should take the signs literally and leave. Delia might be thinking the same thing. “Maybe it’s not even open,” she says.
But through the high windows I see heat lamps still warming the deli, tall blue letters on the wall announcing Bakery and Dairy and Fresh Meat. Barely any different from usual. A stubbly guy comes out with a pack of cigarettes and drives off in his hatchback.
Delia and I look at each other the way I imagine you do when you’re about to jump into a very deep, cold pool. “It’s open,” I say.
Another woman hurries out with a husband-type, each carrying a bag and staring down at the parking lot as they walk.
Delia lowers her voice. “What kind of sickos are coming here?”
“Us. And the hungry.”
“We’re hungry, too,” she says, “but isn’t it a crime scene?” We shuffle towards the automated door, which opens and closes blindly. “I mean, have they already dusted for prints?”
“You think they don’t know who did this?” some skinhead-looking guy behind us, still wearing shorts in winter, says. “His brain’s all over the floor.” He shoves past us, starting to whistle, and goes inside.
The dark and cold have moved in, dusting the sidewalk with ice. The sky has become a clear bottomless black.
Delia says finally, “I don’t want to go in,” coughing into her coat.
“Yes, you do,” I tell her. “We’re here.”
“It’s like walking through a graveyard,” she says, “and stomping on their graves.”
“No,” I say, “it’s like honoring them.”
“You think so, Lindsay?”
“Yeah, it’s like saying, ‘This is where you died. It meant something.’”
We’re both quiet.
She blows into her hands. “I don’t want to go in,” she says.
“I don’t really either,” I lie and walk towards the automatic door anyway. I grab at her elbow and she follows me in.
You’d think they’d turn off the Muzak the night of a shooting, but maybe quiet would be worse. Instrumental “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” fills gaps that used to be plugged and rounded by chatter. Is that an oboe or a kazoo? It doesn’t feel right. Lights still glow brightly, almost like they’re wearing haloes, and you can count on this much: your grocery store is unstoppable. No matter who dies, everyone left still has to be fed. Shoppers walk with more purpose than usual. There are no babies or small children.
The store only lets us go so far and then by the fruits and vegetables, a barricade stops us. Carrots and apples sit innocently; celery, radishes, all waiting for the next round of sprinklers. I guess the gunman fell by the far wall. Was his last view of this world a great wall of green leafy vegetables, all the lettuce and cabbage heads sitting on steps?