Delia and I stand by a lopsided hill of potatoes, not really focusing on anything. Delia stares at me, asking if I’m okay, maybe because she isn’t. We can’t see much. They must have scrubbed the spot all day. Our noses burn from the sanitizers.
The newscaster said the shooter’s victims were in the back warehouse—the other side of the dairy case—that cold cement room from which, on normal nights, come disembodied hands arranging quarts of milk and yogurt. You only ever end up in the warehouse if you miss the left down the hallway to the bathrooms, at least if you’re a customer. The victims were in the warehouse when the shooter came in. He asked up front for them, but no one knew where they were. So he stumbled through the aisles. He wandered, gun tight in his hands, probably wearing boots, maybe laces untied. When finally he reached the people who became his victims, they sprinted towards the produce. They ran just like gym class, dodging and leaping to get away. But they couldn’t.
Delia and I can’t see the warehouse from the vegetable stands. Would that have been the best place to run? What about the back door to the parking lot? Would they be alive now, hiding in a dumpster, shuddering at the car sounds and never sure he’s gone?
“Are you okay?” Delia says again.
I inhale the potatoes’ dirt mist, want to rub the wide round backs of yellow onions. Shaking my head, I scan the whole landscape, feeling the chill that followed us in. “I just wondered if any flecks of blood made it onto the food.” I wasn’t thinking that but am now.
“Oh,” she says and falls back into silence.
Did the shooter know what he was doing? Did he go in the store knowing or not knowing that he’d never come out?
A clerk in a blue apron stands to the side, by those bulk nuts with dangling white plastic scoops. He leans a little, looking freckled and tired and skinny-legged, offering a hand-drawn map to King Soopers. “You can’t buy anything here,” he says.
He probably goes to Chatfield. I recognize him from a “Brain Battle” competition the district held a few months ago and wonder if he recognizes me. Every person seems some version of someone else.
I nod. “Okay, we won’t.”
Delia says, “Is the food clean?”
The guy may not have heard her, says this area is closed for now. And then he pauses. “What?” he says.
Delia says, “What’s going to happen to all these vegetables?”
He shrugs. “Ask the police.”
“Well, if you’re going to throw it out,” she says, “that’s a total waste. People are hungry.” She crouches and looks at the linoleum squares, tracing the seams where the tiles come together. I want to tell her to stand up, the floor is dirty, but probably it would have the opposite effect on her.
I remember as kids jumping from green tile to green tile. If you missed, your legs burned in “lava.” I look down. We both would have burned by now. Mr. Blue Apron just barely made it. He says to Delia, “You probably shouldn’t do that.” He smiles like a battery losing juice. “My job is to keep traffic moving. Official-like.”
A couple of women in heavy coats nudge past, baskets stacked with Velveeta in blocks like Fort Knox. They glance down at Delia but zip their eyes away. Mr. Blue Apron slips his maps to them, creating a solemn air like a funeral.
I say, “I’m surprised you’re even open today.”
“Is this part of him?” Delia says, pointing to a spot on the floor that I can’t see.
“Probably not,” the guy says, then turns back to me. “My mom begged me not to come in today.”
“But it could be,” Delia says. “Those pieces must splatter.”
“They cleaned up already,” I say, putting my hands on her shoulders even though I’m not the huggy-touchy type.
The guy says, “She cried when I left the house, but I told her I had to.”
Delia looks up. “Are you trying to impress us with that?” she says.
“No—” he says in a way that makes me feel sorry for him.
Delia stands up, brushing dust and who knows what else from her knees. “What’s wrong with you?” she says in a pit bull voice. She has used that tone on me but not often.
I catch her eye. “Let’s find something for dinner.” Please spare this clerk who should have called in sick today. And why is the store open anyway?
Mr. Blue Apron says, “I just meant I thought it would be important to be here, on this day especially.”
“I’m glad,” I say.
“I didn’t want to wuss out,” he says. “I worked with Addy, too.”
Delia shakes her head. “You just wanted to come and gape like the rest of us.” She turns to me, “That’s what we’re really doing here, Lindsay, isn’t it?”
“Who’s Addy?” I say.
“The shooter’s girlfriend,” he says. “One of the ones who died. Guy killed his own girlfriend.”
“What the fuck?” Delia says.
“Total jealousy,” he says. “That’s my bet.”
The news hadn’t told us this. The usual theories floated—the gunman as high or schizophrenic or penniless, maybe all three. Or my favorite, he was having an awful day. Shrug. Nobody knows anything.
Delia says, “What about the other one?”
“I don’t know,” he says, drumming his knuckles against his leg and looking above our heads into the wider expanse of store. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. The police will put it all together.”
“So the second person who died isn’t even a person to you,” Delia says.
“I barely knew him,” he says. He looks at me, then back to her. “I don’t know,” he says again.
“Thank you,” I say to Mr. Blue Apron, then scoot Delia to the cereal aisle, where she leans beside a Wheaties display. The athlete on the box has smooth skin and bright eyes that seem foreign at a crime scene.
“Are you delirious?” I say.