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Megan McMahon
2008
When the Girl Smiles
He found his way to the supermarket. He didn’t want to be there, but he was hungry and he had run out of food. That and his friend, Josh is always eating his food. He grabbed a cart and started down the aisle. He grabbed food he’d need like bread, lunchmeat, fruit, herbs, pasta, meat, and other things he thought he’d want.
Once he was done shopping, he walked to the checkout. It was a quiet day in the supermarket so he didn’t have to wait very long. The girl at the cash register started to checkout his items when the friendly curly blonde hair boy, Matt said “Hey, how you doing?”
She looked so quickly up at Matt that her brown hair got in her face. She unsurely answered as she brushed her hair behind her ear, “I'm doing fine thanks.” She wasn’t use to friendly customers today, all she had were grumpy old ladies.
Matt looked at her. She was short, with medium brown hair, and brown eyes. She was plain looking but he thought she was cute. And yet she seemed familiar in some way. “It’s a hot day out isn't it?”
“That's because it’s summer.” She said sarcastically, as she rolled her eyes at him.
“Well, yeah I know that but it's really hot out, even for summer. Don’t ‘cha think? ” He was trying to make a little effort to have a nice conversation, but she didn’t want to have a part in it. She just wanted the work day to be over.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess so.” It wasn’t like it was a bad thing that she finally had a friendly person to talk to while she worked, it just wasn’t her day.
“I'm Matt,” He flashed her his famous flirtatious grin. All he wanted to do was ask her out on a date, she looked cute, seemed, well, different. She didn’t giggle and bat her eyelashes at him when he smiled.
“Your total is 60.51.” she said in a monotone voice obviously she didn’t want to deal with him any longer.
Matt took that answer as ‘I'm not interested.’ Once he put his bags into his cart and paid the girl, she said to him “By the way I'm Kari. Have a nice day.” She said this with a smile, but she hoped he didn’t take it the wrong way. She’s supposed to smile at the customers and say ‘Have a nice day.’ It was part of her job as a friendly cashier at the friendly neighborhood Jackson supermarket.
Matt smiled and waved at her as he left the store. Once he’d put his groceries in his car he got a phone call from his friend Josh. “Hey.”
“Yo! Where you at?” came the voice from his cell.
“I at the supermarket” said back to Josh in a fake gansta voice he smiled, “When you turn gansta?”
“Since today dog, I wanna be like those rapstars….When’s lunch?”
Matt got inside his car, “Huh? Who said I was making you any food?”
“I said so, if you don’t I’ll pop a cap in your ass.”
Matt switched the phone from one ear to the other. “.Josh stop watching 8mile, and do something in your life.” Matt hung up his cell and laughed to himself how stupid his friend could be.
On the rest of the ride home, Matt thought about that girl in the supermarket. When she smiled at him it didn’t reach her eyes. It was one of those picture smiles, when someone just comes up and says ‘smile’. It wasn’t a real smile. It was fake. The girl looked sad, even when she was smiling.
Matt parked his car, in his apartment building’s garage. His apartment was down town like every college student’s was. It was fairly old looking and dirty from the outside but he kept his apartment clean on the inside.
Matt took the elevator up to his apartment and walked in it to find Josh sitting on his couch watching VH1 on his TV.
Matt was stood near the stove as he unpacked the groceries when he asked “Do you think I should get a job?”
Josh turned away from the TV to look at him confused, ”Didn’t your dad said that he’ll pay for everything till you got out of college? So you can focus on being a lawyer and work at the firm with him?”
“Well I’m bored and it’s only the second day of summer break. I think I should get a job.” Matt got the perfect idea to get a job either at the same supermarket as this Kari girl or one of the shops near it.
“Then who’s gonna entertain me?” Josh asked. It wasn’t like he really needed to work. He could live off his trust-funds and the money the stocks he invested in till at least until the end of college, depending on how well the stocks market is. He was majoring in accounting, and studying the workings of the stock market.
“Yourself,” Matt said bluntly. Matt couldn’t always be there for him, maybe he should get himself another girlfriend so he wouldn’t be bothering Matt so much.
“But I’m not that fun.” Josh said as he faked a pout. That pout always gotten Josh what he wanted from his parents and his sister when he was younger and a lot of other people but it never did seem to work on Matt.
Matt said sarcastically “This comes from the person with a new idea every five minutes. And don’t pout it makes you look gay.”
Josh looked outraged “I’m not gay! I like boobs!” There was silence between the two as a staring contest went down. “But it’s funnier when you’re around.”
Matt just rolled his eyes, “Well, go make new friends.”
“But I like my friends.” Josh countered. He walked over to Matt’s fridge and got out a can of soda.
“Well your friends don’t like you,” He said as he was putting cans of soup in a cabinet.
Josh feigned hurt and put his hands over his heart, “Ouch! That hurt.”
Matt just shrugged his shoulders and grabbed a pan out of a different cabinet and placed it on the stove. “Don’t be a baby.”
Matt and Joe spent the rest of the Thursday together like they did since the start of college but Friday the two were going out to cruise the town, looking for some fun, well- in Joe’s case, trouble, but it all depends on whose point of view you’re asking for.
He scanned the checkouts for the brown haired girl, Kari. He found her talking to a short brown haired boy. Matt wondered how the boy knows her. Is he her boyfriend? Is he family? He didn’t think about it much longer because he caught a little bit of their conversation. It went like this:
Brown haired boy asked as he looked at a bruise on her arm that looked like a hand print, “Are you sure you’re ok?”
Kari looked at the same bruise that the brown hair boy was looking at and nodded her head, “Yeah it’s just a bruise. It doesn’t hurt too much, David.” She just wished that he would leave her alone about the bruise.
Matt cleared his throat to get their attention. “Ahem.” He didn’t really want to look like he was eavesdropping (which he was.)
Kari looked up at him. “Oh, sorry sir.” She looks over at her friend, “You should get to work David.” She didn’t want him to be late again for work.
David nodded and turned to leave but before he left David said, “Remember Kari, my door is always open.”
“Ok, Bye now”, Kari waved to her friend, and then turned back to Matt. “Sorry ‘bout that sir.” She leaned over the counter a little closer towards Matt and squinted her eyes at him. “Weren’t you here yesterday?” ‘Great!” she thought ‘Now I have a stalker.”
“Yeah,” Matt answered unsurely. Where was she going with this? Maybe she changed her mind about me.
“You’re not a stalker are you?” she asked as she leaned back.
He shook his head, and laughed quietly to himself. “Nope, I just need some ice cream. I’ve had a bad ice cream craving all day.” answered the overly friendly Matt.
“Oh, Ok.” While Kari rang up his ice cream, Matt spotted a bruise on her arm. She saw him looking at her bruise and quickly pulled her sleeve down to cover it. “Your total is 2.95.” He frowned when he saw it. What happen to her, it looked pretty bad.
“Ok, ummm.” He pulled the money out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Here.”
She took the money and gave him his change and his receipt. “Have a nice day.”
Before Matt left he said to her “Be more careful.” She looked at him wide eyed. She was shocked he said that too her. Most people that day just looked at the bruise then gave her a pity look.
As he watched the fan he thought about the brown haired girl. He hadn't really talked to her but at the same time he was just fascinated by her. He couldn’t understand why she caught his attention, but she did. Maybe it was because she looked familiar or maybe she acted so differently. Or just maybe there wasn’t a real big reason why. He wanted to know what her likes were, her dislikes, her favorite color, food, and flavor of ice cream. He wanted to know more about this mystery girl. He didn't want to sound like a scary stalker but he wanted to know everything about her. Why she was bruised. Who that David kid was to her, a brother, a friend, a boyfriend? Well he hoped he wasn’t a boyfriend.
Three hours had past since he woke up. And he’s done nothing but thought about her. That's when the phone rang. Matt walked out of his room to the kitchen to pick up the phone "Hello?" He should get a phone for his room.
"Hi! Is Mr. Wolf there?" Came a cheerful voice on the other end.
"This is he," Is he in trouble? No one every calls him that unless his in trouble or they want something.
"I'm Lisa from the Jackson Supermarket, and I was wondering if you still wanted the job?"
"Yes, I do. I'll do anything to get out of this boring house." It was true Matt was bored out of his mind, because Josh was busy with his sister lately. A sister he hasn’t seen in years, Matt doesn’t think he’s seen her since their mother died.
"Okay then. You can start tomorrow, be here at nine am. And I'll have someone show you the ropes. When you get here just go up to customer service, introduce yourself and someone will train you. They will also tell you the uniform shirts you will need to order. But wear a dress shirt and nice dress pants."
"Okay Thank you Lisa, see you tomorrow, bye!" Matt hung up the phone with a smile on his face, hoping he'll see Kari tomorrow.
Kari put down a book that she was reading and asked, "When?"
"Tomorrow, I need you to work at customer service. The new guy's name is Matt Wolf.” Kari nodded and said she would.
After her lunch break she went back to her register. As she worked the afternoon she wondered how that name was familiar, but she couldn't place where she knew that name.
Her work day went by pretty quick. When Kari was finally done for the day she walked outside the story to wait for her brother to pick her up. Kari sat on the curb in front of the store.
Josh was of course ten minutes late. When Josh finally pulled up Kari quickly got in the car and stared out the window without as much as a hello to Josh. He sighed; great he was in trouble now. “So I’m guessing you just want to take you home now instead of going out to eat?”
Kari looked at him briefly and nodded her head “Yes. Take me home.”
Josh tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “But you said you would go out to eat, come on now you can’t be that mad at me.”
She continued to look at the window. “I can and I will.”
“I can’t believe you’re being this difficult. But you know what? I’ll take you home but you’re eating lunch with me next Thursday.”
Kari looked at him from the corner of her eye, he was worried about her yes, but he didn’t have to baby her. “Whatever.”
Kisses,
Everything to you