Chapter 2

The corn flakes in my bowl were about the last thing I had that constituted food, and the milk was just on the edge of going sour. Unless I wanted to resign myself to carry-out meals, which I didn’t, I was going to need to darken the doorway of my local super market. Other people would probably shop online and pick up, but not me, I was old school. I like to hunt and gather, rather than having my food come to me.

I had just found a cart that rolled straight, and was digging my grocery list out of my pocket, when who should I spy, but Amber. Or rather she spied me. Because, as she wrapped up her conversation with one of the store’s employees, she came bounding over.

“Hi, Daniii.”

“Hi, Amber. I didn’t know you shopped here.”

“Oh, I don’t,” she explained. “I just came here to pick up a donation for the local food pantry. They give us all their canned goods that are getting close to the ‘best by’ date. Did you know that the food is actually still good a year after that, as long as there are no dents or anything else to compromise the integrity of the seal?”

She actually said ‘compromise the integrity’. I didn’t know marketing people knew fancy engineering terms like that. But then again, she didn’t stop smiling the entire time she delivered her spiel, so marketing girl was still in there, lurking.

I thought about my milk at home. It was best by dated today. After tomorrow, it would be yogurt—definitely compromised integrity—I was sure of it.

“A year, huh?”

“Probably longer, but that’s being on the safe side.”

I shrugged. “Who knew?”

Amber the bubbly blonde from marketing knew, that’s who.

“Did you know that one in five children in the United States is food insecure, Dani? One in five. That means that twenty percent of kids don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Can you imagine living like that?”

I tried. I was having a hard time doing the math, because Amber kept talking.

“Summertime is the worst, Dani. For a lot of kids, the hot lunch they get at school is their best meal of the day. And when school’s out, that option is off the table. Literally, off the table.”

I nodded as I formulated my escape plan.

Fortunately, I was rescued by the store manager on duty, pushing a cart full of canned goods, stacked neatly onto individual twenty-four can cardboard flats. There were a lot of them. All with uncompromised integrity of the seals. You could bet on that.

“If you show me where you’re parked,” he said, “I’ll help you load these up.” The store manager smiled. Amber smiled. I excused myself to go about my shopping. Too much smiling.

“Bye, Daniii.”

There’s only two syllables in my name toots. Why you gotta stretch it out? But I didn’t say that. I waved instead. “Bye, Amber.”

* * * *

I’ll be damned if my little encounter with Amber at the supermarket didn’t leave me flustered enough that I completely forgot to buy milk. I hadn’t put it on my shopping list. I don’t know why, I guess I thought I would just remember somehow after all my visions of it turning to yogurt. It must have been Amber’s uncompromised seal integrity that threw me off. All I knew is that I was out of moo juice.

I decided to have toaster waffles for breakfast and grab a gallon of milk at the discount store on the way home. They kept it near the front, and if I used self-checkout, I’d be in and out in no time flat. That was my plan, anyway. Except, guess who was there.

“Daniii,” Amber said. “Hi. I don’t expect to see you again so soon.”

Neither did I, I thought to myself. Except maybe at work. You do still work, don’t you?

She was dressed in old jeans, a T-shirt and running shoes. Definitely not business casual.

“Hi,” I said instead.

“School supplies,” she said, totally unprompted, while simultaneously pushing back a strand of her perfect blonde locks and tucking it behind her cute little ear. “I’m picking up school supplies for the Stuff the Bus drive. How ‘bout you?”

“Milk,” I said.

“Sorry, I meant ‘how about you’ as in would you like to donate some school supplies?”

“Um…”

“Did you know that something like eighty percent of teachers buy school supplies with money from their own pockets for students in need?”

“Um…” What about the other twenty percent? Slackers. But I kept that to myself. I reached for my wallet instead.

“There was this girl in my class, Dani. She was always asking to borrow notebook paper from the other kids, because her mom never bought any of the things on her school supply list. Not that she didn’t want to, she just didn’t have anything extra after the bills were paid.”

I thumbed through the bills in my wallet, skipping over the ones and the fives. I got to a nice crisp twenty and pulled it out.