Fine, Fresh, Fierce, We've Got It On Lock

There were great ineptitudes on my part, I know, when I tried to unlock the car. The heat was suddenly very noticeable to me, or maybe it was just the flush on my cheeks as I fumbled with the manual key-- because there is only a manual key, and everybody refuses to go to the dealership and just pay for a new push-button one. I managed to swing the drivers' door open, finally, and in the sweltering car I located on the floor the lever that opened the trunk.

It was one of those rare times in suburban parking lots when there are hardly any signs of human life, which I suppose means there are hardly any signs of life in general, being the paved expanses they have a tendency to be. It was possible that I, with my bag of spring onions, was the only customer outside of the store. There was a man hauling carts, too, which I had some vague awareness of, only because of that steady, empty sound of rattling metal and creaking wheels being pushed across pavement. I hardly thought of it. It was too warm, too warm to hoist bottles of ginger ale into the trunk, or I was too clumsy, or the sun was too high, or there wasn't room in the trunk, because it just wouldn't fit, and the glass bottles kept slipping out of my hands. Here I was, alone in this lot where I could hardly be trusted to unlock a compact car and now the task of lifting groceries seemed so complicated, and what would I do when I lived all alone and had to go out and buy myself ginger ales and spring onions and Oh God. What if I wanted prosciutto and cantaloupe, and had to carry a melon?

"Can I help you, miss?" The cart-man was there, in his apron. He had abandoned his carts. "No, thank you. I'm fine." I looked for my mother. The cart-man hovered. I looked for anyone. I wished it wasn't so hot, and that it wasn't so quiet, because without the sound of the carts rattling across the parking lot, there were only the sounds of distant highways and my own, audible pulse. I dropped a bag of nectarines. "You sure you don't need any help?" The cart-man was persistent. "No, thank you." So was I. He walked away, and I heard the carts again, and I shoved bags and bags and endless bags into the trunk with shaking hands before stumbling to front seat and blacking out briefly.

"Sorry I took so long. I forgot what kind of beer to buy. " My mother shut the drivers' door, started the car, and turned on the radio as she pulled out of the grocery store parking lot. California Gurls by Katy Perry came on, and my mother turned up the stereo. "You know, this song is so inappropriate, but I like it anyway." And she drove the five minutes back to our house, swaying along to the thumping bass she so adores, mouthing the words along with Snoop. I looked up through the sunroof, and I clutched my purse, and all the inane pop in the world couldn't have made me anything but rattled, like a loose wheel on a shopping cart.

Photographs: my sister, Kylie