Lost in the Supermarket

Then we were at Carson's Co-op and it was time to focus on the work Mark and the owners paid me for.

*****

Mark's story

We were observed as Paula and I exited my car. I tried not to wince I got out; my ribs reminded me that yesterday I nearly broke one or two of them. I closed the door and gave Paula a quick smile as we headed into Carson's.

I could see, feel, and almost literally hear the gossip spreading before we even punched in for the day. By lunchtime, everyone was going to know—and was going to think that Paula and I were now a couple.

Damn it.

This was the last thing I wanted. But as I thought about the situation, I realized that I wasn't upset for myself. I was a big boy and I could handle the stares and the gossip, and the whispers and snide cutting remarks.

But could Paula?

I realized that my concern was solely focused on Paula. Yes, she had spent the night at my place—along with her little girl—but nothing had happened. Nothing had happened because Paula wasn't that type of person. Neither was I, but that was more of a physical situation than a moral decision. The store employees didn't know about my physical limitations. Thus, they would assume the worst. They would assume that Paula and I slept together—were sleeping together.

I assumed I would be hearing from HR before the day was over.

*****

Paula's story

The day passed in a haze. I tried to focus but it was so difficult! I think I made a year's worth of mistakes before the day was over.

The looks from the baggers and other cashiers didn't really help matters. It took me a while to figure out why they were giving me such weird looks. Some of the other women looked daggers at me, but others smiled sweetly. The baggers kept looking at me as if they had never seen me before; they were checking me out as if I was suddenly a desirable sex object.

Great. Like I needed that today.

Eventually, I figured it out. Mark and I ... we had arrived together this morning. In the same car. It must have seemed, it must have looked to outsiders, as if we had spent the night together. In fact, we did spend the night together, along with my daughter. In separate rooms. But nobody else realized what had happened, what had almost happened, yesterday. Nobody else realized that Mary could have been taken from me.

Mark saved us. But nobody else understood the situation so they thought the worst of him. Of us.

I was mortified until I realized there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Whatever others thought about us was wrong, but there was no way to explain the truth. I would have to reveal far too much of my personal business in order to explain that Mark wasn't my lover; he was just being a Good Samaritan. Since I wasn't willing to explain the truth, I would just have to endure the obvious thoughts and now-open stares.

The more I thought about things, the more I realized that the others were jealous. They were jealous of what they thought Mark and I shared. Sure, Mark was older, but he was also good-looking and in great shape for a man his age. He was nice. He was funny. He was caring.

Mark was desirable.

I had never thought about Mark in those terms but, now that I could see him through the eyes of others, I realized that they were jealous of our assumed relationship because they wanted to have him. They wanted Mark. (Well, maybe not the baggers, those young boys obviously wanted me. But that's not the point.)

Those others had been jealous of what Mark and I had since the first time I walked into Carson's and began to share lunches with him. Now it was out in the open, since they thought we were a couple. Their misplaced jealousy would have been laughable, but there was no way to clue them into how wrong they were.

They were being ridiculous!

Or were they?

*****

Mark's story

I dropped Paula off at Matt's law office after work, before I went to pick up Mary from her after-school program. Paula called ahead to make sure I was added to the pick-up list so there wouldn't be any problems.

Matt's office wasn't fancy, but it was nice—at least from the outside. The office was a second-floor suite in one of the newer buildings about ten miles from where I lived. The building was nicely constructed, with painted stucco, gleaming white walkways, and nicely polished railings.

"Matt says he'll drop me off when we're done," Paula told me. "I'm guessing about seven."

"That's fine," I said. "Take your time. If you're hungry, get some dinner before heading back. I'll take care of Mary, I promise."

Paula smiled at me. "I know you will, Mark," she said. Then her smile kind of faded. "I feel as if I'm taking advantage—"

"Nope," I cut her off, raising my hand. "You are not taking advantage! I am offering and—frankly—I'm grateful for the company."

"But she's only eight, Mark. I know that's asking a lot to take care of an eight-year-old girl. To feed her and—"

"Paula," I said. She stopped talking. "Don't worry about it. Please. You need a hand, and I've got two of 'em." I smiled to let her know it was okay. Because it was okay. In fact, I was looking forward to tonight. I liked Mary.

Almost as much as I liked Paula.

*****

Paula's story

Matt was a couple of years older than I was, charming and handsome in that lean California surfer way. He was funny and smart, as well. We went over our plans; he had me sign some documents. I wrote him a check for $500 as a retainer, which took a too-big bite out of my meager savings. But this was something I had to do, so I didn't hesitate ... much.

After we were done it was still not seven, so I let Matt take me to a diner and we enjoyed burgers and fries, and still more great conversation. He had me laughing, even though my current situation was no laughing matter. Matt took my mind off my troubles and I let myself enjoy the moment.

This was the best dinner in more years than I could count!

When I got home, my smile only widened as Mark and Mary proudly showed me the results of their evening. They had gone grocery shopping.

"Back to Carson's?" I asked archly. "Do you live in that store, or what?"

Mark responded to my snark with a smile. "Anything to kick up daily sales, right?"

They purchased so much stuff that I suspected the daily receipts were going to look better than usual.

"What's this?" I asked, pointing to a box of chocolatey cereal with far too much sugar for Mary.

Mary smiled, knowing she had just pulled a fast one. "What, Mommy? Isn't that the cereal you usually buy?"

"No; it's not. And you know that, young lady."

Mark looked back and forth between us until he realized that he'd been fooled by Mary—who was now giggling at him.

"Oh, I'm sorry—"

"It's okay, Mark. Really. We can return it tomorrow and get the correct cereal for this little con artist."

I gave Mary a stern look. "You know better, Mary. And I expect better so long as we are staying with Mister Mark. You get eggs for breakfast tomorrow and I don't want to hear any complaints."

"Yes, Mommy. I'm sorry." She didn't look sorry though, and I began to wonder what other shenanigans she had pulled on Mark while I was out enjoying myself with Matt.

"You should be!"

Mark cleared his throat. "Anyway, we have enough for lunches and dinners for the rest of the week," he said.

I looked at him. "Oh? And how long are you planning to keep us here?"

He blushed. His pale face turned bright red. He cleared his throat a few times, but couldn't find any response.

I put my hand on his arm. "Don't worry about it, Mark. We are grateful for your hospitality. Very grateful."

Mary nodded. "Mister Mark helped me with my school project," she said. "We have to do a map showing how the European explorers came to South America. Mister Mark helped me draw the pictures."

I looked at Mark, whose face was still red. "Thank you, Mark. For everything."

"Of course," he murmured. "I had fun tonight. More fun than I've had in ... too long."

On that note, we all got ready for bed and that was our second night at Mark's place.

*****

Mark's story

Paula came back from her meeting with the attorney, Matt, in a much better mood than I expected.

She was going to have to deal with a lot of crap over the coming months, a lot of legal shit that wasn't going to be any fun. How well I remembered my own seemingly unending weeks and months trying to unwind my marriage and my business! I didn't envy Paula—not in the slightest—for what she was going to be going through.

But she seemed happy tonight. Her eyes were shining and she had that inner glow which seems define a person under the age of 30 from us older, more senior folks. Based on how she looked when she walked into the condo, I would say she was 25, or maybe even younger.

She smiled and joked with me as if we were old friends. Suddenly, I felt 20 years younger, myself.

And Mary! That little prankster just giggled when Paula caught her getting cereal she wasn't supposed to have. Ha, ha. The joke was on me. But that felt good, too—in a different way. It felt like ... it felt like I was part of a family.

I know it sounds stupid, but that's what it felt like. Jokes and pranks and laughter. It felt like family.

I hadn't felt like that in a very, very long time.

*****

Paula's story

Six months passed.

Mary's school year ended, and now she had the summer session of her after-school program. Twelve weeks of fun and games, spread out over the fifteen-week summer vacation. That meant I was going to have figure out three weeks of coverage. Last year Mrs. Bitters took care of Mary during the day. This year I wasn't so sure about how I was going to handle things.

The big news was that my court stuff also ended.

Luke bailed himself out of jail and reclaimed his pickup truck from the police impound lot. I'm sure it cost him a lot of money; I'm not sure where that money came from. He also had to pay for an attorney to represent him in the assault case, as well as another attorney to represent him in the custody case. He got the money from somewhere. If I had to guess, I would say Isiah and the Lambs gave it to him—or maybe it was a loan? In the end, it didn't matter. He found the money somewhere, somehow, and that was all I knew.

Luke was in LA for nearly six months while he settled his legal issues. I don't know where he stayed during that time and I don't care. I only know that he didn't come within 1,000 yards of me, Mary, or Mark. Thank God for the restraining order.

Thank the Lord Jesus that the paternity test came back showing that Luke wasn't Mary's father. I always suspected that my "wedding night" with Isiah led to my pregnancy. I won't say I was thrilled to have my suspicions confirmed, but I was happy to take away one legal issue Luke could use against me in court.

Luke wasn't the father. He didn't have any legal rights over Mary. Thank God!

The judge gave me a stern lecture about how lucky I was, and how much trouble I would have been in if the paternity test had come back with a different answer. I followed Matt's directions and hung my head down as I told the judge how sorry I was for my actions, and how I wasn't ever going to do anything like that ever again. I know that Matt shared with the judge Luke's violent tendencies; the assault charges confirmed Luke was a violent man. Because of that knowledge, to some extent I think the judge was putting on an act as much as I was.

Luke received a suspended 90-day sentence plus probation for the assault charge; but the judge agreed he could return to the farm rather than stay in LA. We all seemed to agree that Luke's departure from LA—hopefully a permanent one—would be best for everyone.

Luke left as he arrived: silently. He didn't even say goodbye. We were together for four years before I left him, but now I didn't even get a goodbye. That was fine with me. I never wanted to see Luke—or any of the other Lambs—ever again.

My relationship with Mark deepened over the six months. We talked more than we ever had before; we shared things. I learned about Mark's marriage and how his construction business failed more than a decade ago, leaving him with only crumbs from a once-thriving company. We shared breakfast, lunch, and dinner nearly every single day. Sometimes he would loan me his car so I could pick up Mary while he hit the gym; other times he picked her up and helped her with homework if I had something to take care of. He covered for me at Carson's if I needed to be in court. He loaned me enough money to take care of Matt's fees since my own savings were quickly drained. It was going to take me years to pay him back but he waved away my objections.

"No better use for my savings," he said. He was sincere, too. He really seemed to care about Mary and me. Not that we were anything more than friends. Close friends, you could say. But still: just friends. We never kissed or did anything else that would have meant something romantic.

I would have kissed him back, I think. But he never tried. I think the age gap between us scared him. Eventually we just settled into being really close friends who talked and laughed and shared the duties of taking care of Mary. Being with Mark felt like being married—or what I imagined marriage would feel like—except for the lack of physical affection.

Another thing that happened during the six months was that Matt and I started dating.

It was strange at first. After all, he was my attorney! But we made it work. According to Matt, the California Bar ethics rules prohibited a sexual relationship between attorney and current client—even if consensual—but it didn't prohibit a non-sexual relationship. That was fine with me: I wasn't looking for a sexual relationship.

I mean, I wasn't opposed to a sexual relationship—but I had gone without sex for five years so it wasn't the most important aspect of dating. The fun, the laughter, the conversations—those were the important parts.

In any case, if we had sex it would need to be at Matt's place because Mary and I were still sharing a bed at Mark's place. We had been there for six months. But as the legal proceedings wound down, I prepared Mary for the inevitable return to our own place.

The issue was that I didn't want to return to the same apartment. Call me paranoid if you want, but I didn't want to live in a location that Luke—and now probably others, like Isiah—knew about. I wanted to get lost again in LA. So, I needed to find another place in about the same general location for about the same monthly rent.

That was not going to be easy, especially because by now all my savings had gone to pay for Matt's representation. I didn't know how I was going to pay first and last month's rent plus pay back Mark. And I was going to need a car. My financial situation weighed heavily on my mind even though Mark told me not to worry about paying him back any time soon.

Mark didn't pressure me in the slightest—either about the money I owed him or the fact that we had been living with him for six months. He acted as if we could stay in his place forever. Even when he had Mary duty, cooking dinner for her and getting her ready for bed while I was out with Matt, he never said a word. He never complained. He never indicated in any way that he was less than happy with the two women who had invaded his life and essentially hijacked it.

It was summer in LA; the sunny skies were clear. I had a steady date. I wasn't ready to call Matt "boyfriend" yet, but we were clearly headed that way. We got along amazingly well; sometimes my face hurt after our dates because he had me laughing so much! Mary was thriving. Mark seemed to be a never-ending, never-flagging, pillar of support.

If only I could find a new place, give Mark his life and his savings back, then things would be perfect.

I set a goal of moving out before school started, which gave me a little more than three months to get my act together.

Life was good, like the feeling after a thunderstorm when the dark clouds part and a rainbow appears.

*****

Mark's story

Six months passed.

Paula's legal troubles got sorted out. The paternity test showed that Luke wasn't Mary's father. After the test results came in, the rest was just paperwork and bureaucratic legal stuff.

Luke eventually left LA and good riddance to bad rubbish.

Paula, Mary, and I quickly settled into a routine. Paula and I continued to work at Carson's. The comments and the side-eyes seemed to fade away. After Paula and I explained to the Union Rep and HR exactly what our relationship was—and why Paula was temporarily living under my roof (but in a separate bedroom she shared with her eight-year-old daughter), the entire drama just evaporated. We were left alone and I think we both appreciated that.

We continued to share lunches together but the conversation shifted. We talked about more personal stuff now, such as Mary's school projects and tests. We talked about meal planning. We even talked about Paula's new boyfriend, Matt.

Yes, Paula and Matt hit it off, almost from the first time they met. She would see him Friday and Saturday nights, usually for dinner. Maybe dancing. I don't know what they did together and I didn't pry. I knew Paula liked to keep her private life private and I tried to respect that, even though for some reason my heart ached when I saw how happy he made her.

To be clear, I didn't wish him any ill will. I certainly wanted Paula to be happy.

I just wish that I was the one who made her happy.

I took care of Mary on Paula's date nights. It was fine, really. Or so I told myself. Mary and I got along fabulously. She would try to pull little shenanigans from time to time, but I quickly figured-out her tells.

Mary and I grew closer while Paula and Matt grew closer. I don't think they were having sex yet. Somehow I knew that Paula wouldn't go there—at least until she knew her legal troubles were behind her.

I also knew that she and Matt would have sex, eventually. I expected her to spend the night at his place within two weeks of her case being dismissed. After all, at that point she wouldn't be his client anymore. I worked hard not to picture the two of them together. My dirty old man fantasy life focused on Paula and only Paula. I masturbated to mental images of Paula nearly every single night.

Pictures of her coming out of her bedroom in a light bathrobe, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, hiding those ringlets I adored.

Pictures of her brushing her curly two-toned hair in the morning as I drove us to Carson's.

Other pictures that I made up but am not going to share with you.

Paula and Matt were growing closer but I woke up one morning with the realization that I was infatuated with her.

*****

Paula's story

During the six months Mark started to give me more responsibility at Carson's Co-op. I did a bit more than simply being the cashier. He had me schedule some shifts. He had me manage some of the employee breaks. He spent time talking to me about what a Manager did, and how they did it.

It wasn't particularly hard work, according to Mark. Basically, the job came down to managing people. Well, managing people and filling out corporate forms, and submitting required reports. Mark made it all look easy. I guess after more than a decade of doing the job, it was easy—for him.