『JenSoo Short Stories』

Speechless, Breathless, Useless

Winter

Jennie is an overthinker. Jennie spent all morning deciding whether to wear the blue blouse or the green sweater. She contemplated too long on which shirt would make her look effortlessly casual and after much internal debate, she settled on the blue. As she walked out of her apartment, it just felt wrong so she turned back to change into the green sweater. She's behind schedule now but she feels better in green so it was worth it.

Hi, I'm Jennie, the internal monologue rushes her along the street.

It's a beautiful day isn't it. I'm sure you hear this all the time, but your produce stand is by far the best one at this market.

Jennie repeats the mantra repeatedly as her feet pull her towards the market by the water. The breeze picks up and the words fly around as she struggles to keep them contained on her tongue.

Jennie is late to the market as a result of the agonizing shirt decision. Her favorite (popular) produce stand is out of the Cara Cara oranges and she wonders if the green shirt was worth missing out. She's never this late to the market and everything good has been claimed and off to their next destinations including Jennie's favorite cashier, Jisoo. She glances around the stall and rocks on her heels.

"Can I help you find anything today?" Jennie is motioned over by a guy with a name tag that says "Simon".

"Hello," Jennie breathes out, "are you all out of the Cara Caras?"

Simon winces. "Ah, yeah I just sold the last few. We have some regular navels though if you're interested."

"Can I please get 2 bags?" It's hard for Jennie to hide her disappointment about the oranges and otherwise.

"2 helpings of navels coming right up," Simon leaves to bag the oranges and returns with a grin, "that's a lot of oranges for one person."

"I'm making chocolate dipped candied orange peels for my book club," says Jennie as she retrieves the bag from Simon, "and they're addictive so you need a lot of them. I'm going to make juice with the actual fruit and Cara Cara juice is just superior."

"Sounds delicious! Our Cara Caras are very popular but better luck next time, right? It's going to be $6.50 for two bags of navels."

Jennie hands the bills over but stutters when she looks up to see Jisoo standing next to Simon. Like she appeared out of nowhere.

"Hi there! I didn't think you'd make it today," Jisoo beams as she takes the money from Jennie.

Jennie blushes. Was Jisoo waiting on her? Does Jisoo notice her?

Hi, I'm Jennie. The words are on the tip of her tongue.

"What do you plan to do with all that citrus anyway?" Jisoo looks at the oranges clutched in Jennie's hands.

Jennie opens her mouth to respond and nothing comes out. She's obviously a fish out of water and she's never been more grateful to hear Simon's voice say "they're for chocolate dipped candied orange peels."

Jisoo quirks her eyebrow first at Simon and then at Jennie. Jennie could say anything at this moment to make things less awkward but Jisoo's curious smirk is too loud for her to figure out how her mouth works.

Simon notices and saves her again. "They're for her book club. Can you believe we've never gotten an invite? And she actually came for the Cara Caras but we just sold out."

Jennie nods, confirming that Simon has all of the right information. She manages to smile at Jisoo and hopes that it didn't come out as a grimace.

It's a beautiful day isn't it. I'm sure you hear this all the time—