California Dreaming

Chapter 3

There was a run-down old Safeway down the street from where Ann lived, which is where she shopped. Today was Sunday, meaning it was time to go grocery shopping, along with doing laundry and picking up around the apartment.

Ann was walking around the Safeway deciding whether she should be more adventurous than usual and try to actually make some food instead of just popping TV dinners in the microwave.

Nah, not this week.

She headed down to the TV dinner aisle with her empty basket.

Nice, two for five bucks for the store brand. She grabbed an assortment of ten meals and threw them in her basket. That should be fine for this week, she figured.

As she shut the door, she saw someone down the aisle who caught her eye. She turned her head and recognized Carlos. Crap, she thought. Hide, hide hide. She really hated seeing people out in public like that.

There was nothing she could do. Carlos smiled and waved. Ann, realizing she’d been found out and there was no escape, waved back and smiled at him.

Please don’t come here, she thought. And, of course, he started walking down the aisle to her.

“Hey Ann, how’s it going?” he asked her.

“Hey! Just doing a little shopping, you know,” she said, her voice trailing off.

“Yeah, I see that. Got a couple of TV dinners there, huh?” he asked, a tinge of sarcasm in his voice.

“Um, yeah. Well, you know, they’re easy to make,” she responded, slightly embarrassed.

“So, you done anything exciting this weekend?” he asked.

“Well…no, not really. I mean, I’m out shopping. That’s one of the things I do on the weekend,” she answered.

Carlos laughed. “Yeah, I know how that goes,” he said, motioning toward his cart full of what Ann would have called “normal-people groceries.”

“I’m just out running errands today. You know, shopping, washing the car, stuff like that,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s cool,” Ann responded. Uh-oh. Awkward silence. Ann nervously laughed a little, then smiled again at Carlos. Crap, she thought. Too much smiling? Try to smile less.

Carlos smiled back at her. “Um, so…I was wondering. Maybe you wanted to go grab some lunch sometime?” he asked.

Ann was shocked. Nobody had ever asked her something like that before—at least not outside school or work. She realized she was probably making a face and tried to straighten her face out.

She must not have done it fast enough, because Carlos laughed nervously and said, “Well, you know, it’s OK if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, no, it’s not that,” she responded quickly. “It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you to ask me that, that’s all.”

“Oh,” he answered. More awkward silence.

“Um, so you want to?” he asked, sounding less sure of himself than he probably intended.

Ann smiled and laughed a little nervously. “Um, yeah, I guess so,” she said.

Carlos smiled broadly at her. “Great, OK. So, what were you thinking?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she responded, a little too quickly.

“Oh. Well, I’ll plan something, OK?”

“All right, that sounds good,” she responded.

“So, what do you say to Friday night after work? I mean, I know it’s kind of cliché and everything, but you know…” he said, trailing off.