The Trickster Diaries, part 3/Chapter 15
Another organic juice company I like is Naked. More expensive, but, what the hell. And check this out: asparagus on sale for only a buck 99! Bagging a bunch I notice they’re playing The Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday” on the store sound system. Pretty radical for Stater Bros.
A half hour later I’m done. My Zen moment has arrived. I say to the boxgirl: “Paper in plastic, please.” The usual confused reaction. Only this time she looks to the cashier for guidance. Cashier says: “It’s when you put the paper bag inside the plastic bag.” Still doesn’t register. In fact the poor kid’s so flustered she kind of wiggles her hands in the air and goes running off. Cashier rolls her eyes and says to me: “If my children had been that dumb I’d have freaking drowned them.”
The same homeless man and his dog who’ve occupied the bench just outside the west-facing store door for weeks, maybe months, are there. Lupe’s cart is parked by the pillar. She’s on the other side of it. Leaning on it. “Hey baby,” I say, parking my cart next to hers.
Lupe: (Smiling) Hey baby yourself.
She’s back to the brown T-shirt, tight faded Levi’s, braided gray hair and shades, rose colored fingernails and lipstick look. She asks me for a light then gently cups her hands around mine, inhales, turns her head, exhales, then picks up from where our latest phone conversation ended.
“So when I got to high school, started hanging out with white people, all my old friends, family even, started calling me ‘blondie.’ I assumed it was because of the new crowd I was hanging out with, but, turns out it was because they thought I was stupid. You know, the dumb blonde thing.”
“So how long did it take for you to figure that out?”
“God, like forever. 20 years, maybe?”
I want to comment but it’s just too funny. I can’t stop laughing. She slaps me on the shoulder with the hand not holding the cigarette.
My turn. I tell her about how, on my dad’s side, I’m somehow related to the Mexican revolutionary, Pancho Villa, and how I inherited this huge scrapbook detailing the family history all the way back to Princess Caroline Rico, of Spain.
“Really?” asks Lupe. “Do you still have it?”
“Huh uh. Left it somewhere.”
“Why? You should have kept it.”
“Not my style.”
I’m sort of half way anticipating another slap. Doesn’t come. She starts telling me about how her son’s getting married, again, in March, six months from now, in LA, and about how she’s going to have to rent a car, start saving for a gift…
Me: And a dress.
Lupe: No. I have a dress. This really great, sort of… slinky black dress.
Me: Lupe, if I saw you in a slinky black dress I think I’d probably — no — I’d for sure lose my marbles.
She stares at me, I guess. It’s hard to tell what’s going on behind those shades. Her hips wiggle a little as she pushes off from the concrete pillar, dropping her smoke, squishing it out with the sole of her ’40’s-style black leather pump.
Toe cleavage, I notice.
She steps a step closer to me, shyly, coquettishly, like a schoolgirl going through the hidden candy routine with daddy. “So,” she says, her voice down to a purr, “do you want to lose your marbles?”
