“Julie, what are you doing?”

“Shh. Watch.”

“Julie,” I whispered after allowing some time to elapse. “You haven’t moved.”

That made her laugh—loud and long. “Not me. The wall,” she added, as though this was completely and insanely obvious.

“Um. I hate to inform you, but the wall isn’t moving either.”

“Honestly! I wonder how you see things sometimes. Ignore the fact that it’s stationary for just a minute and watch it.” When she said something like this, I’d always do it. Not because I loved her or anything, but because I thought she was interesting. I wanted to figure out the way her mind worked. So I stared at the patch of blue wall.

“Now, keep staring, don’t let my narration distract you. But I’ve found the proof
to make you believe that this room is yellow. When I say go, look up at the ceiling, okay?” She waited. “Go.”

I bounced my eyes to the white ceiling, where they miraculously saw yellow. She was grinning, the picture of success, when my corneas floated back down to Earth.

“Physics will change your life,” she told me.

“I failed physics.”

“I know. That’s why I wanted you to see this. To enrich you.”

I wanted to challenge her. “Well. What color are my eyes?”

“Right now?” She wanted confirmation. “Amazing.”

I hate it when girls do things like that. All you want to do is show them up, and then they say something so simple and so honest that you just sit there gawking like a baboon with a hot flash wondering how the hell they managed to change the conversation into something so…nice.

“Eric? Eric, are you okay?”

“Whome?I’mfineit’sjustalittlewarminhereandIthinkIjustsawa baboonoutthewindowI’vegottagohome.”

“Whoa, slow down.”

“Sorry. Uh. Just. Warm.” Great. I go from five million words a breath to one syllable per each. Fantastic.

Mmm…” She was levitating. Her neuron-charged fingertips were flipping through her mental card catalog of information, and I could see the consternation brewing in her eyebrows in that annoying two seconds it took to process what she next needed.

“Cumin!”

Now that wasn’t what I was expecting.

“Cumin! Aisle six! Hold on, this is important.”

Of course it was important. Julie worships practically every item in Alvin’s. It used to be a grocery store when we were just little kids, and she has all these memories of shopping here with her mom. Now we’re seventeen, and the only way you get in to this run-down place is through this tiny green door in the back. I never asked how she got it, but Julie’s got the key. She says that grocery stores are extremely allegorical, and this one’s her favorite.

“Here it is. Cumin. Smell it.”

I took the proffered spice. “Sort of smells like spicy gunpowder.”

“Exactly!” She started to put it back in its place on the shelf.

“Why don’t you just keep it with you?”

She looked appalled, like I’d just said that it would be dandy if we just threw her baby brother into the microwave on HIGH for an extra minute.

“You mean…steal it?” Her words made me the worst person I have ever known.

“No, not steal!” Smooth, Eric, smooth. “Just, uh…borrow. You know. A cumin loan. Heh…heh…”

“A cumin loan,” she repeated doubtfully.

“Yes, a…a loan of cumin.” I was never allowed to talk again.

“I like it on the shelf,” she said in almost a whisper. “Things that have been here this long need to last.”

I nodded. I saw a tear slip down her cheek, and I thought it was because of me, but I just kept nodding. We began walking slowly through the aisles, and I started humming Harry Belafonte.

She joined in, and soon we were dancing to our acapella version of the Calypso in the abandoned fruit aisle of Alvin’s grocer. But I didn’t love her or anything.

Three weeks passed, and I didn’t catch one glimpse of a golden hair of Julie. I went to her back door, and I waited around Alvin’s, but I couldn’t find her anywhere.

Finally, one Thursday night I saw light coming from inside of Alvin’s. Her silhouette was sitting Indian style on the tiled floor, and when I knocked on the window, she opened the door for me.

“I hoped you’d come.” She led me to aisle four—her favorite. There were candles burning and old photos and letters scattered everywhere.

“Julie, what are you doing?”

“Shh. Listen.”

I did. There was silence.

“Julie…I don’t hear anything.” This was her time to contradict me, to win this competition that came standard with every shared conversation. But she blew it.

“Neither do I.” She really blew it. I knew she did it for me. She was crying again.

“Julie, what’s wrong?”

She laughed—a choked giggle that sounded raspy and unnaturally stifled. “You know, you’re the only one who’s ever asked me that.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Do you need anything? There are some old tissues in aisle nine.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Please, Julie.” That only made her cry harder.

“Eric, do you know why I come here?” For once, she was the one asking me a question. I hesitated, so she continued. “Grocery stores are everything I want to be.” She saw my confusion. “Look at this: organized, diverse, colorful…so vivid, so imaginative. You think it’s plain, and then you realize that you can’t live without it. Every item has its place. Certain customers come and go while others become lifelong shoppers. Your visit is short but meaningful, and there are millions of decisions surrounding you. I want to be that.”

“But…Julie. You are that.”

“No, I’m not. If I was, I’d be able to take that bottle of cumin without being so afraid of losing its place.”

“You can’t be afraid. You just have to trust yourself…and the cumin.” I paused. “You know what color your eyes are?”

“Yellow?”

I smiled. She really was a yellow blue-eyed person. “Amazing.”

She smiled an embarrassed smile. “I hate it when people do that," she muttered.

“Yeah,” I said, “me too.”

That’s when I kissed her. But I didn’t love her or anything.