"True love isn’t something I really believe in, but that day I took home one of those magazines from the stand with a story about the new princess in England and I thought, well, she can’t be much happier than me." |
Love Letter by Georgy Kurasov (2001)
Aisle Six is where you kissed me that one time. You were mopping up a broken jar of pickled onions and the air was spiced with vinegar. Little white blobs rolled across the floors like eyeballs on the loose.
Before that, you always came to my register when you went on break, with a bottle of Cherry Coke and a bag of Ranch Doritos.
“Combos are better,” I told you, and a few days later you showed up with those instead.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” you asked me, opening the bag right there at my counter and holding it out to me.
Everyone thinks I’m too old for you.
First date, we went out for coffee and Ashley saw us at the Dunkin Donuts together, when you had latte foam on your cheek and I wiped it off and licked my finger without thinking.
Girls in the break room gave me the side-eye, so I knew Ashley had said something.
“How old are you?” you asked me that day of the latte.
I didn’t want to tell you at first, but I didn’t lie, and it seemed like you didn’t care.
January is a lonely month, and maybe I let myself get carried away.
Kicking a wayward onion in your direction, I handed you the paper towels and our fingers touched.
Like an electric shock. And then you pulled me toward you and kissed me on the mouth, and I could taste the Combos and smell the onion brine.
Maybe things would have gone differently, if only…
Nate from Produce hadn’t told everyone I was a “cradle-robber.”
Outside of work I don’t meet too many people, and you were so nice to me.
Please don’t think I didn’t really like you, just because I asked you not to come to my register anymore.
Quite a few people in the break room repeated Nate’s comment and then someone wrote something gross on the whiteboard, and I just can’t.
Right after that mess in Aisle Six, when you asked me to go to Ruby Tuesday for dinner, I thought it was going to work out.
Suddenly I wanted to drink Cherry Coke all the time.
True love isn’t something I really believe in, but that day I took home one of those magazines from the stand with a story about the new princess in England and I thought, well, she can’t be much happier than me.
Understand—I only told you to stay away because I saw they would hurt you, too.
Vicious girls in the upstairs office. I think it was one of them who wrote it.
Why don’t people mind their own business?
Exactly two is how many dates I’ve had in my life, and one was with my step-cousin who got paid to take me to prom, so it doesn’t really count.
You will probably meet someone nice and closer to your age, and people won’t make fun of you, but she won’t like you more than I do.
Zesty, that’s what those Ranch Doritos are. No wonder you like them. Maybe I’ll start getting those, too.
Before that, you always came to my register when you went on break, with a bottle of Cherry Coke and a bag of Ranch Doritos.
“Combos are better,” I told you, and a few days later you showed up with those instead.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” you asked me, opening the bag right there at my counter and holding it out to me.
Everyone thinks I’m too old for you.
First date, we went out for coffee and Ashley saw us at the Dunkin Donuts together, when you had latte foam on your cheek and I wiped it off and licked my finger without thinking.
Girls in the break room gave me the side-eye, so I knew Ashley had said something.
“How old are you?” you asked me that day of the latte.
I didn’t want to tell you at first, but I didn’t lie, and it seemed like you didn’t care.
January is a lonely month, and maybe I let myself get carried away.
Kicking a wayward onion in your direction, I handed you the paper towels and our fingers touched.
Like an electric shock. And then you pulled me toward you and kissed me on the mouth, and I could taste the Combos and smell the onion brine.
Maybe things would have gone differently, if only…
Nate from Produce hadn’t told everyone I was a “cradle-robber.”
Outside of work I don’t meet too many people, and you were so nice to me.
Please don’t think I didn’t really like you, just because I asked you not to come to my register anymore.
Quite a few people in the break room repeated Nate’s comment and then someone wrote something gross on the whiteboard, and I just can’t.
Right after that mess in Aisle Six, when you asked me to go to Ruby Tuesday for dinner, I thought it was going to work out.
Suddenly I wanted to drink Cherry Coke all the time.
True love isn’t something I really believe in, but that day I took home one of those magazines from the stand with a story about the new princess in England and I thought, well, she can’t be much happier than me.
Understand—I only told you to stay away because I saw they would hurt you, too.
Vicious girls in the upstairs office. I think it was one of them who wrote it.
Why don’t people mind their own business?
Exactly two is how many dates I’ve had in my life, and one was with my step-cousin who got paid to take me to prom, so it doesn’t really count.
You will probably meet someone nice and closer to your age, and people won’t make fun of you, but she won’t like you more than I do.
Zesty, that’s what those Ranch Doritos are. No wonder you like them. Maybe I’ll start getting those, too.
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Theo Greenblatt's prose, both fiction and nonfiction, has appeared in Cleaver, The Columbia Journal, The Normal School Online, Tikkun, Harvard Review, and numerous other venues. She is a previous winner of The London Magazine Short Story Competition. Theo holds a PhD in English from the University of Rhode Island and, after many years of teaching composition, now works as a sexual assault victim advocate in Newport, RI.
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