JODY.
I hate grocery shopping. I would always choose shopping for clothes, shoes, bags and make-up over shopping for food items anytime any day. But unfortunately, today wasn’t one of the days I could choose.
My refrigerator and kitchen cabinet were literally empty, not that there wasn’t money to get the things I needed but the energy and will to get them was totally absent. And I couldn’t always eat out.
Ever since I left my parent’s, the responsibility of buying grocery for myself had been an adult thingy I’m yet to catch up with. Maybe that was why getting married or ‘settling down’ like my parents called was really difficult for me.
And these days everything they talked about constantly found its way back to the topic of settling down and having kids. It was their biggest issue now, a bone of contention, the reason I had been avoiding going to visit them for over a month.
“I don’t think you’re aware of the fact that you are getting older, Jody,” my mother would chorus in her singsong voice. “Look at your two friends, I know their lives are nor particularly exemplary but at the very least they’ve got kids. For Chrissakes, y’all are agemates, Jody!”
And my father would nod in agreement. I had always know my parents disapprove of Grace and NK, the obvious distaste plastered all over their face when talking about my friends, but I couldn’t care less. They had no idea what my best friends meant to me, neither would they appreciate what they’d helped me through so far.
Worse thing was they kept trying their matchmaking skills on me. A skill I made them develop and become perfect at because of my unwillingness at ‘settling down’. This time around, it was the one I couldn’t get away with-the son of one of the shareholders of the magazine I worked for. They helped me secure the job so they could as well take it away from me. I can’t imagine, no I wouldn’t want to imagine that happening because as stressful and demanding as it was, I loved my job.
“He’s perfect for you, Jody!” my mother shrieked with an excitement that made me cringe. “He went to Harvard, his family’s got class and he’s totally good-looking, just the way you millennials like it.”
And just like that they set a date for the both of us. I didn’t care if he went to Harvard or Yale or whatever school, or if his parent was the country’s president even, my parents can never chose a man for me. Never! I’d never allow that.
Good-looking indeed! I muttered to myself as I threw some packaged processed veggies into my cart. People weren’t much in the grocery shop as I had envisaged before coming. I hated the crowd-which made shopping more unbearable. My favorite boutiques and shopping halls had lesser crowds.
That’s the great difference, I thought as I went through a sea of food ingredients, picking things randomly and throwing into the almost empty cart before me. I didn’t even bother making a list-I was literally out of everything.
I wondered which man would be able to deal with my proudly undomesticated self anyway, they would leave as soon as they come. Men always say they want a career woman, but the truth remains that they wanted a woman who is responsible for herself financially and still take care of all the domestic activities in the house.
Men are Olivers, always wanting more. That’s why I want to grow old with myself and my adorable cats and NK and Grace, if my parents would leave me be.
Yeah, Grace, I thought, suddenly recalling that we were supposed to meet at her place this evening. With that reminder, I increased my pace and started filling my cart in earnest both with things I needed and the things I was going to regret buying when I got home.
I pushed my full cart painstakingly to the cashier’s section where the brown-haired lady started sorting out my items for billing. While she was at it, I dug into the purse inside the bag I had slung over my shoulders, trying to fish out my credit card.
The bag suddenly slipped off my shoulders, but as I bent to pick it up, I heard,
“I’ll pay for her” from a deep masculine voice. And before I could stretch out my card to the cashier, he had already handed his own card to her.
I raised my head to see the person with such temerity and lo and behold, I was looking into the brown eyes of Marcus Grant.
I was too shocked to let out any word, but the horror that someone I wasn’t even acquainted with wanted to pay for my grocery snapped me out from my daze. He on the other hand didn’t even show the slightest look of shock or surprise, instead he looked completely calm and collected like it was normal bumping into me in a grocery shop, like it happened every day.
“Wooh, wooh,” I yelled at the cashier to get back her attention before she actually used his card. “Here’s mine, please use mine, I have my own card, please” I implored her, almost grabbing the monitor in front of her to show how desperate I was.
She glanced from me to the stranger standing beside me with a look of unease and confusion. “I already used it, ma’am. I’m sorry.” Her face fell as she handed back Marcus’s card to him.
He mouthed a thank you to her, straightened his winter coat and stared down at my probably devastated face. Did I mention how much his perfect face and semi-wet hair was distracting me? I couldn’t even say a single word to him!
“See you around, Jody.” he simply said and walked out on me.
See me around? Oh my god, what the hell?