The Colours of Birds by Higgins Rebecca

Author:Higgins, Rebecca [Rebecca Higgins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Iguana Books
Published: 2020-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

It’s not long after nine when Sandra comes over.

“You coming?”

“I’m closing tonight,” Martina says, although she isn’t. “You go ahead.”

“Okay then. Maybe drinks this weekend?” Sandra says over her shoulder as she pushes open the door and a whoosh of wind blows in, smelling of cigarettes and cold. Two of the stock boys are waiting for her. She sidles up between them. One puts his hand on her butt, and she playfully swats at him. Martina thinks of Dorothy, watching Blanche and her shoulder pads sail out the door night after night before getting back to another game of rummy with her mother.

Martina turns away from the window. The cashiers are all gone. There’s a light on in the office. Murray’s the manager on duty, and he’s pretty good. Stays in the office doing whatever managers do until everybody else has left. Murray always closes up himself instead of pawning it off on the staff like some of the other managers.

Martina checks each conveyor belt, the floor, and wayward carts, scooping up abandoned receipts. There are a lot tonight. It’s one of those days when nobody needs to remember what they bought. She takes a hair elastic from her wrist and bundles the receipts like a gangster’s roll of cash.

“What are you doing?”

Martina’s heart thunks and drops down into her stomach. Murray? She turns around. The stock man is looking at her and the roll of receipts in her hand. He doesn’t look angry or like he thinks she’s weird. He is smiling.

“What?”

“What are you doing with those receipts?” he asks again, gently.

“Uhh …” Martina can’t think fast enough to come up with anything other than the truth.

“I collect them,” she says, shrugging.

She waits for him to frown or roll his eyes or walk away, but he does none of those things. In this fluorescent light, his hair is more blue than black. His eyes are on hers. Slowly her heart climbs back up to where it belongs.

“I have a collection too.”

“Oh?”

Martina hopes he is not talking about a jar of human ears he keeps on a shelf.

“From here too.”

Locks of hair from stock boys?

“Didn’t you just start today?”

“Yesterday, but I was at another store before this one. I asked to be transferred over here,” he clarifies.

“Why?”

“Needed something different, I guess.”

“But not different enough to not work at a grocery store.” Immediately Martina regrets saying this; she meant it to sound light and airy, but it came out more like baking chocolate, bitter and dusty tasting. How does Sandra look so relaxed all the time? But the stock man laughs.

“What’s your collection?” Martina asks.

He pulls something out of the pocket of his fleece and shows her. It is a dented apple.

“Bruised produce.”

He rubs it on the chest of his fleece, under his nametag. Doug.

“Not just bruised, of course, but any kind of damage, really.”

He puts the apple back in his pocket. From his other pocket, he produces a half-squashed tangerine. Then he reaches around into his back pocket and pulls out a few fronds of dill.

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