Raising money to fight AIDS

A short story | October 16, 2007

A funny thing happened to me the other day. I was shopping in my local Trader Joe’s one evening after work. It had been a long day and the last thing I wanted to do was traipse around a supermarket buying healthy food pretending that I was going to cook for myself.

But somehow I convinced myself that I was saving money and as a 31-year-old woman, buying groceries and preparing meals are what I ought to be doing rather than thinking: “I can’t be arsed” and taking my car to the local McDonald’s ‘drivethru’ or moaning because my Thai take away or Pink Dot spaghetti carbonara is 10 minutes too late.

Wandering around the produce section, feeling pleased with myself I bump into a woman who looked familiar. Like me she had a cute chubby face. She was dressed smartly, as though she worked in an office – her arms stuffed inside the pockets of a dark three quarter-length jacket.
Her brown hair was parted to the side and hung just around her shoulders.

We both mumbled ‘sorry’ in unison and looked at each other. Her eyes lit up. I surveyed her face, thought ‘yes’, ‘no’ then started to walk away. Something made me turn around again and as I started saying, “Are you…?” my eyes studied her lips and I said: “Genevieve? Is that you?”

Now, I hasten to add, I didn’t pay such close attention to her lips because I wanted to snog her in the middle of the fruit and vegetable section. (I don’t swing that way and even if I did, I’m not THAT crazy! Can you imagine? Sucking someone’s face when an old dear is rooting through the bananas or squishing the mangoes to see if they’re ripe?)

No, I hovered around her lips because that’s all I recognised. You see, this was Genevieve, one of the women from my pace group that I run with on Saturday mornings.
Usually when I ‘see’ her she’s in her workout gear. On training days her hair is scrapped back into a ponytail, her head partially hidden under a cap. I never see her eyes, ‘cos she covers them with her Chanel sunglasses.

The only parts of her face that are visible are her chubby cheeks and her lips. And even though we had been running together for the past five weeks she only recognised me by looking at my green eyes. Weird, huh?

M x