lonely people

On Friday nights, lonely people shop for office supplies. A man and his family walk in at 8:45 pm to buy a flash-drive and a dozen spiral bound notebooks. Gathered around their father, the young children clamor and pull producing Kit Kat bars and thin cardboard boxes of Crayola markers.

“No buddy, we’re just here for school stuff.”

“Look dad, they’ve got gift cards!”

“You could buy me a $100 dollar gift card,” says the wife. She takes the plastic bag I pass across the counter and moves the fidgety children towards the exit.

“I’d buy her a gift card to the lingerie store,” says the man leaning in to sign the credit machine’s dimly vibrant pin pad. “I’d spend $100 dollars on that, but she wants a gift card here. To buy office stuff. Isn’t that boring?”

Later, a young mother – my age, maybe a year older - browses the shelves pushing along a baby carriage. She is slight and wet from the rain. She is alone. Her dyed blonde hair is held back in a taut ponytail, exposing dark brown roots. She wears an oversized fleece jacket bearing the insignia of Cambridge’s most prestigious university. Her skirt is tight and short and black.

Strapped into the carriage, the child – a round-faced, pudgy, flailing thing - stretches out his arms.

“More, more, more!”

“I know, more, more, more,” repeats the young mother. “More, more, more.”

She looks at me and takes a candy bar from her purse. She unwraps the cellophane before handing it to her toddler.

“More, more, more!” Screams the baby and the mother eyes me as she tosses her hands in the air.

I want to tell her something, something warm to make her feel better, but I don’t have a child or a husband. I just have a dog. When a dog won’t stop fussing, you take him outside and throw sticks. He settles down. A child isn’t a dog and I don’t know what to tell her so I say, Have a good night and she's off, back outside in the dark, drizzly night. 

Once, on a Wednesday morning, I walked home tired, lonely and slightly miserable. Last night’s black dress with subtle décolletage marked me out as the clear other amidst the multitude of young professional females in yellow cardigans and perfect summer whites.

       
Men on the street corner saw me coming, construction workers. They were dressed in reflective yellow vests and hardhats. When I approached, they didn’t catcall. They didn’t even give me the up-down.

           
“You know,” said one of the men as he sought out my eyes, “It’ll get better. Just you wait, Miss.”

            
He smiled at me, his lips pressed politely together. Nothing toothy, nothing suggestive. The two men around him smiled too. “You hold in there.”

I nodded and lifted my red pumps in a vague, unconfident “thank you”. I kept walking.

We all have our haunts.