Tampons Aisle Five

by Rae Matthews

  “Oh, ok. So why were you looking for me?” I hesitate.

  His cheeks are still flushed. “I have a favor to ask you.”

  “Ok, why didn’t you just call me?”

  “I wasn’t sure if you had left and might be sleeping.”

  Oh, how sweet is he? He’s not that wrong, I wish I were at home sleeping, well maybe not now that something good might actually come from this night straight out of the Twilight Zone.

  “What do you need?” I try to hold back my excitement, he has a favor to ask, god please let it be that I get to be his sidekick.

  “I think there is a woman shoplifting in the make-up aisle and there is no reason for me to be over there. Can you come with me and pretend to be my girlfriend?” he answers still whispering.

  My heart would leap from my chest if it wasn’t for my ribs holding it in. This is going to be the best night of my life. He needs my help to catch a shoplifter. Maybe he will even let me take her down if she does.

  “Yes I’d love to help. What exactly do you need me to do? But first, why are you whispering?” My words do not hide my excitement.

  “I am whispering so no one can hear me, as I am a secret shopper, and all I need you to do is pretend you are shopping for make-up or for whatever else you see in whatever aisle she is in. That way I can play the bored boyfriend and keep an eye on her.”

  “Why don’t you just use the camera to watch her?” I ask, trying to calm myself down and not seem too eager.

  “Because people are sneaky, they have become experts at hiding it from the cameras. That is why they need people on the floor watching from a different angle.”

  Helping catch someone in the act of stealing feels like a great way to blow off some steam. I would love to watch their face as they try to explain the reasons for the theft while their face is pressing against the floor from the weight of one of us on top of them. This is going to be great! While I am pretending to further contemplate his proposal I take a look at his basket again. Same items as before a car air freshener, an as seen on T.V. gadget and a small roll of bubble wrap. Now that I know what he is doing, it's a pretty pathetic attempt at pretending to shop.

  “Ok first of all, you need to ditch the stuff in your basket. They scream I am really here to watch you.”

  “How do you figure that?” he asks in a slightly defensive tone.

  “Ok let me ask this, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-five, why?”

  “Because what twenty-five year old is going to go shopping in the middle of the night to buy that crap? Think about it, if I am a shoplifter trying to avoid getting caught, the moment I saw a guy your age with random shit in his basket near me I would assume he was there to watch me. If you ask me a package of tube socks, KY Jelly and a box of Kleenex would be much more convincing.” I blurt quietly.

  Guessing by the stunned look on his face, I might have taken this one step further than I needed to prove my point. Of course, I’m now wondering if he will delete my number from his phone as soon as he is done pretending to be my boyfriend.

  Then I see the corner of his lips twitch.

  “You know, I never thought of that. When they trained me, they just said I should always keep something in my basket and maybe change my shirt every few hours.”

  “I think they should think about who they have walking around and what would make the most sense to have in the basket, also the time of day. But I’m no expert so who am I to criticize?”

  “I’ll definitely keep that in mind in the future.” He grins at me. “So. Are you going to help me?”

  I smile back. “Sure, why not? Sounds like fun.”

  Liam walks over to an aisle with Band-Aids and other first-aid stuff and places his basket on the floor, then he turns and leads us toward the beauty aisles. My heart is pounding when we turn down an aisle and I see a medium-sized woman wearing a very baggy grey hooded sweatshirt with light blue knee high capris and a giant black purse, perfect for shoving large quantities of merchandise into, hanging from her left shoulder that no one could miss.

  We stop about four feet from her and I begin looking at eyeshadows. I pick up, more like fumble to pick up a few color pallets and try pretending to concentrate on which one I would actually buy. I am using every muscle in my body to fight back the urge to stare at her. I want nothing more than to sneak a peek at what the woman might be doing.

  I can feel my willpower starting to fail me, my eyes start the mutiny by trying to catch a glimpse by rolling to the right. My neck muscle is twitching as I fight the urge to turn my head and allow for my body to win the rebellion between what I want to do and what I need to do. I need a distraction, and so does Liam. He is staring at her like she is a two-legged cat chasing a blind squirrel up a tree.

  “Hey Pookie bear,” I blurt softly in the best fake girlfriend, slightly high-pitched voice I can muster.

  “Yeah,” Liam’s eyes widen and arm themselves with daggers as he answers.

  “Do you think this color would look good on me?” I tease shoving a pallet of green eye shadow inches from his face.

  “Sure, why not?” His tone is less annoyed, but still leery of what I’m up to.

  “Hmn, I’m not sure green is really my color,” I say and toss it on to the bottom rail of the display along with the two others I was holding.

  I have to use everything in me not to burst into laughter when his eyebrows dip together giving me a dirty look as he watches me making a mess of them, rather putting them back in the slots I found them.

  “This one is more me, don’t you think Pookie bear?” I tease once again as I pull the larger multi-tone pallet from its place on the shelf.

  Liam looks down at the rectangle case that holds a very dramatic array of shimmering bronze-tone eye shadows.

  “Sure, everything looks good on you,” he answers back, his mildly sarcastic tone hanging on each word.

  I think it is time to turn it up a notch. He has to know I am actually trying to help him. No couple our age is going to silently look at make-up at two thirty in the morning.

  “Come on, that’s not true. Remember when I tried that deep navy blue for that party last year? It looked like I had been in a fight, and everyone asked if I was ok, and I was like of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?” I blather.

  “Not really,” Liam doesn’t look like he is catching on, and the irritation in his eyes is unmistakable.

  I turn my back to the woman so I am facing Liam head on, I pop my hip and lock his eyes with mine as I open them wide and mouth the words play along.”

  “Come on, remember I had the bouncer at that bar we went to pull me aside and ask me if I was ok, and asked if he needed to teach you a lesson about hitting women?”

  “Nope, not even a little,” he says, giving me the stink eye.

  “Oh my god how can you not, that was the same night Jill hooked up with Jack and we made fun of them all night long! We even got the bartender to fill one of the pails they use to hold ice and bottles of beer, with water and vodka with like ten straws.”

  I can see he was noting wanting to play along with my game. His cheeks start to twitch with each word I say. I can only hope he is fighting back laughter but it could be anger, it’s not like I know him that well. I give him one last wide eye glare and roll my eyes to the side trying to let him know this is for her benefit.

  Liam’s eyes look past me for a moment, then he dips his head while his right-hand raises to push his hair back.

  “Oh yeah, that was the night you started dancing on the bar and fell off when you tried to do a booty drop,” he quickly snaps at me, whipping his head upright.

  Finally, he gets it. I might not have gone as far as having me attempt a booty pop on top of a bar, but hey it’s all in fun.

  “You promised you would never bring that up again,” I snap, turning back to face the shelves.

  “What can I say, that was really the only memorable part of the night,” he proclaims.

&nbs
p; Out of the corner of my eye I watch as the woman slowly walks to the end of the aisle and takes a left.

  “What are you doing?” Liam whispers.

  “You were staring at her way to hard, there was no way she was going to do anything with you staring her down like she was a criminal. I assume you are trying to catch her in the act rather than prevent it.”

  “What are you, some kind of shoplifting expert?”

  “No, but I used to work at Claire’s in the mall when I was in high school. I used to catch shoplifters all the time, but I could only call Mall Security once they left the store. I learned a few things along the way about spotting them.”

  “Fine, so got any other bright ideas? You scared her away!”

  “I will let you know when I think of something. And we didn’t scare her away,” I giggle.

  “You are crazy, you know that?”

  “Yep, so did she take anything?”

  “Nope.”

  My disappointment was hard to hide, I was hoping we would get to run around the corner and tackle her.

  “Hum, ok, what is in the next aisle?”

  “Nail polish and stuff like that I think.”

  “Perfect, you wait here and in a minute follow me, asking me if I’m almost done, oh and act like you are really irritated.”

  Liam doesn’t question my plan, he just nods and does what I ask. I grab a few random products from the closest shelf and toss them into my basket. I keep one in my hand and casually walk over to find some nail polish.

  The woman doesn’t bother to glance over at me when I round the corner, she does remove her hand from a package of fake nails that for now are still hanging on the hook. I walk over to a display of nail polish and start holding the package of eye shadow up to each bottle to see what colors match it best. I grab a few bottles that look good, open the top and paint one of my nails with each color.

  A few seconds later Liam comes around the corner, a little faster than I would have liked. His eyes go straight to my fingernails.

  “What are you doing?” he shouts, eyes glued to my hands.

  “Testing the color, what does it look like?” I snap coolly as I widen my eyes.

  Liam’s eyes bounce back and forth from my painted fingernail to my eyes. This dude obviously has never gone shopping with a girl before.

  Annoyance fills each word as it leaves his lips. “Ah, ok, so are you done yet?”

  “No I still need to grab shampoo and we need toilet paper, oh and I need some candy, chips and didn’t you want a pizza when we get home?”

  “Sounds like we might need to pick up some tampons too,” Liam deadpans.

  My heart stops, my jaw tightens, and I can feel my cheeks start to flush. Shit, he did see what was in my basket before. What do I say, what do I do? Not exactly the first memory I want him to have of me. I have to say something. He is staring at me, the corner of his lip slightly raised. Do I admit it, do I play it off? Well, what would I say if he was one of my ex’s? Aha!

  “Nope, fully stocked you fucker, what are you trying to imply?” Squinting my eyes as I question his meaning.

  “Nothing, just seemed like you wanted all the food in the place and that is a tell-tale sign of, well you know.” He plasters a coy smile on his face as he denies any intent to imply I was PMSing.

  “Whatever, do you need anything else?”

  My heart is back to a normal rhythm and my cheeks no longer feel like they are on fire. It’s not that I’m embarrassed about my period, it’s just that it's the last thing you want a guy thinking about when you first just meet. I want him thinking about how cute I am, how funny I was, what it would be like to kiss me, not the fact that I can bleed for a week and survive as if nothing happened.

  My thoughts are stopped when I see Liam shakes his head in answer to my question, then I see the corner of his mouth twitch, fighting a smile maybe. I can only assume for now that he saw her take something as his eyes were fixed on her.

  “Come on let’s go get a pizza and go home, I’m hungry and tired,” he says with a wink.

  “Fine, you’re no help anyway, I'll come back tomorrow with Jill.”

  “So you can come home with a bunch of crap you don’t need? I don’t think so.”

  “Whatever. Go grab the toilet paper and pizza and I’ll get the shampoo. Meet you at the check-out in like two minutes.”

  Liam nods then walks away. I put the polish back and head to grab a bottle of shampoo. I quickly toss a random bottle into the basket and walk toward the checkout.

  “Hey,” Liam blurts popping out of the First Aid aisle, damn near scaring me to death.

  “What the! Where the! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” I splutter.

  “Sorry, that was great. I have to admit I was skeptical she would actually do it in front of us, but she did.”

  “Good, so you got what you needed. Do we get to go take her down now?”

  “Um take her down?” his eye not hiding his confusion.

  “You know. We confront her, and when she tries to run, we chase after her so when we catch up we get to tackle her to the ground.

  “Ah, no. No tackling is needed,” he says, his eyes tightening as he answers me.

  “Oh. So now what?” I ask disappointed, the adrenaline still rushing through me wanting to be released.

  “Now we wait, she has to leave the store before we can do anything. I let the manager know I witnessed the theft and she will take it from here.”

  “That seems a little anticlimactic,” I grumble, feeling dissatisfied I won’t be able to see a WWE style smackdown as she tries to make a run for it.

  “Well kind of, I guess. The manager will call me when the police get here so I can give my statement. For now, I go back to watching the store,” he explains, shrugging his shoulders.

  If he could see into my thoughts, he would see me smacking my head right now with a 2x4. How stupid was I to think that we would actually tackle someone to the floor? I guess I just thought with the way this night had been it wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary.

  Liam and I stand in awkward silence for a few moments, him looking around the ceiling while I concentrate on a yellow box of Bengay on a shelf to the left of us. If this were a date, I would know the right way to make an exit; if this were a date there would be a natural ending. I have no idea how to make a graceful exit with this, so I guess I will just rip the band-aid off before I embarrass myself.

  I catch Liam’s eyes give him a soft smile, I give him one last chance to be the one to break the ice, unfortunately, he doesn’t take it.

  “I need to get going. I still have some shopping to do and well, you know, it is getting late,” I remark flipping my basket softly around my legs.

  “Oh yeah, for sure, and I guess I should get back to my patrol,” he notes sarcastically.

  Even though I didn’t get to see or participate in a WWE smackdown event I still had fun pretending to be Liam’s girlfriend. It actually made having to redo all my shopping again worth it.

  “I suppose I will just have to wait for you to call me sometime.”

  “I guess you will, but I promise you won’t have to wait long”

  “You better not.”

  We continue to stare at each other for a brief moment, neither one of us wanting to make the first move. In a way I think it’s kind of cute that he doesn’t want to leave, I hope he feels the same. Then again he might think I’m just desperate.

  “Okay, bye then,” I say giving him a meek-ish wave.

  “See you later.”

  I turn around and make a beeline in any direction that leads away from him. I can’t say that it was the most graceful exit ever but, it was an exit that didn’t leave me walking away with a red face in embarrassment, so... I guess I’ll take it.

  Seeing that I was closest to the tampons I should grab them first again. They are, after all, the reason I’m here, but I don’t want him to see me walk towards the feminine product aisle so
I decide to start with the food.

  I don’t make it far when I feel my butt vibrates telling me I have a text message. I quickly pull the phone out from my back pocket to see that I have a text from Liam.

  Liam: thank you again for your help, I really couldn’t have done it without you. I’m sorry for the awkward good-bye.

  It’s nice to know I wasn’t the only one feeling awkward.

  Ava: You’re welcome I had a lot of fun maybe we can do it again sometime. I’m glad you’re not the only one that thought it was awkward.

  Liam: if I’m being honest I really wanted to kiss you but since I’m on the clock and there are cameras everywhere I couldn’t risk it.

  Holy shit he wanted to kiss me. Well, if I’m being honest with myself, I wished he would have. But really who wants to have a first kiss in the First Aid aisle? Then again to have those lips on mine would be nice. I hadn’t yet allowed myself to take in just how cute he is. I love that he is taller than I am, which really isn’t hard to do since I am only five foot three. His sandy blond hair and blue eyes remind me of a surfer from California.

  Liam: I’m sorry, was I being too forward?

  Crap, I let my mind go off to never, never land and left Liam waiting for my reply. He must think I’ve branded him a creeper.

  Ava: No, no, I’m sorry I was just thinking about how I kind of wish you had kissed me.

  Liam: I just thought it would be weird being that we just met and really all we’ve done is watch for a shoplifter together.

  Ava: I completely agree. I guess we’ll just have to wait for our first date.

  My fingers are tingling as I type, excitement rushing through my veins and butterflies fluttering in my stomach.

  Liam: I promise you won’t have to wait for long, how does next Saturday night sound?

  Ava: Perfect what time?