Lonely Oldies

Thursday mornings in Balducci’s, Bernice sighed.  Was she in a grocery store rut?  However, she liked their deli and the prices weren’t bad, although ShopRite was probably a few pennies cheaper.  She stopped herself right in the middle of an aisle.  Was this what her life had become?  Comparing grocery prices, working part-time, hanging out with “friends?”  Where was her purpose?

When she was younger, she knew what her purpose was, to be a good wife and an excellent mother, but not a smother-mother.  It seems she had succeeded in the latter even if she had failed in the former.  No. Wait.  She had been a good wife.  It was Jerry who had been a bad husband.  She wondered.  Now that Heidi was lost at sea had she and Jerry been reunited in the afterworld.  Thank god Bernice and Jerry had never thought far enough ahead to buy burial plots.

At least her children had turned out okay, as far as she knew.  It would be nice to see them more often, even Frank who lived so close really, just a couple of hours.  But she wouldn’t be a nag.  She would never confess to them that she got lonely, especially at night when darkness set in and there was only she and the television.

Could she get a pet?  Of course she could.  Did she want a pet?  No.  What about visiting her sister in Florida and her brother in Arizona?  No.  Too much effort for too little reward. So, stick-in-the-mud Bernice would just wander the aisles of her favorite grocery stores and call it a life.

“Excuse me.”

Oh, hell, she was blocking the aisle.  Looking up to apologize, Bernice saw before her her library nemesis, Professor Thad Dunkirk.  “Sorry, I was wool-gathering,” she said, then made to push her cart away.

He stopped her by saying, “Don’t you recognize me?”

“Of course, I do, Professor Dunkirk,” she was forced to admit.  “From the library.”

“You left so quickly after our last session, I had wanted to applaud you for your moderating of the Red Scare of the 1920’s after the Russian Revolution.”

“Are you referring to when I stopped that woman from smacking you when you called her a retrograde American because she brought up the Doctor’s Plot in Russia, along with the famine that killed millions in Ukraine, and how we should consider Russia our enemy, while you professed the need to look at things from the Politburo’s point of view?  I believe her parents were Jewish emigres from Russia, escaping when they were allowed to.”  She made to push her cart along.

“But,” he called, “don’t you think it’s good to get the juices of debate stirred up?”

Turning back, Bernice said, “I think some juices can be very toxic.  I don’t understand your purpose in coming to the library if it’s only to create chaos.  To be very frank.  I know you’re a particular friend of Carla’s, but most sessions—when you’re not leading the discussion—are full of good fellowship.”

“Personship, I think you mean,” he corrected.

“Whatever, Professor, I think my tomatoes are melting.  Have a good day.” With that she hurried up the aisle.

How unfortunate it was then that he was in front of her in the checkout line and of course there was only one line open at the moment because Balducci’s was having trouble hiring, as were so many other stores.  Had Bernice fewer items, she would have used self-checkout, but that was limited to fifteen items.  She counted.  She had twenty-one.  Unfortunately, she was an honest person.

She noted Dunkirk did have a dog.  Unless he felt he was helping the planet by eating dog food.  And like her he was buying mainly prepared food.  Did he live alone?  Who could live with him?  That was the question to ask.

Oh, bother.  When she exited the store, she found him waiting for her.  “Do you need help loading your groceries into your trunk?” he asked.

Did he mean to push her into the trunk and kidnap her?  She wouldn’t put it past him.  “I hardly need help.  All my bags have handles.”

“I notice that you bring your own bags.”

Was she to applaud him for his powers of observation?  She pushed past him and found her car, a white SUV like all the others in the parking lot—well, almost all.  Still he followed.  Was he a stalker?  She gave a look which should have put him off.

“Would you care to stop for coffee?  The Starbucks is right over there.”  He pointed.

“Tomatoes still melting.  I need to get them home.”  She slammed the trunk, got into the driver’s seat, belted up, and drove away.  What a nut job.

When she next could encounter Carla, who was always busy doing something that the head of the library had to take care of, Bernice asked, “What’s with Professor Dunkirk?  I ran into him in the grocery store and he seemed—“ Bernice let it hang there.

Carla sighed.  “Are you once again going to ask me not to invite him?”

“Well, I’ve given up on that, even though—“

“Yes, I’ve gotten plenty of angry letters about him.  But Thad, he’s having a tough time right now.  His wife died of cancer over a year ago; and because he spent all that time taking care of her, he wasn’t able to take advantage of the fellowship he received, which would have allowed them a year in Germany.  He’s just trying to get his life back on track.  I suppose you’re right. I will have to stop inviting him.  But it’s only once every two months, and you have to admit people show up, even if it’s only to protest everything he says.”

“He has a dog.”

“What does that have to do with anything I’ve just told you?”

“Just saying he bought dog food.”

“I didn’t know that.  Maybe—for companionship?  He and his wife were very close, even wrote a book together about the European Union, of all things.  I bought a copy for the library, but I have a feeling no one’s taken it out.”  She sighed.  “Oh well.  Sorry, Bernice, I have a zoom with the head of White Plains library.  We’re countering censorship of fairy tales, if you can believe it.”

So Bernice was left to ponder. She supposed everyone lived in their own separate sorrow when they were old enough to have experienced too much of life.  But still, there was something off about Thad Dunkirk.  Maybe he and his wife were one of those couples where the wife possessed all the social niceties; and now with her gone, Dunkirk didn’t know how to cope.  Not her problem, until he showed up again.