In need of shirts, Philip notices Anna enter the Thrift Store. Across the racks he watches. Is he transfixed? Can he look down and make his selections? A bundle of five long-sleeved button down shirts regardless of colour, light cotton. White is preferred. He clutches these that he's chosen already and gazes at her as she, alone, makes her way to the rack of women's dresses. He wants to walk over to help her choose. He wants to show her that he can, and it will mean nothing. Nothing like that. But as she looks around he cannot. He drops his eyes and, focussing, shaking his head, he chooses two, three more shirts and makes his way to the counter to pay. She has disappeared, as far as he can tell. Left the store, or walked into the side-room where the used shoes line wooden racks, alongside boots and skates, not ordered by size or by use, but by some generic, elderly volunteer's sense of gender. Once Philip, searching for curling shoes - he curled too occasionally to afford a new pair - had found a pair among the women's penny-loafers, alongside a pair of red, white, and brown leather bowling shoes.
A volunteer clerk at the counter smiles as he walks up. "Hello Philip," she says.
He looks up and smiles, placing the shirts, still on their hangers, on the counter. Behind her the second clerk says, "I can help you on this side," and then of course he can feel it, in fact, as Anna walks around from behind him to the other side of the U-shaped check-out station. He looks up to her just as she looks down.
The clerk in front of him, the counting done, says, "Twelve dollars." Philip searches for it and sees that he's short.
"I'll leave one that's two dollars," he says. "I only have ten."
"I can lend you two," says Anna. Philip looks up. She smiles at him. "Here," she says, as she holds out her hand with the coins, palm up.
"We have Interac now," says the clerk to Philip. He looks over at the keypad device, its coil of gray cord dangling off the counter. He was going to use the ten to buy a bottle of Canadian wine. He remembers this now, as he sees how the oddness of the moment has driven him off his course.
"Sure," he says, and both clerks act, one taking the coins from Anna's hand to pass them over, and the other reaching for the keypad. They laugh at each other as they bump behinds and turn. Anna and Philip smile too. "The money," says Philip. Then, "Thank you," he says to Anna and nods. Their eyes hold for a moment under the blue-lit fluorescent hum, where all around them it smells of damp basements. "I owe you?" he says.
"You can give me a ride home," she says.
The ride in: 10'C Wind W 15 ks
The ride home: 19'C Wind NW 25 ks
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