Waiting

For some reason the checkout lines were long and slow tonight at the Harris Teeter. The woman a little further along in the line next to me was staring right ahead, not blinking, totally zoning out. She was about 50, black, and slightly overweight. Her shopping cart consisted entirely of several quarts of orange juice, three or four bags of frozen peas, and a single cantaloupe. When she made it to the magazine rack she laid her arm against the black wire, and her finger came to rest on a People Magazine. She looked at the big yellow PREGNANCY BLISS headline shining below Angelina Jolie's bared teeth, and she moved closer to it, and then she began rubbing the cover with her thumb back and forth, again and again, over and over, wearing down the sheen until it was dull and smudged, staring at it all the while with a little smile that might or might not have really been there at all. Then she turned and put her food on the belt. "Did you find everything you needed?" the checkout guy asked. "Yes, thank you," she answered quickly. He scanned her items. She waited to hear her total, hands folded atop her purse.