An old man with dark brown skin that looked more cracked than wrinkled opened the door for us. He winked at me. I smiled and said thank you as we passed. That man had been working that door my whole life. He always said hello or smiled, though I was never sure if he recognized me.
“Do you believe in the witch?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe the witch is just in your imagination.” I led us toward the freezer aisle.
“Nah. Mom and Dad never said it was imagination.”
Why would a psychiatrist let his daughter think there was a witch in the house? I wondered. But I said: “Then closing the door is a good thing.”
“Do you believe in the witch?”
“Uh, I don’t think so. I’ve never seen a witch.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Have you seen him?” Izzy smiled. I wondered if she’d heard this argument elsewhere and was repeating it. Or maybe she was just that smart.
“Okay, I’ll believe in the witch. Let’s get a cart so we don’t have to carry the cold Popsicles in our arms.” On the way back to the entrance, we passed a man in a green apron stocking a shelf. A celery-stalk-shaped woman stood talking to him. I thought of what Mrs. Cone said to Sheba about the employee-to-shopper ratio being one to one. “I have an idea for a game, Izzy. You count the people shopping and I’ll count the people working.”
The carts at Eddie’s were smaller than the regular grocery store ones. Izzy climbed on the far end, clasped her tiny fingers through the metal-cage edge, and rode backward. This gave me a small, interior thrill, as it was something I’d always wanted to do. Cart-riding was forbidden by my mother, who thought it was the childhood equivalent of racing a motorcycle without a helmet.
“Okay.” Izzy’s head bobbed as she started counting. “Why?”
“So we can find the employee-to-shopper ratio.”
“What’s a ratio? I forgot my number.”
“Let’s start at the far aisle. We won’t shop yet; we’ll just walk and count, and then we’ll go through the aisles all over again and shop.”
“OKAY!” Izzy excitedly lifted a fist. “But what’s a ratio?”
“It’s one number compared to another. So the ratio of me to you is one to one. The ratio of you to your parents is one to two.”
“Because I’m one girl and my parents are two girls. Or a girl and a boy.”
“Yes, exactly. There are two of them and one of you. Two to one.”
“The ratio of me to the witch is one to one.”
“Yeah, but I’m on your side, so the ratio of me and you to the witch is two to one.”
“We’re a team.”
“Yeah.”
“The ratio of Sheba and Jimmy to me, you, my mom and my dad is two . . .”
“Two to four.”
“I was gonna say that.”
We’d reached the far right aisle. “Okay, let’s start counting, and then we’ll walk along the checkout area and you count people in line and I’ll count checkers and baggers.”
“Yes!” Izzy pumped a fist again and almost fell off the cart.
“Ready?” We were poised at the far end. “No talking until we’re done with the count. And don’t get distracted by food you see.”
“Okay.” Izzy nodded enthusiastically. She was taking this task very seriously. “Wait!”
“What?”
“Do you think any of these people are addicts?”
Only a day ago I would have said, No way, not in Roland Park. But now that I’d met Jimmy and he appeared to be so normal—well, rock star normal—it seemed like anyone could be an addict. I mean, the more the words sex addict popped into my head, the more convinced I was that I was a sex addict. One who hadn’t yet kissed a boy.
“Maybe,” I compromised.
“Maybe,” Izzy repeated. She seemed unbothered by the possibility.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
I pushed the cart and we carefully started through the narrow aisles. When we turned down the canned goods aisle I sucked in a huge breath. My mother was standing in front of the stacked Campbell’s soups, running her pink fingernail along the cans. Her blond hair was in a blue headband and she wore a knee-length blue dress with a white scalloped hem. I had a similar dress, which I often wore to church.
Izzy looked at me and I put my finger against my lips to make sure she didn’t speak. Slowly, I backed out of the aisle, turned, and went to the next aisle.