Red Delicious

Clara, a young lonely girl in an old gossipy town, is perplexed when someone out of this world confronts her with a special delivery.

"Delivery!" I heard as the front door bell rang out - I sound I learned hate these past few months.

A man entered with a tall stance and a stealthy gait, a gawky smile pulling it all together. The women in the rows of salon chairs turned their foiled heads; the ones in their massage chairs lifted theirs. We were the only beauty shop in town, and with such dynamic comes your regulars: women in for their weekly blowout, their bi-weekly trim, their Thursday pedicure, and their daily gossip. When someone new comes through those doors, they notice. And while I try to think of myself as better than these women, as more successful and as having more ambition, I walk through those same doors, even if it is for work.

I watched as he stopped to speak to the receptionist. His eyes were large and I noticed he hardly blinked in between the awkward pauses of his spoken prose. His stance changed with each sentence he spoke as if trying to remain casual or cool or perhaps...human.

When I first started here I found myself restocking the shelves mindlessly at first then with a careless devotion. I'd stock the nailpolish one by one: Fire Engine Red, Fire Engine Red, Fire Engine Red, just then slip in a Red Delicious between them. A sort of malicious compliance, if you will. Yes, I'll do the restocking, I'd say. But only with a touch of defiance. Only if I could do it my way. I think it was the only way I survived. And for just $12.87/hour, I felt justified in the poorly done tasks stacked against me.

At night, when my shifts ended and I had ensured the restocks were resituated, I'd longingly ask the stars what I should do. I'd bum a cigarette from my mom's secret stash, both of us masquerading as vice-free independent women, and then I'd tell them how I didn't get into college, how I didn't move away from home, how I didn't take that journalism internship in the city, and how I didn't know who I was most of the time. I whispered the regret I felt about not being able to say goodbye when my dad died, and about how neglected I felt by my mom since. I'd describe how I'd never fit in at school, or work, or even here at home. I'd trade a secret for each inhale of sweet smoke and pretend I had never said a word come time to stamp it out.

I longed to leave this shop, this town, maybe even this world. I just longed.

The odd delivery man made his way over to me as I swept up freshly cut hair near the boutique displays of nail polishes, face masks, and lotions. He stood suspiciously yet somehow none of it seemed malicious, either. His long, pointed fingers pointed to each Fire Engine Red nail polish bottle, as if keeping inventory, until finally he held up one of the bottles, a smile meeting my stoic stare.

"Ah, found it!" he said, holding up the shade Red Delicious. His eyes held mine. "Oh!" He exclaimed, holding up the heart shaped box as if just remembering he was holding it. "And this must be for you!"

"For me?" I asked, confused. "I highly doubt that delivery is for me," I told him, turning back to my work.

"No, this is definitely for you, Clara," he responded, holding the small box out for me to grab.

"How do you know my name?"

"Just open the box," he said. Unblinking and unwavering, his suspicion had turned into persuasion.

I snatched it from him, more scared than annoyed but unwilling to show him. I realized it was a chocolate box, one of the cheap ones sold at grocery stores around Valentine's Day. Now more perplexed than scared, I found myself lifting the lid.

And there, placed carefully within the confines of the box, were two tiny pieces of chocolates, each with a label displaying what flavor they were underneath: FIRE ENGINE RED to the left, and RED DELICIOUS describing the chocolate on the right.

"So?" asked this strange man, who all at once gave me the odd feeling he was not a man at all.

"So, what?"

"So, which one will it be?"

I stared at him. I looked around the salon, which kept the regulars talking and the hairdressers cutting and the manicurists focused. I thought of my father who died and my mother who ignored me and this little town that barely knew I existed. And finally, I thought of myself.

I grabbed the small piece of chocolate, allowing it to just melt before biting it entirely. The box fell to the floor just at my feet, the crevice bearing the name RED DELICIOUS now empty.

And suddenly all the things I never did led me to the great something I was meant to. I disappeared from this shop, this town, this world. I disappeared yet felt myself escape, to a new world, a new universe. The world around me melted away in a single bite, transporting me somewhere new; a different time and place altogether. A different planet now surrounded me, holding me safely within its gravity.

I spoke to the stars but really I was speaking to someone else.

Katie Lilljedahl | 2021-04-11