**The story below is part of a flash fiction challenge by some writer friends of mine, based on the people of Wal-Mart website. Check out Patricia Abbott’s blog for her story, and many others. Enjoy!**
Aubergine
By Fleur Bradley
She called me at two in the afternoon, on a Sunday, asking if I could give her a ride to Wal-Mart. I said sure. Before I could think. If I’d thought about it, I would have remembered my vow to stay away from Brianna. She was bad for me. But I picked her up, at her house, two on the dot, since that’s the kind of guy I am.
Brianna got into my car, said nothing. She wore one of those pajama pants, purple, printed with little japanamation panda bears doing deliriously happy cartwheels.
I put my car in drive, and watched the black cloud of doom I left behind in the rear view. “So,” I said, feeling like my father, “what do you need at Wal-Mart?”
Brianna shrugged. “Printer paper. Shampoo.”
I nodded. Pulled into traffic. Tried to think of something to say, but coming up short, as usual. We used to do this all the time, Brianna and I. She was fifteen, and I was a year older, with a license to drive us to Wal-Mart when we got bored. Get a 99 cent raspberry slushy at Subway on our way out. It never occurred to me that transportation was the only reason she hung out with me.
Until Evan. The Boyfriend, a black Ford F150 with tinted windows. Evan put an end to my chauffeur days, and I resolved (it was January first, so it seemed like a good time) to stop being Brianna’s errand boy. It was now June, and Evan had found McKenzie. So I was back on duty.
I parked my rusty Ford Escort, and I waited for the engine to stop sputtering. Brianna got out before I did. We walked up, sort of together, Brianna dragging her flip-flops on the asphalt. I got a basket, trailing behind. She had her curly brown hair piled on top of her head, and I wondered if it took her a long time to get it to look that nice.
“Let’s get the paper first,” she said without looking at me. The old greeter guy welcomed us.
In the office aisle, she grabbed a pack of paper, and tossed it in the basket. I had to grip the handles so I wouldn’t drop it. Brianna looked beaten. I followed her to Health and Beauty, trying not to slump under the weight of the value-pack of paper. Brianna walked ahead of me, down the shampoo aisle, where she lingered, studying the bottles, like it actually made a difference which one. Not that I cared. I enjoyed watching her profile, the way she mouthed the words as she read the bottles.
“O. M. G,” I heard someone whisper. I turned, and looked right at McKenzie. Blond hair, mocking glare—how do girls get so good at those? I tried to block Brianna from McKenzie’s evil stare, but it was too late. McKenzie’s clone friend’s eyes darted from her friend to Brianna, loving the drama of it all.
“Hi.” Brianna’s eyes dropped to McKenzie’s basket. She reached and grabbed the box with surprising speed. “Super-Easy Sun-kissed Blonde. Should’ve guessed it was fake.”
“Grow up. Some of us actually get dressed in the morning.” McKenzie’s eyes rolled over the outrageously happy pandas on Brianna’s pants. “Give me the box.”
Brianna stepped back, clutching the Super-Easy dye . “Come and get it,” she said and walked out of the aisle, leaving a fake-stunned McKenzie behind.
I followed Brianna, to the hair dye aisle, where she stood clutching the box of dye, crying. I walked up to her, slowly, not sure what a Sunday chauffeur was supposed to do in this type of situation. But then I did what felt right. I put the basket down and wrapped my arms around her. She sobbed, the box cutting through my shirt, biting into my skin. But I didn’t care. We stood there, together, hearing the two of them whisper in the next aisle.
Then Brianna took a deep breath and pulled away. She wiped her eyes. Turned toward the row of dye boxes. She looked until she found one called Aubergine (hideous and purple), and gently lifted the seal. She pulled out the little dye container, and swapped it with the one from McKenzie’s box, which looked identical. I watched in amazement as she closed the seal of Sun-kissed Blonde, smiled, and disappeared into the other aisle. I grabbed my basket and followed.
“I’m sorry, I was being a brat.” Brianna handed McKenzie the box, and walked away. Laughing as she handed the 10-items-or-less lady her paper.
“You forgot shampoo,” I said, watching her pay the three-forty-two.
“Who cares,” Brianna said with a smile, the same smile that made me drive her wherever she wanted to go. “Come on. I’ll buy you a raspberry slushy.”
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