Half Real
by Katherine Muratori
Beep.
I was not the fastest scanner in the world.
Beep.
I wasn’t even the fastest scanner in Dorstown.
The sound was cheap, accompanying the plasticky tension of the bread bag as I dragged it over the scanner for the woman in front of me. She was rounder than a peach, with aggressively pink box-dyed hair barely clinging onto her pale, grey-at-the-roots scalp.
She turned to me, her worn face revealing a gummy smile. She let me keep the change after I’d bagged her groceries, so she was alright.
I wouldn’t call myself a high achiever, but if you so kindly turned your attention to the back wall, beside the forever out-of-order toilet, you would see my picture. My musty orange golf shirt uniform just barely made it in-frame above the letters spelling out Employee of the Month.
There weren’t many other contenders, so don’t get too excited.
Before the pink-haired woman left, she nodded to it. “Is that you, dear?”
I pushed my face into a smile, all mouth, no eyes. “Sure is.”
Her mouth pinched. “That orange is a terrible colour on you! It makes you look paler than you are. And your bangs make your face look sort of fat, the way they cover your eyes. It looks like you cut it yourself with kitchen scissors. Doesn’t your mother ever tell you to get a proper haircut?”
“Everyday, ma’am,” I said stiffly, my smile all teeth now. “Have a good day.”
The woman nodded, and I watched as she nearly tripped her way out of the door.
The ghost behind in line, gray aura flickering as he floated on the spot, stared after her, aghast.
“Tell me about it.” I flicked open the cash.
The gray man didn’t respond.
The dead customers never spoke as much as the living ones, anyway.
The rest of my shift at Al’s Groceries and Cigarettes went about as well as usual after that. Nothing the Employee of the Month couldn’t handle.
The store was mostly empty, save for the gray man. He lingered near the exit of the store, his old, worn face pulled into an eternal frown, his flat cap tugged over thin hair.
Towards the end of my shift, the door dinged at the front of the old store, and in walked a boy still wearing his navy Woolpit Academy uniform, his golden hair impeccably curled around his head, looking so effortless that it had me wondering if Adam Siery was even real at all.
I couldn’t help it; I shrank back behind the cash register’s little screen as his gorgeous mother (Stephanie Siery, tall wearer of serious-business hair buns and serious-business stilettos) followed in after him to begin milling about the store.
It was at times like these that I wished I could simply melt into the floor and disappear.
That feeling of hot, back-of-the-neck-reddening shame never ceased whenever a fellow classmate entered the store. Most of them didn’t work, and certainly none of them worked at sixty-year-old Al’s, where the lights in the back barely worked, and the boys who stacked the shelves ate most of the ice cream before it even made it to the freezer.
Internally, I could already feel the embarrassment of forcing a smile while Adam and I pretended not to know each other when it came time to check out.
Mortified, I wondered briefly if he even knew who I was.
Which was worse: to be known, or to only pretend to be?
The thoughts ping-ponged back and forth in my head until time caught up with me. Mrs. Siery stood before me, placing her things down on the black licorice conveyor belt with mild disdain.
She gave me a tight smile as I checked out the first item. I feared a Hello, how are you? was beyond her.
Adam strode over from whatever part of the store he had been occupying himself with, and as he stood beside his mother, his warm eyes flashed with recognition.
“You’re Judith Meyer, right?” Adam cocked his head, his grin pushing a dimple into his bronze-tanned skin. His smile could’ve been in a Crest commercial. “I think we have English together.”
“Yep, I think so,” I raised my brows, tugging along their groceries.
Adam and I didn’t have a single class together.
Beep.
Maybe it was better for someone to pretend, after all.
Finally, Mrs. Siery’s eyes darted up, and I fell beneath her scrutinizing gaze. “I'm sorry, did you say something?” Vague recognition washed over her face, her eyes softening. “Oh, do I know you? You aren’t a student at the Academy, are you?”
“Sure am, ma’am.”
“My kids go there. Or, my daughter does, at least. You know, half of those kids don’t know what hard work is,” Mrs. Siery nodded to herself, and I could already see the wheels turning in her brain, with words like these certain to follow Adam home tonight: I heard the country club is hiring next summer! Oh, you aren’t even busy. “A job like this is so good for a young lady such as yourself.”
“God,” Adam muttered. He flashed me an apologetic smile, and I tried not to wince. “Ignore her. She grew up in a time when things like that were normal to say to strangers.”
And would you look at that? Adam Siery thinks he’s funny, too.
I gave him a tight smile and rang them up.
“Thirty-two twenty, please.”
I watched with a heady gaze as the two departed from the store, Stephanie Siery letting the door slam shut behind her. Her son didn’t notice it, a bird flying straight through the glass to the other side, unharmed.
Adam flicked gray under the streetlamps, and I wondered if he even knew he was gone. I didn’t blame him for trying to forget, anyway. It was pretty shit business, being dead.
The grey man still lingered in the corner, near the door. His hollow mouth hung open, a bony finger pointing after them, surprise etched into his weathered face.
I sighed, slumping against the till. “Tell me about it.”