Promise Me Forever

“Well what about pineapples?”

“Highly allergic, I will not be cooking, cutting or doing anything with them for you, sorry dear. Do you like white or wheat bread?”

“Either one, it doesn’t really matter to me. Um, what kind of milk do you drink? And eggs, what kind of eggs do you like?”

“I thought you were a vegetarian.”

“Vegetarian, not vegan, I still do the dairy thing. And I still have eggs, omelets are my life.”

I smiled, “alright then. I think our list is long enough, I’ll be back in a little while,” I said standing up, grabbing the list, the card, my purse and my phone.

“Hey, I’m coming with you.”

“John, it’ll be easier if I just go, get in and get out. I’ll be back soon.”

“Anna, we’re married, we need to spend time together.”

And there he had me. We needed to spend time together. I sighed and nodded before watching him jump up with his oh so starting to become famous goofy grin. He shoved a pair of plastic glasses frames over the bridge of his nose and with a flick of his head we were on our way.

** ** ** **

Shopping sucked.

“John quit it, we don’t have money to pay for all of this,” I complained as he continued to try and pile crap into the cart. We’d agreed that we would buy fruits, vegetables, I would get some meat for myself, and he could get his fake meat, whatever he wanted to call it. We had not agreed on the Oreos, Tootsie Pops, gum, Cheetos, Puff Corn and everything else he was trying to get. His Naked Juice was stretching it right then.

“But…this is all good stuff.”

“You’re worse than a fucking three year old, put it back. You’re hyper enough as it is, all this sugar would probably send you into a coma,” I pointed. He didn’t seem to mind that idea, but I wasn’t going to explain to his mother why I let him eat that much sugar.

“You’re worse than my mother, good God,” he said begrudgingly as he put it on a shelf. “Can we at least get ice cream?”

“What kind?”

“Vanilla?”

“Alright, go find us some vanilla ice cream. I’ll meet you at the registers.”

With a grin he scurried towards the frozen foods. Why did I agree to let him come shopping with me? It would have ended up being better and easier to have left him home. But his argument that as a married couple we needed to spend time together sort of won me over. I suppose the only good thing about having him here was I didn’t feel like such a freak with the cameras around me. I tried ignoring the looks of people around me. I tried ignoring the whispers I was hearing. I just couldn’t get them out of my mind.

“Back, did you know they have twenty different kinds of vanilla? It took me forever to find the original plain Jane vanilla.”

I rolled my eyes laughing a little. His faced twisted into his familiar smirk. I wondered if that was the only way he knew how to position his mouth. It seemed to be the only smile he had in his expression arsenal. I’d have to find a way to make him actually smile if he ever met my parents.

“Do you want a drink?”

I shrugged, “doesn’t matter, if you want something get it,” I said. With a nod he reached for the cooler we were standing beside and produced two bottles of Naked Juice. “You are so drinking that protein one,” I told him grabbing the mango mix one.

“Mango smoothie thief,” he said grabbing another mango one. “Here, I’ll do that,” he said moving to the other side of the cart. It was nice to see that he was more than just a pretty face. I watched him put everything on the belt. Starting with the cold and heavy stuff he then placed fruits, veggies, bread and eggs up there. At least my bread wasn’t going to get squished flat. “Anna, do you have the card?”

“Yea, it’s in my purse. When did we get whipped cream?”

“Well, we have ice cream. Shouldn’t we have whipped cream to go with it?”

“Your logic is stretching it, but alright,” I said letting the whipped cream pass over the scanner without a fuss. I was trying to be mellow about this whole experience. “John, I think we bought far too much,” I said as he was piling everything into the cart. He shrugged and continued putting everything in. After paying a whopping one hundred fifty three dollars for food we began the adventure back home. John surprised me when he loaded all the groceries and told me to get in the car and let it cool down. He surprised me again when he brought all the groceries in while I stayed in the house, nice and cool, putting everything away.

“That’s the last of it, are we all stocked up now?”

“Yea, I think we can last until the end of the century,” I joked with a giggle. “So, um, what would you like for supper tonight?”

“What do you know how to make without meat?”

“Suggest something and I’ll figure out how to make it.”

“How about you make whatever your heart desires and I’ll eat that,” he said with a shrug.

“Is my life going to be this easy? You load and unload the groceries and I get to cook what I want to eat? Seriously if I was craving like chocolate covered pickles and made a dish entirely out of that substance you’d eat that?”

“No, I’m pretty sure then I would order some Chinese and watch you eat your chocolate covered pickles. You’re not going to be having awkward food cravings like that are you?”

I shook my head rummaging through another bag pulling a few other boxes out and handed them to John. He looked at me and then around the kitchen. With a tap on the shoulder I pointed him in the right direction and with a smile he settled the boxes into their rightful place.

“Hey,” he said, “do you like corn, I could grill us a few ears of it. I’m pretty good with a grill.”

“A vegetarian who grills, that’s an interesting combination. I think I have an idea of what I want for supper and it does not include corn. Tomorrow on the other hand does include corn, and I’ll be looking forward to your grilling ability.”

I shooed him out of the kitchen as I gathered what I needed. It was about five thirty already, if we wanted to eat before six thirty I needed to get going. There was one thing I’d inherited from my mother, her cooking ability. “Mama didn’t raise no fool” about the kitchen. That was my reason behind moving to Arizona. I’d gotten a deal of my lifetime cooking at a resort. In a way, the income from that job alone would help when it came to us paying for everything. It didn’t take long to get everything mixed together and then I was cooking. It didn’t take long for the room to fill with heat and then for John to fill the room.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Garden omelets and blueberry pancakes. I really wanted breakfast,” I said with a shy grin. His face lit up with a smile, not a grin, a smile as he grabbed two plates and stood waiting patiently. “Hungry?”

“Starving.”