Fragrant Touch

The lady went through the line raving about the “experience.” Isn’t that what we’re all in it for? Trader Joe’s has just captured that yearning and put it in a store. It’s ingenious really. Why hasn’t anyone else thought of it? Making you feel like you’re important. Giving you the little reasons to enjoy life. Not the big ones – you can’t buy love, or happiness or fulfillment off the shelves – but if chocolate covered edamame gives you a sense of satisfaction – however temporary – we’ll carry it. The lady was bright and sunshiny and though it is typically her job as a mission-centered employee to spread her own cheer, some customers are just more prone to contagion than others.
“Carol?”
Her name wasn’t Carol. The voice must have been summoning the lady checking-out. In familiar female fashion, their voices got squeaky and nostalgic followed by embraces, a cocked head to the side and a genuine “How arrrrrrrrrrre you?” It has become….well not become…it’s always been just a formality. Something polite you are supposed to say to pretend you are interested. A rare few wait to hear the response. Most default to the cheap and easy “fine.howareyou?” intending to mask, encompass, account for and squeeze their human emotions of angst, anxiety, joy, dejection, despair and loneliness in one pre-recorded prevaricated response.

These two ladies had been broken by the experience. Nothing was falsified. It was so real it left her, the neutral uninvolved cashier feeling vulnerable. Carol asked how her caller friend was, and instead of lying through her teeth, her face suggested pain, and her eyes drifted toward the floor as she both with body language and words expressed that things were not as “fine” as they could be.

She didn’t want to get involved. She robotically scanned the items. Not-listening. Trying not to listen. Trying to remain Swiss. She was too close to them not to hear, and not to see the distraught caller start to crumble, caught in the arms of her long-lost friend Carol. She couldn’t determine the cause of her grief, but she knew it hurt. Her face was pressed to Carol’s shoulder, eyes scrunched, tears streaming.

She panicked for a second. She didn’t want to see a stranger cry. She couldn’t do anything to help this Eve she didn’t even know. She didn’t want to get involved, but by virtue of her proximity and her own very real feelings of empathy, she wanted to join the hug and cry too. She didn’t know the source, the root, the cause, but she knew the weight all too well. She knew what it felt like just to find someone in whom the slightest bit of trust invoked a somewhat involuntary dropping of the guard. The emotion – irrepressible. She felt like she owed Eve at the very least the reassurance of shared human experience.

Their embrace swept them into a world far removed from the counter, leaving her enough time to quickly finish the transaction and drop the receipts in the bag. She walked a way in a manner that suggested she was giving them space and privacy. She walked over to the flowers. Flowers, yes. It’s neutral. It’s compassionate. She scanned for a bouquet that simply said, “I don’t know what happened, but I know what it feels like. I hope that these make you smile.” Yes that one. The buds were bursting open. The smell fragrant to the touch. The colors. Yes this was the one.

She walked over to Eve and gently placing her hand just above her elbow, the cashier handed her the bouquet. Her brown jacket was soft. That made her easier to approach. She was still dumbfounded and didn’t know what to say. She hoped the gesture would speak louder than her silence.

Eve’s face dropped further than moments before and she started crying again. That was not the intent. No no no stop crying. Just take them and go. Take them and go. No no no hugs. Aw she hugged her.

She didn’t think flowers could dissolve the barriers of unfamiliarity. It wasn’t the flowers.

Eve hugged her. The cashier could tell she was making the same scrunched face into her shoulder. The one she had made when hugging Carol. She wanted to cry too. Someone had to be strong. She was tired of being strong. She wanted to cry into Eve’s shoulder.

She wanted someone to cry into. She was glad that she could be that someone for Miss Eve. Deeply grateful, Miss Carol also hugged the cashier, both thanking her profusely for what was a seemingly simple gesture. They both walked out of the store, not entirely consoled but profoundly touched, arm in arm.

She was left standing there, wondering why this affected her so much. She was overwhelmed by how trivial it was – what she did. She was overwhelmed by how closely the human thread is tied.

She wanted someone to walk arm in arm with. She needed her Savior. She wanted to feel her Savior in the form of a Carol. In the form of a cashier. In the form of fragrant touch.