The following is part of a serialized story, Everyone Thinks I Dream of Chocolate. You can find the first chapter here.
Karen worked at the store at the end of the east wing on the first floor. The store sold local artisan crafts. Handmade journals, paintings, knickknacks, watches, and books to name a few. She never really smiled or laughed. She had the perpetual look of dullness, like a sad pit bull. She always wore a plaid shirt and jeans. Her brown hair was always between incredibly curly to nearly frizzy. Her head always seemed to be looking down a little.
I’ve only ever really heard stories about her. Many said she had some sort of mental condition, either born or gained. The details differed from person to person. Some say she had autism. Others said she had some sort of head injury. I never heard it directly from her so who is to say that this is even true.
Dick told me she had a boyfriend but their relationship seemed to have a strict line between romance and business. Several sources said she paid him to mow his lawn, even though they lived together. I’m not sure how true this is, either. Karen and I never talked about this. Maybe her boyfriend needed some sort of allowance.
I barely talked to Karen at all. I never even would have noticed her if it wasn’t for other people pointing her out as she passed the chocolate shop. She never really bought food or product from us. When I went over to their store, I usually browsed out of boredom during a lunch break. I never did find a single thing in that store that I took a liking to.
The only time I ever had direct interaction with Karen was also the only time she came to the grilled cheese shop and bought lunch from us.
“How is the roast beef?” she asked.
“Really good. I get it a lot when I buy lunch.”
“Ok great. Do you mind if I get that without tomatoes? I’m allergic.”
“Yeah, no problem. It doesn’t come with tomatoes anyway.”
“Ok good.”
I made a note on the sticky notepad that we used for orders. “No tomato.” I rang her up and told her that I could walk to meal over to her.
I took the note back to Dick who made the sandwich. It came out on a paper plate with two napkins, all on a red tray with a chip in one of the corners.
As I walked down to the end of the east wing, I could smell all of the different ingredients. White bread, cheddar cheese, 4 slices of roast beef, chopped onions, and BBQ sauce. When I walked into the store, she was sitting at the cash register, staring off into space. It took me until I went right up to the counter for her to snap back from whatever reality she was visiting. I made no judgments. I, more than anyone, could understand that.
“Here’s your meal.”
“Thanks.”
I walked back to the shop and prepared my station. I had a bunch of ganache to cut so I put on some gloves, pulled a fresh pan of chocolate from the fridge. I pulled off the tin foil that covered the top, lifted the giant slab out of the pan, and slapped it on the grilles of the cutting guitar.
Just as I was about to make the first cut, Karen came running back. I never noticed it before, but her feet were always perfectly placed so her stride could be directly straight, yet the top half of her body always swayed side to side. From the waist up, her body just seemed to go back and forth like a metronome in perfect rhythm with her steps. She came right up to me.
“Excuse me, I said no tomato.”
I didn’t know what to say at first and I am sure that long pause was enough to convey that. Just in case, I decided to use my words anyway.
“There shouldn’t be any in there, ma’am.”
“There is Barbeque sauce on this. Don’t you know that BBQ sauce has tomato in it?”
“Oh. No, I didn’t. Sorry about that.”
“You could have killed me, you know that?”
“Sorry.”
I took the half-eaten sandwich back into the kitchen.
“What does she want now?” Dick asked.
“She says she’s allergic to tomato.”
“There aren’t any damn tomatoes in it.”
“BBQ sauce.”
He looked at me in silence and it told me everything I needed to know. He gave me the courtesy of using his words anyway.
“Barbeque has tomato in it?”
Later, after we gave Karen a new sandwich, Lou and Dick got into a heated argument about the whole thing.
“We should have known,” said Lou. “You should have known, Mouse.”
“How the hell was he supposed to know? I didn’t even fucking know.”
They went on like that for a while.
Karen never ordered from us again. Good.
Danger Wonka 