"Yeah. Ellie does." Dan's savvy enough about people that he can distinguish mockery from innocent apathy like oil and water, and so something behind his eyes goes flat in his locked gaze with Price. He catches that smirk. He responds by closing himself off, his own voice going more monotone than usual not from mischief but from distance.
"It would reassure me. I ain't never been nothing but good to you, Counselor, and I can mostly say the same of how you've been to me."
So why change that now? They have, thus far, an acquaintanceship - Dan considers it a friendship but suspects that's one-sided - that Dan's felt has been nice and positive for both of them, uneasy but filled with little moments of understanding and connection. It's a painful subversion of expectations that Price would capitalize on Dan's dead daughter to twist the knife.
Why be cruel? Why be cruel about this?
The memory shifts very abruptly, so quickly that Dan almost loses his footing as the desert vanishes and is replaced by linoleum, aisles of packaged products, shopping cars and overhead fluorescent, name brands, piped in maudlin 90's hits. He steadies himself against a display of peanut butter inside a grocery store, an...Albertson's, if Dan's guessing correctly at which memory this might be, which of many as the memory versions of him and the girl run a scam they've done a thousand times.
The memory of Dan is a little bit younger, even though Ellie seems the same age. "Find a pack of thank you cards," Dan says to Ellie as they go through an aisle of stationary, and he grabs a large bouquet of somber white flowers and dumps them into the loaded shopping cart, which is otherwise populated by a mixture of necessities of living in a car - wet wipes, toothpaste, a box of cereal, a case of bottled water - covering small indulgences like candy bars and a jug of malt liquor.
"You think they reported the credit card stolen yet?" Ellie asks, picking through cards and finding a set with white lilies and In times of need, all that matters is the people who are there for us on the front.
"Hopefully they didn't, but if they did-" Dan grabs a big box of diapers as they turn the aisle and plunks it into the cart, "-don't see no reason why this wouldn't work as well as the last time. Okay, find our mark."
The memory follows the duo as they finish their shopping trip and get in a checkout line Ellie selects, the same line as a college girl with nice clothes and a t-shirt for a local charity. Dan's credit card is, as Ellie predicted, declined, which means that he and Ellie smoothly dovetail into plan B.
"I'm sorry, sir, it looks like you must have hit your limit- I can have the bagboy help you put some things back-" the cashier says, trying to be gentle and uphold store policy at the same time as she hands the credit card back.
"It must be the flowers, they're putting it over," Dan says sadly, with tears welling in his eyes. "Sweetheart, can you take these back? Mommy knows we love her even without flowers."
Ellie, with her voice quavering, takes the bouquet. Her lower lip shakes and she cries. "But she'll be the only mom at the cemetery without flowers!"
"I know, honey, just please don't make a scene and put these back," Dan says, playing the part of a stressed-out, bereaved widower barely keeping from melting down in public to an absolute T, feeding off the improvisation with Ellie, who's just as committed to her role. He turns back to the cashier. "I'm sorry, since her mom passed my head's been so scattered. The cremation place must have auto-charged my card. There any way you can tell me how far over we are, so I can go through the cart and make sure we're not buying nothing we don't need?"
"I'm sorry, sir," the cashier says, "but I can't see how far over your credit limit you are. Maybe try the chip again, it could be a card reader error..."
Ellie bursts into tears and starts to slowly walk towards the aisle to return the flowers. It's maudlin, it's even transparent. But the college girl has looked up from her phone and is peeking at the shopping cart full of diapers and essentials, and she's looking at her purse with the Doctors Without Borders sticker, and after a moment the college girl speaks up.
"Hey, hey, sorry, sir, you can just put it all on my card." She gives Dan a smile. "Just pay it forward, okay? Losing a parent sucks, I want her to have some flowers."
"I couldn't ask you to do that-" Dan starts, but she interrupts and insists, and Ellie gives the college kid a big hug around the waist that distracts the college girl from seeing that plenty of the stuff going from the cart to the conveyor belt isn't essential at all. Soon, Dan and Ellie are leaving the grocery store with nearly three hundred dollars worth of groceries, with only the cashier's long stare as evidence that anyone suspected it was all a ruse.
The real Dan and Price are compelled by some invisible force to follow to the sunbaked parking lot, where, upon getting to the car she and Dan live in, Ellie dumps the thank you cards and flowers in a trashcan. "Save the diapers, they're better than paper towels," Dan in the memory says.
no subject
"It would reassure me. I ain't never been nothing but good to you, Counselor, and I can mostly say the same of how you've been to me."
So why change that now? They have, thus far, an acquaintanceship - Dan considers it a friendship but suspects that's one-sided - that Dan's felt has been nice and positive for both of them, uneasy but filled with little moments of understanding and connection. It's a painful subversion of expectations that Price would capitalize on Dan's dead daughter to twist the knife.
Why be cruel? Why be cruel about this?
The memory shifts very abruptly, so quickly that Dan almost loses his footing as the desert vanishes and is replaced by linoleum, aisles of packaged products, shopping cars and overhead fluorescent, name brands, piped in maudlin 90's hits. He steadies himself against a display of peanut butter inside a grocery store, an...Albertson's, if Dan's guessing correctly at which memory this might be, which of many as the memory versions of him and the girl run a scam they've done a thousand times.
The memory of Dan is a little bit younger, even though Ellie seems the same age. "Find a pack of thank you cards," Dan says to Ellie as they go through an aisle of stationary, and he grabs a large bouquet of somber white flowers and dumps them into the loaded shopping cart, which is otherwise populated by a mixture of necessities of living in a car - wet wipes, toothpaste, a box of cereal, a case of bottled water - covering small indulgences like candy bars and a jug of malt liquor.
"You think they reported the credit card stolen yet?" Ellie asks, picking through cards and finding a set with white lilies and In times of need, all that matters is the people who are there for us on the front.
"Hopefully they didn't, but if they did-" Dan grabs a big box of diapers as they turn the aisle and plunks it into the cart, "-don't see no reason why this wouldn't work as well as the last time. Okay, find our mark."
The memory follows the duo as they finish their shopping trip and get in a checkout line Ellie selects, the same line as a college girl with nice clothes and a t-shirt for a local charity. Dan's credit card is, as Ellie predicted, declined, which means that he and Ellie smoothly dovetail into plan B.
"I'm sorry, sir, it looks like you must have hit your limit- I can have the bagboy help you put some things back-" the cashier says, trying to be gentle and uphold store policy at the same time as she hands the credit card back.
"It must be the flowers, they're putting it over," Dan says sadly, with tears welling in his eyes. "Sweetheart, can you take these back? Mommy knows we love her even without flowers."
Ellie, with her voice quavering, takes the bouquet. Her lower lip shakes and she cries. "But she'll be the only mom at the cemetery without flowers!"
"I know, honey, just please don't make a scene and put these back," Dan says, playing the part of a stressed-out, bereaved widower barely keeping from melting down in public to an absolute T, feeding off the improvisation with Ellie, who's just as committed to her role. He turns back to the cashier. "I'm sorry, since her mom passed my head's been so scattered. The cremation place must have auto-charged my card. There any way you can tell me how far over we are, so I can go through the cart and make sure we're not buying nothing we don't need?"
"I'm sorry, sir," the cashier says, "but I can't see how far over your credit limit you are. Maybe try the chip again, it could be a card reader error..."
Ellie bursts into tears and starts to slowly walk towards the aisle to return the flowers. It's maudlin, it's even transparent. But the college girl has looked up from her phone and is peeking at the shopping cart full of diapers and essentials, and she's looking at her purse with the Doctors Without Borders sticker, and after a moment the college girl speaks up.
"Hey, hey, sorry, sir, you can just put it all on my card." She gives Dan a smile. "Just pay it forward, okay? Losing a parent sucks, I want her to have some flowers."
"I couldn't ask you to do that-" Dan starts, but she interrupts and insists, and Ellie gives the college kid a big hug around the waist that distracts the college girl from seeing that plenty of the stuff going from the cart to the conveyor belt isn't essential at all. Soon, Dan and Ellie are leaving the grocery store with nearly three hundred dollars worth of groceries, with only the cashier's long stare as evidence that anyone suspected it was all a ruse.
The real Dan and Price are compelled by some invisible force to follow to the sunbaked parking lot, where, upon getting to the car she and Dan live in, Ellie dumps the thank you cards and flowers in a trashcan. "Save the diapers, they're better than paper towels," Dan in the memory says.