The Wrong Cart
by Bruce Holland Rogers

The trailer parks and the gated communities of any town are like circles that touch at one point, and that one point is the grocery store. Everybody’s got to eat. In the rice-and-bean aisle, me and this woman got our carts mixed up. She added her wild rice blend to my cart with its ground beef, cheese spread, chips, beer and Hungry Man dinners. I found myself pushing her cart with the kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes, steaks, brie, and the pork-and-beans I had just taken off the shelf.

People don’t like to admit mistakes. You know how it is. Sometimes it’s just easier to act like you didn’t make a mistake at all, like you’re doing exactly what you meant to do all along. Her husband walked alongside the cart that had been hers, but was now mine, while she walked off towards the frozen foods aisle with my wife, who was holding our sleeping baby. Her husband thought some wine would go well with the steaks. He picked a bottle that cost three times what you could pay for a whole jug of something else, but I didn’t say anything.

I could have said something while we stood in line two registers over from where my wife and this man’s wife were checking out. I could have said something while we were getting into the Mercedes and our wives were getting into my rig. But the deeper you go into a mistake, the harder it is to admit it later on. Also, I was thinking about those steaks.

Before that night. I’d never been inside one of those gated communities except to pour concrete slabs for the driveways during construction. He parked the Mercedes in the garage, next to another one just like it, only yellow. I made a salad, salted the raw steaks, and heated up the range-top grill. In the back yard, blue light shimmered up from the swimming pool. There was a floating chair where you could sit all day if you didn’t have to work.

Mail on the table was addressed to Michael and Nancy Taylor.

I served the steaks with butter. They were tender and juicy. After we finished the wine, Michael turned down the lights, massaged my shoulders, and suggested that we go to bed early. No matter how reluctant you’ve been to admit a mistake, there’s bound to be a moment when you know that going any further will be too far.

I was about to explain about the grocery cart mix-up when I noticed the blue reflected light from the swimming pool, dancing on the dining room ceiling. I remembered that floating chair. Michael was rubbing my neck, and I thought, how bad could it be?

Late the next morning, while I was sitting in that floating chair, I took a call on the cell phone. “Yeah?” I said, and this woman’s voice said, “Tony? Is this Tony?”

I didn’t know what to say because, yes, Tony is my name.

“Tony,” the voice said, “this is Nancy. I need your help.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.” I figured we were going to have to face the music, both of us, and admit our mistake.

But she said, “I’m on break. We’re pouring driveways, and Greg wants to know what’s gotten into me, I can’t finish for shit. What’s the secret to a good finish job?”

So I told her. Putting down a good finish to a driveway surface is one of the things I know how to do.

There were some things I did not know how to do. I did not know how to mix a martini the way Michael liked them. I did not know the right place to send his shirts. I did not know how to clean the pool.

Nancy and I traded phone calls. We talked about the things we needed to know, and about other things, too. She was frustrated that there wasn’t really any room to move up at work. I was frustrasted with sex, which was all about Michael’s pleasure and not mine. She wondered how the hydrangeas were coming along. I wondered about the baby. We felt close. We had a lot in common.

Finally we met at a motel. She parked the rig on one side of the parking lot. I parked the yellow Mercedes on the other side. She registered us as Mr. and Mrs. John Smith and paid cash for the room.

Afterwards, as I drove the Mercedes home, I wondered if we weren’t making a mistake. But it was too late, I told myself. Sometimes, once you start down a certain path, there just isn’t any turning back.