This Glittering World by T. Greenwood

shopping for dinner with his future in-laws. That all of this was good and right.
    Sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, cranberries, green beans. Sour cream, whipped cream, heavy cream. Pumpkin pie filling. Evaporated milk. Stuffing and tangerines. At the giant freezer, he picked up the largest turkey he could find. Twenty-two pounds, as heavy as a small child in his arms.
    He waited in line behind a Navajo woman with her three children. One of them stared at him, clinging to his mother’s legs, his nose crusty with a cold. His cheeks pink and chafed. Ben smiled, the child scowled, and Ben felt scolded.
    In the parking lot, he loaded the bags into the bed of his truck. Looking toward the Peaks, he could see clouds thickening, descending. He could smell snow in the air, feel the promise of it when he took a deep breath.
    As he got in the cab of the truck, he realized he’d forgotten to get wine. The Shiraz Sara’s mother loved. He ran back into the store, went straight to the beer and wine section, and searched for the bottle with the kangaroo label. When he found it, he grabbed two bottles, went through the express lane, and trotted back to his truck.
    He would go back to the house and start to get ready for her parents. He’d promised to clean the bathroom, the kitchen, scrub the floors. The smell of bleach made Sara sick. The smell of everything made her sick. He would do their laundry. He would make everything clean.
    As the first flakes of snow tapped at his windshield, he turned the key, revved the engine, and started to back out. He looked in the rearview mirror to make sure there was no one walking behind him and his throat began to ache. Because there, parked in the row behind him, was a bright blue Mustang.
    He looked at his watch. Sara would be home from work in twenty minutes. He imagined her finishing up with the last patient of the day, trying to keep her nausea at bay as she administered a measles shot or took a throat culture.
    Ben waited for the guy to come out of the store. He couldn’t just drive away. Not when he was this close. He thought about getting out of the car and approaching him. Making up some story about needing a jump. About his battery being dead. He thought about asking him if he knew a kid named Ricky.
    He sat in the truck with the engine running for five minutes, then ten, glancing into his rearview mirror every few seconds to make sure the Mustang hadn’t gone anywhere.
    He scratched the tag number onto the grocery list with a stub of a pencil he found in the crack of his seat. There had to be a way to track down the owner of the car if he had the plate number. He was getting ready to pull out when he glanced into the mirror one more time and saw the trunk of the Mustang was lifted up. He watched in the rearview mirror. He was sweating, despite the chill. There was an empty shopping cart next to the car. When the trunk lid closed, he gripped the steering wheel tightly and craned his neck to see.
    It was a girl, a brown-haired girl in a light blue parka and pink Ugg boots. She got into the Mustang and closed the door. And then the Mustang was pulling out of the lot and zooming down the steep drive onto Humphreys.
    Sara would be home in ten minutes, so he called her from his cell phone and left a message on their answering machine.
    “Hey, it’s me. The turkeys at Bashas’ were too small. I’m going over to Fry’s to find a bigger one.”
    And then he was behind the Mustang, following the girl close behind, the frozen turkey rolling out of its bag and across the bed of the truck as he turned the corner.

T he Mustang pulled into the parking lot of the video store.
    Ben followed. While the girl parked, Ben kept driving slowly, circling, keeping the Mustang in sight. When the girl got out, he pulled into a spot and let the truck idle for a minute. When she disappeared through the electronic doors, he turned the truck off and followed her.
    He pretended to peruse the glossy rows of movies.