Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple Page A

and serene… wasn’t it?”
    “That made it worse. Seeing how hard you were working just to look me in the eye.”
    “I swear,” I said. “I can’t win for losing.”
    “I’m not sure that’s what that means.” Cigarette in his mouth, Alonzo picked up his apron, balled it up, and dropkicked it into a nearby dumpster.
    “Oh, Alonzo,” I said.
    A motorized zzzt approached, followed by a slurring, high-pitched voice. “You don’t want to do that.”
    It was a guy in a wheelchair with a tall safety flag. He wore a Costco name tag. JIMMY . His ear was frozen to his shoulder and his good arm worked a joystick.
    “That’s a twenty-five-dollar deposit on that apron,” Jimmy said, scooting into Alonzo’s personal space.
    Alonzo kept smoking and listened with an air of amused detachment.
    “I seen a lot of people flip out and quit,” Jimmy continued. “Usually they throw their apron in the bin over there. Don’t return it, and they deduct it from your last paycheck.”
    “Thank you,” Alonzo said. “But I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass.”
    “Hey,” I said. “You’re a poet. Talk like one.”
    “They empty that trash at twelve, three, and six,” Jimmy said. “I seen a lot of folks have second thoughts, come back but it’s gone.”
    “I stand on my little mat flogging my fish story. Fresh from Alaska! On the box there’s an icy, roaring stream jumping with sassy fish. Really, it’s antibiotic-pumped tilapia farmed in Vietnam that maybe makes a stopover in Alaska. But hey, the price is right! Americans. You can see it in their walk. If they find something cheap, it puts a disgusting little bounce in their step.”
    “Okay!” I said.
    “And yet, it genuinely pains me when people like you spit out my samples.”
    “I didn’t spit it out!”
    “I saw you,” he said. “Yesterday was worse. Yesterday they gave me ostrich jerky.”
    “That was you?” Jimmy said, his chair leaping back with a zzzt .
    “I didn’t kill the ostriches. I didn’t hang them up to dry and hack them into strips! I just handed it out. I’m a poet!”
    “Do you mind if we do this in the shade?” asked Jimmy. He put his chair in reverse and zzzt ’d backward.
    “Do what in the shade?” I watched him recede farther away from where I needed to be, and yesterday: the sculpture park.
    “Our talk!” Jimmy shouted from under the eave of Costco.
    “We’re not having a talk!” I said.
    Alonzo lowered himself onto the curb, a three-step process accompanied by a fair amount of grunting.
    “No, don’t sit down!” I said. “Ugh! I’m telling you, I don’t know whether to shit or go blind.”
    “Shit,” Alonzo said. “It’s hardly Sophie’s choice.”
    He was now cradling his head in his hands. “Costco’s the only insurance that pays for in vitro. My wife’s going to kill me. But nothing is worth another hour of that place.”
    “Come on, Alonzo.” I patted his back. “All work has dignity.”
    “She’s right!” called Jimmy from the shade.
    “Not that work!” Alonzo shouted back. He turned to me. A puzzled look befell his face. “Wait. What happened to your steak fish?”
    “Right. Uh. It was delicious, but my son is with a stranger who expected me back an hour ago and the line was really long and—”
    Jimmy motored over. “Where did you leave it? I’m not going to turn you in. It’s just, it could thaw.”
    “In a basket of T-shirts.”
    “Oooh,” Jimmy said. “You better show me.”
    “Yeah,” Alonzo said. “Show him.”
    “No.” I reached through my legs, pulled up the back hem of my dress, and tied it in a three-way knot. Looking like Gandhi from the waist down, I climbed the rungs of the dumpster.
    “My life,” I said, “is with my son, who I need to get back to before someone calls Child Services.”
    I snatched the apron and tossed it at Alonzo’s chest. He let it bounce off.
    “ Your life,” I said to Alonzo, hopping down, “is in that Costco.” I tied the apron