Generosity at the A & P

An Almost True Story

I wanted to write about the pleasure of generosity, but I couldn’t find a way to do it without being smarmy. We get bombarded with earnest, well-meaning advice, and I didn’t want to add to the world’s glut of it.

Then something happened at a supermarket near me which seemed to illustrate the theme of generosity. But I couldn’t write it as a personal essay: I changed many details and it became a very short story, or a piece of flash fiction, which enabled me to supply it with a better ending than real life provided. The title is an homage to John Updike, whose “A & P” is one of his early stories.

***

A & P

a very short story

She looked old and poor. Wisps of gray hair hung down from beneath a red beret that might have looked jaunty decades ago but now seemed to emphasize the hollows in her cheeks. Her coat was missing its second button, and thick glasses emphasized the wrinkles around her eyes. She was unloading her cart onto the black belt, and a much younger woman got in line behind her.

The younger woman, about forty, jaunty in a sheepskin coat, started placing her things on the conveyer belt: containers of berries, a package of smoked salmon, fresh ricotta cheese.

The older woman’s many items moved along:  cereal, fruit, vegetables, a bag from the bakery department, a package of fish, a package of meat, laundry detergent. It looked like she’d shopped for a week. The total was $135.14. She took out a credit card.   

After a moment, the cashier said, “I’m sorry. Your card was declined.”

“Please try again,” said the old lady.

As the younger woman in back of her observed this exchange, a look of exasperation crossed her face. Clearly, she had chosen the wrong line. She quickly took her few things off the belt, put them back in her cart, and deftly maneuvered to the next lane, which now was empty.

Meanwhile, the cashier asked the old woman if she had another credit card or maybe a bank card. Tears welled in the woman’s eyes as she shook her head. She began taking out cash bills from her worn brown wallet. She counted out $45 before the billfold was empty. She looked confused and defeated as she held out the bills. The cashier had stopped bagging her groceries. The old lady said, “I don’t know what to do.”

The younger woman paid for her groceries and put them in her reusable bag. Then she looked at the old woman. A tear was trickling down her cheek. The younger woman said, “Oh, no!” Then impulsively, she said to the old woman’s cashier, “Please, let me pay for the rest.” She presented her card.

The cashier said, “Are you sure? The balance is $90.14.”

“I’m sure. Please pack up her items.”

As the cashier swiped the card, the old lady looked at her as if she were a guardian angel. “Oh, you are so kind,” she said. “I’ll pay you back. Please give me your name and address.” And she handed over a pen and notepad.

The younger woman wrote down her particulars.  The cashier said to her, “You are so nice.”

“My good deed for the week,” she replied.

“Thank you so much,” said the old woman.

“My pleasure. I mean that.” She was smiling as she left the store.

The old woman slowly pushed her shopping card across the parking lot. She lifted the hatch and put her four bags of groceries into the car with surprising ease and returned the cart to its carrel. She got into the car and pulled off the beret and the gray hair which was sewn onto it. Her actual hair, cut short, was brown with auburn streaks. She took off her glasses and rubbed lotion onto her face. Then she wiped her face with a tissue, and off came the wrinkles, the hollows.

She was forty-five: an unsuccessful actress who knew about make up and could produce tears on cue. She felt no guilt about her deception, about the free groceries in the back of her car. She saw the joy she had given the woman in the sheepskin coat, whose generosity would always be remembered by that particular cashier. The actress felt she had given that woman a gift. It was a win-win situation.

Or was she only justifying a scam?

The next week she’d go to DeCicco’s in Scarsdale.

***

Coda: What really happened.

In today’s mail, and after finishing this story, I got a thank you card and a check from the actual old woman I’d helped!

Photo by Getty Images for Unsplash