I was there on the dot of 6:00 and Chloe invited me in.
The meal was some of the best Italian I’d tasted in – well – ever. By the time I’d enjoyed a second helping and gelato to top it off, Chloe had coaxed from me most of the important parts and some of the boring parts of my life story, including the suffering I endured from a theory book at every piano lesson until I was 16. When I told her I thought of G7 as having to do with more politics than music, we both laughed.
But it was when we retired to her living room for a spicy herbal tea, that I learned something about her.
“You’ve been following me out of the grocery store.”
I couldn’t deny it. “My curiosity got the better of me,” I admitted. “You don’t shop groceries like other people. And then when you didn’t go home with them, well . . .”
Chloe nodded.
“I don’t suppose you remember when I moved here. You’re too young.” She sighed. “I’ve lived all over the world. I was a chef. Studied at the . . . Culinary Institute of America . . .” She gave me a sharp look, though I had no idea why. Upon my look of innocence, she continued, “and was good enough to work anywhere I chose.”
“I don’t doubt it. Tonight’s dinner was amazing!”
“I spent a little time at Apicius,” she remarked. “Now that was an interesting experience,” she added under her breath.
When I began to ask why, she interrupted. “So I entertain myself now by challenging myself with varied ingredients to come up with something of note.”
Her explanation seemed off to me, somehow. While we’d dined, I had caught a glimpse in her pantry which deserved a standing ovation and showed she didn’t really need the items she bought at the little grocery.
“But you don’t go home.”
“No, no I don’t. I suppose you want to know why.”
I nodded vigorously.
“I like to remind myself of various times in my life, and I’ve found that place is an important part of that.”
I could see how that would be true. I, myself, was transported back to various times in my life just by driving through certain towns.
“I don’t suppose you can jet back to Italy every week,” I offered.
Chloe laughed longer than I thought my comment deserved.
She ignored it, though, as she continued. “One time I was holed up in a small auto shop for longer than I wished. But looking back, I recall the reasons for it as well as some surprisingly satisfying hours there.”
“But why were you . . .”
Chloe continued. “The church, of course, is a place of solace for me. Always has been. I prefer them empty. It’s quiet and Jesus sits with you if you want.”
“What does he like to eat?”
Chloe smiled. “I spent a year in a basement apartment in New York. It was a dump, but comfortable enough for me.”
“More comfortable than an auto repair shop?”
“Haha. Yes.”
“But I would think you made enough money to live in better surroundings.”
“It depends on what you think of as better surroundings.”
I left Chloe’s that evening having been given answers, but none that satisfactorily answered my questions.
I gave them up – my questions. It was clear she didn’t care to divulge much, though she was very good at getting me to chatter like a songbird. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I’d tried; tried to find out about Chloe’s peculiarities and found little to fill in the blanks. What she said near the end of my visit, though, stuck with me like a song that would play over and over in my mind.
“When you get to be my age, you value experience over money and knowledge over things.”
“What about people?” I asked. “Family? Friends?”
Chloe pondered for a few minutes so we sat in silence.
“Some are treasures, others, trash. But I do believe that all the times and places and, yes, people who slip in and out of your life meet you as one person and say goodbye to you as someone who became a little different because of the encounter.”
Different because of the encounter. I mulled over that final comment as I took inventory the next day. And the next week I thought about preferring experience and knowledge, times and places over things that seemed to me at the time to be more valuable while I unloaded coffee to the shelves.
I didn’t see Chloe for awhile after that. I asked around and heard from a boy she’d hired to keep her up yard that she’d jetted to some other country. Which one? He thought maybe Peru. He seemed surprised someone like Chloe would venture further than the corner grocery.
“Oh, she ventures,” I defended her.
He looked like he didn’t believe me. I probably wouldn’t have either but for my experiences; like sitting outside on a misty evening just past midnight or eating amazing gelato with her in her very ordinary-looking house. It occurred to me that whatever I’d sought in following her, I’d found without realizing it. No, I didn’t find out much about Chloe, but I did discover a bit of her essence: Experiences not sought, but not forgotten; A little knowledge; And a time in my life when my usual expectations of people changed because of a grocery cart and a woman named Chloe.
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So the next time she walked out of the store, I clocked out (easy to do since I work plenty of overtime) and followed her again. And again she did not return home. She went to a small white church that had sat empty for as long as I could remember. Again she jiggled the door handle just so and let herself in. Again she turned on a light. And again I sat outside into the night, this time in between some bushes nearby.
of the door handle thing). I had never noticed its existence until that evening. Another week it was what I supposed to be a garden of sorts enclosed by a stone wall, and still another, the back door of a public library after it was closed for the day. A run-down playground. A boat house. My effort to discover the why of her grocery peculiarities gave no satisfaction at all, but rather led to more questions, and I began to lose sleep.
goods. Or rice. Not many shop for fish unless it’s in a little round can. For the most part, maybe without conscious intention, customers put the same things in their carts week after week, year after year.
What. She jiggled the doorknob just right, turned on a light, and let herself in. It began to mist, but curiosity kept me crouched behind an old oil drum for the rest of the evening. I must have dozed, because when I opened my eyes around midnight, the light was off, my clothes were soaked, and she was gone.