Kim Roberts

     She picked early afternoon to do it because she figured there would be fewer people in the usually crowded Wal-Mart off the interstate.  She was less likely to run into acquaintances, something she wanted to avoid at all costs.
     Kelly Mason pulled out of St. John's Academy parking lot at five 'til two, feeling guilty for skipping the chemistry class that was now in full swing.  Her teacher, Mr. Connely, would be disappointed in her.  He expected perfect attendance, a feat she'd managed to accomplish until now.  Her head swam as she thought he would probably be the first of many people she would disappoint in the coming weeks.
     The steering wheel felt tighter than usual, but she managed to turn her light blue Ford Escort left onto Main Street.  Heading south, she passed the United Methodist Church, Amy's Hallmark Store and the Santa Fe Trail Cafe.   She slowed the car to cross three sets of tracks. Past the depot, the buildings turned more residential.  Spacious green lawns encircled three-story Victorian houses where respectable families lived and gossiped about girls like her around their dinner tables.  Kids and purebred dogs roamed the yards with equal freedom.  A respectable community.  One that she used to belong before that night when heaven and hell combined to deliver its judgment on her.
     The car turned onto the entrance ramp of I-80.  Kelly's heart flailed against her ribs, demanding the Escort turn around.  It couldn't or wouldn't--she didn't know which.  The three-block long concrete building loomed ahead in the near distance, and a voice in her head told her
she was arriving at purgatory.  She parked three rows away from the main entrance.  As she turned the ignition off, she watched two graying women squeeze by the automatic doors that swallowed them, trapping them inside the world of frugal spending.  Her stomach clenched.  She tried to make her hand open the car door, her legs swing out to the hard pavement below.  The refused.  She cursed.  After three minutes of silent conniving, she tricked her limbs into cooperating.  Kelly promised herself a Rocky Road cone, even though she'd given up ice cream for Lent.
     Her will pulled her body out of the car.  She needed to get it before she lost the momentum that had taken her this far.  Fear controlled her.  Fear of changes in her body, of rejection, of humiliation.  She thought it somewhat ironic that the inertia pushing her forward was the same force dragging her back.
     As her black Reeboks pulled her towards the entrance, her fingers fidgeted with the gold cross pendant her aunt had given her 17 years ago at her baptism.  Kelly hadn't taken it off since, partly because her aunt told her it was bad luck and partly because she liked the constant reminder that she was a child of God.  Her baptism day was remembered by the family as the coldest day of the year.  Her parents were afraid of taking their infant daughter out in the weather and almost called it off.  Kelly's grandmother, who'd driven all the way from Omaha, wouldn't hear of it though.  You need to properly baptize this child.  What if God calls her home sooner than we expect and she is not saved?  You would never forgive yourselves.  So, they had gone through with it, and it had been a lovely service and her parents promised to raise her faithfully in the church and to rear her according to Jesus' Word.  She sometimes got out her picture album and looked at snapshots of the event.  One in particular always caught her eye.  It
recorded an import in a pressed, white dress held proudly be her smiling mother.  Her father, grandmother and two aunts and an uncle surrounded them, laughing, probably at something the picture-taker said.  Behind them, a stained-glass window told the Passion story in brilliant blues, reds, greens and yellows.
     Kelly was positive her parents wouldn't consider her part in the situation which had eventually brought her to the stupid discount store a glorification to the Lord Almighty.  She reached the large, automatic door and was sucked into the foyer that contained video games and mechanical animals that children could ride for the bargain price of 25 cents.  She saw a young couple beside one of the animals watching a pre-schooler giddy-upping with the rhythm of the machine.  The young mother was holding a baby.  Kelly blanched again.
     She entered the next set of automatic doors into the artificially bright interior and was instantly hit with the smell of grease from the McDonalds that occupied a corner of the store. The senior citizens that greeted her mumbled something to her.  She wondered why Wal-Mart couldn't hire anyone with teeth left to greet customers at the entrance.  She passed the row of clearance items to her right, then turned into the huge lane diving the check-out stands and ladies' apparel.  Looking at the immsense stretch of white tile between her and the pharmacy section made her legs tremble.
     She began the trek, her eyes darting to her left and right, and then behind and in front. Any sign of a familiar face would have been enough to send her straight out the door.  A part of her hoped she would recognize somebody and that somebody would recognize her and it would be a good enough excuse to leave with just mascara.  She saw no one.  She continued down the road to humiliation, vaguely glimpsing the cheap, bright T-shirts displayed in the ladies' clothing
section.  Past the dry foods, the cosmetics, the office supplies.  An employee marking down the prices of college-ruled notebooks smiled at her because he had no idea she was a sinner and about to pay for it.
     You mean it's been seven weeks since the last one?  That's not suppose to make me a little nervous?  Her boyfriend had just gotten home from his job putting up fences for Drake's Construction and was already more than a little tired and crabby.  She should have waited until the weekend to tell him.  You know, I'm 18.  My parents will kick me out.  We could be ex-communicated.  She had tried to reassure him.  It might be stress, it could be the medication the dermatologist prescribed, it could be one of any number of reasons except the one she feared the most.  It could not be that one.
     The blue pharmacy sign with its cream lettering grew larger and larger until finally she stood beneath it.  A mother and two small children were in aisle 16, looking for the perfect vitamin that would taste good and supply growing bodies with all the nutrients they needed.  An elderly man occupied aisle 18 where Wal-Mart stocked the Rollaids and Tums.  No one was in aisle 17 or 19.  She slid in 17 and pretended to compare the prices of allergy medicines.  A pharmacist's assistant passed by and Kelly fixed her gaze on the bottle of Equate hayfever medicine, hoping that the woman wouldn't stop and ask if she needed assistance.  The woman didn't, and walked over to the cash register to check out the mother with two kids.
     Her eyes hurried over the rest of the merchandise in 17, but did not find what she was looking for.  She ducked in aisle 16 and gazed at the neat rows of vitamins and dietary supplements.  Nothing.  The elderly man was now in 17 looking at cold and flu medicine.  Kelly went down 18 once and came back again, looking over the packages and bottles more carefully.
It wasn't there.  She wondered if customers had to ask for it behind the counter.  Her face flushed and she felt her body temperature rise several degrees.  There was no way she could put herself through the embarrassment of having to ask for it.  It would be humiliating enough to walk up to the counter with it and know the cashier was noting her age and the bareness of her left ring finer.
     She breathed slowly and deeply, like she learned to do in the stress management class her counselor made her take her sophomore year.  All her hope was in aisle 19.  Cautiously, she rounded the corner of the aisle.  Her eyes alighted on a shelf of condoms--rainbow colored, glow-in-the-dark, and the ever dependable Trojans.  The condoms, while a more promising sign of luck, struck another resounded chord of guilt in her.  Her family would freak if they even suspected she had business in aisle 19.  Lubricants and vaginal cream lined the shelves farther sown the aisle.  Frustrated, she turned around and there, below a shelf containing boxes of yeast infection pills, was the object of her shopping excursion.
     She grabbed one, not caring about the brand or the price, and hurried out of aisle 19.  She approached the cash register, looking around for finger-pointing customers and finding only the elderly man, still debating over medicine for his cold.  He looked up as she passed by.  She held the box firmly to her thigh opposite him, hoping he couldn't read the thick black print that spoke so loudly it might as well have been of a scarlett letter.  Did he know?  Would he be the first to pass judgment?  She was sure suspicious eyes were following her, but when she glanced back, he was back to comparing labels.  The cash register was unattended.  She thought about putting the narrow box in her purse and leaving, saving herself the embarrassment of finding someone to ring up the sale.  She'd almost decided to do it when the pharmacist saw her standing there and
came out to help her himself.  The man, who was in his late 40s, looked kind and gentle in his white lab coat.  He smiled and asked what he could do for her.  His expression was so godly, so pure that she wanted to confess everything to him.  Tell him about the night when she and Phil had gone just a little too far.  Tell him that Phil would get kicked out of his house if the results were positive.  Tell him that her mother would cry and father would swear.  Tell him that it would ruin her whole life, the life she had barely started for herself.
     "These tests are almost as accurate as an OB-GYN's," the pharmacist said as he double-sacked the package.  He took the money from her hand and looked at her for a few seconds. "You should have no trouble with it at all."
     "Thank you," she whispered, taking the package and her change.  She felt his concern follow her out of the pharmacy, but didn't look back.
     The stretch of white tile had grown shorter during the time she was in the pharmacy.  She sped pass office supplies, cosmetics and ladies' apparel and pushed her way through the people. The automatic doors spit her out into the parking lot and she rushed to her car, dropping the keys in her haste.  She wanted to get out of there, run away from the humiliation, run away from the pharmacist that had looked at her with such kind eyes.  She turned the ignition, backed up and fled towards the interstate.  Tears streamed down her face and her fingers searched for the comfort of the gold cross pendant.  It wasn't there.  Somewhere, between the beginning and end of her journey she had lost it.
     She never even realized when she took the wrong exit and headed south--far away from home.