Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [45]
Milo never ceased to find this amusing.
On days like today, when Milo had no shopping of his own, he would browse the magazine and book aisle while waiting for his client to fill his shopping cart with necessities, for Timothy Coger bought nothing else. Bread and cereal but never a Pop-Tart. Orange juice and milk but never a beer. The man owned a dishwasher but had washed every dish by hand since his wife died, declaring dish detergent to be a waste of money. Milo wondered if his client might ask him to purchase a washboard soon, forgoing the expense of laundry detergent and fabric softener for a bucket and some soap.
Only the essentials for Timothy Coger.
Milo was skimming the cover article in the latest Scientific American magazine, trying to rid his mind of Freckles, Christine, and all the drama that seemed to recently be dominating his life, when Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” began filtering from the speakers in the ceiling, filling the store with the Boss’s song about the despair and hope in the aftermath of 9/11. Standing in the supermarket on a Sunday morning, amid the ordinariness of linoleum floors, rack-mounted magazines, and fluorescent lighting, Milo cringed at the way a song that had come to symbolize one of the most tragic events in American history was suddenly infusing the drone of consumerism.
He and Christine had been in New York City on September 11, 2001, walking through Central Park on their way to a conference on elderly housing alternatives in Midtown when the planes struck the towers. It was still the dawn of their relationship. Year two. They had just moved in together prior to the trip, and Milo was still giddy over the prospect of any woman becoming his wife. So far, he had managed to conceal his inexplicable demands from his future bride, rapidly developing coping mechanisms that allowed him to satisfy them without detection, and he couldn’t have been more pleased. Most of it had simply involved preparation and forethought.
A stash of jelly jars in the basement, as well as an emergency supply in the trunk of his car.
The twenty-four-hour bowling alley in Vernon, a coup in terms of his ability to handle this demand on a timely basis.
And most important, his planned shift from the hourly grind of the hospital to a schedule that was more flexible and accommodating to his unexpected yet insistent demands.
Things were truly falling into place.
Milo had wished that his future wife was a little less concerned about her appearance, a little more accepting of his friends and their hobbies, and a little less interested in network television and tabloid magazines, but in Milo’s view, at least on the day that they were crossing Central Park, beggars couldn’t be choosers. After all, he was once a teenage boy who had thought that the only sex he’d ever have would be with a prostitute. The acceptance and love that he had already received from Christine, albeit under somewhat false pretenses, was more than he had ever hoped for.
And there was plenty about Christine that he did love. She had a sense of humor that was smart, sarcastic, and sharp, and she placed no limits on whom she might attack. Milo loved to listen to her rant about the inequities in her office, the ineffectiveness of government officials, and the stupidity of her brother and his wife. Milo would sometimes come home to find her shouting at the television, enraged by something said by a talking head on MSNBC or a senator on C-SPAN or even the local weatherman.
It was quite a sight to see.
Yet she was equally passionate in a positive way about causes in which she believed. She spent a great deal of time volunteering for the Red Cross: organizing blood drives, educating people on the