Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [89]
For Sale: Unopened pancake mix.
Powdered or refridgeratored kind. I got both.
$2 each. No credit cards.
Below these two lines of text was a phone number.
Milo pointed to it as Lily removed the DVD player’s remote control from a drawer beneath the coffeemaker. Now that she had come out from behind the counter, he had a better view of her. She was short, with a compact athlete’s body. He wondered if she might have been standing on a box or a pile of phone books behind the counter but didn’t dare ask.
“Oh,” she said, examining the flyer. “That’s Linda. Linda Errickson. She works down in the laundry, but she works part-time at Safeway too. Somehow she gets her hands on food from time to time and tries to sell it here. I don’t know if the store manager gives it to her or she steals it or picks it out of the dumpster after it’s expired, but sometimes she’s got extra, and when she does, she tacks up a notice like that.”
“Does it work?”
“Sometimes. Depends on what she’s got, I think.”
“And the no credit cards part?” Milo asked. “Does she really expect people to hand her a Visa?”
“I dunno. Just Linda being Linda I guess. Weird, huh?”
Milo nodded in agreement.
“But wait,” she added. “Did you see the other flyer?” Lily was indicating a flyer on the far end of the bulletin board, which had initially escaped Milo’s attention. It read:
For Sale: Pancake mix. Unopened. Refridgeratored or
powdered. Both for sale. Only $1.75. Cash only. I can make change. Email me if you want to buy some.
goodpricefood@gmail.com or you can ask
Linda Errickson in Laundry about it.
“I don’t get it,” Milo said, stepping forward to take a better look at the second flyer.
“It’s Linda. The same Linda as the first flyer. She says that people are more likely to buy her food if they think they’re getting a deal. So she competes with herself.”
“Does it work?”
“Who knows? Linda says she sells more food when she posts two flyers, but I think it’s just because people are more likely to the see the sale if she has two flyers posted. Either way, she’s an odd duck.”
“Sounds like it,” Milo agreed, though he couldn’t help but marvel at the way that this woman was willing to publicize her oddity on a break room bulletin board for all to see. Perhaps she was unaware of her strangeness and was oblivious to the impression that she was making, but Milo didn’t think so. It would be difficult for Linda to compare her flyers to the rest on the bulletin board and not recognize them as at least a little bizarre, and yet she posted them nevertheless.
He couldn’t imagine why.
“So listen,” Lily said. “Here’s the remote. The DVD player is in that cabinet under the TV. Can you figure it out yourself, or do I need to show you how to get it working?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
Lily told Milo that she would pop her head in to check on him before her shift ended, and then left the room. Before setting up the DVD, Milo pushed the table to one side of the room and placed a bench in front of the television in its place. Though he had no intention of sitting at the table, just the thought that it had been used as a platform for sex a week ago had made him cringe.
Despite the unusual location, Milo was feeling better as he loaded the disc into the player and waiting for the customary FBI warning and movie trailers to finish. Though placebo continued its monotonous call in his mind, it had migrated to the background ever since Milo had seen Butch and Sundance in the kiosk and ignited this new demand. He had no doubt that when the movie was over, placebo would reassert itself in his mind, but for now, it seemed content to allow Milo to complete this task without too much interference.
The film, which has a running time of one hour and fifty minutes, was just getting started when a large, dark-skinned Latino, dressed in blue coveralls, head covered