Small Differences

Saturday afternoon and Mia's not saying anything. She's sunk back in the passenger seat, head back, arms crossed, blonde hair whipping in the crosswind that streams through our open windows. With her brown eyes hidden behind her Brittney shades, I'm not even sure if she's awake.

Just outside of Fresno I exit the highway and blow past crowded gas stations and fast food joints. About a quarter mile down the road, beyond these rickety apartment buildings, there's this shabby convenience store; windows pasted with cardboard signs that advertise beer and cigarettes. I ease off the gas and swing into the lot, bump through the potholes and nose up to a stop in front of the store.

After I kill the engine, I step out of the car. "Be right back," I say to Mia. "Need anything?"

No reply, just a shift in her seat and a turn of her head. She stares off in the direction of the apartment buildings on the other side of the chain-link fence, and rakes her wind-thrashed hair with her fingers. I head on into the shop. I need to grab a bottle of something, anything, to quell my pounding head.

It's dim inside the shop. There's one customer, some trailer-type woman standing in front of the counter. This foreign music, part chant, part cabaret, spills from some unseen speaker. But the music doesn't drown out the humming freezers and the bottles that rattle inside of them. There's this stink, too. A sick mix of sun-heated bananas, stale cigarettes and spilled beer, which just hangs heavy in every inch of the store. I look out the window, between the cardboard signs, through the buzzing flies, and see Mia baking in the parking lot, her bare feet now propped up on the dash.

"Help you," the Indian clerk says, his voice raspy. His customer, the woman, snaps a glance at me over her shoulder.

All morning since pulling out of Los Angeles, except for one quick fuel and bathroom pause before we hauled up over the Grapevine, I've been bent over the steering wheel. I'm suddenly in no hurry to resume that position.

"I can wait," I say, gesturing toward the woman ahead of me. "Go on and help your customer."

The woman turns back to the counter. The Indian sighs when he sees her lift a paper bag, grasp it by the bottom and spills a boatload of pennies onto the counter. The woman gives me another glance over her shoulder, at the same instant yanking down the frayed hem of her denim shorts. Then she thumbs up the strap of her faded halter top and turns back to face the clerk. "How much for the bread again?" she says.

His hands folded, the clerk studies his customer, seems to contemplate how many pennies she has. After a moment, he answers, "Four dollars and forty-two."

"That sounds like a lot."

I shake my head, watch the Indian raise his arms into the air. He says to the woman, "Okay me you go other place."

With a thin finger the woman begins to push her coins across the counter, one after another, past the loaf of bread. She counts out loud, "one, two, three . . . "

I twist my neck and look out the window again. In the Mustang Mia now has her sunglasses pushed back on her head. Her eyes are shut. Damn, I think, I've loved her since we were kids. I can't stand the thought that this could be it for us. After all these years.

"eighteen, nineteen, twenty . . . "

A couple of mottled, scrappy dogs trot through the parking lot. Noses against the blacktop, they slurp up scraps as they head over to where my car is parked. They sniff at the back tires. One of the dogs lifts a leg and sprays. I can't help but shake my head. It's been one of those days. The dogs bounce away, disappear up the sidewalk.

When I hear the Indian clears his throat, I turn my head back around. He's got a finger tapping against his temple. The woman with all the pennies has stopped counting. She's now looking up, running her fingers through her hair. "You're confusing me," she says. "What was I at?".

Scowling, shaking his head, breathing deeply, the clerk says, "Sixty-one. Sixty-one cents"

She starts again: "sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four . . . "

The whole trip had been a disaster. On Wednesday I'd proposed to Mia, the trip to Los Angeles was supposed to have been a celebration. But I couldn't deal with the idiots, who one after another, hit on Mia. And the way she flaunted herself, well that didn't help either. I'd gone off on her, expressing myself honestly, for her being so flirtatious. She claimed I embarrassed her in public, one time too many.

Last night while having dinner in a Japanese restaurant, Mia handed me back the engagement ring. Under the chandelier, she revealed how she really felt about our upcoming marriage. Yeah, she still loved me. Always had, probably always would. So she claimed, anyway. But she also came straight out and said she couldn't deal with my insecurities, couldn't imagine herself spending the rest of her life with a man who blew up over the smallest things.

Thinking about it later, I concluded Mia was probably right. Changing who I was, well that was something I had no idea how to go about. It'd been a problem I'd had my whole life. Back when I was a kid I'd never got much, so everything I earned I clung to. I'd worked hard to better myself, to break free of the crap life I was born into. Mia knows that. She grew up in it, too. So maybe she's been going through her own little phase of 'life is grand' -- who knows? But that doesn't change the fact that she's a little too flirty at times, nor does it change the fact that I'm a little too jealous.

"I forgot where I was again." The woman in front of me taps her fingers against the wooden counter and stares up at the ceiling.

"Two dollar and six."

Before she continues, she glances at me over her shoulder, apologizing without saying. She's got clouded eyes and a smile that begs for attention - from a dentist.

"Two dollar and six," the Indian says again. He takes up a carton of Marlboros, begins to fish out the red packages and slot the rack above him

The woman tugs again the slipped strap of her halter top. She goes on: "seven, eight,. . ." The coins scrape as they glide across the counter and become part of a growing mountain of pennies. "twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one . . . "

The bell above the door jangles. Hearing the distinct clip of heels against the tile floor, I know who it is without turning. I catch a strong whiff of Mia's perfume and feel her firm hand settle in the small of my back.

"That's three dollars, right?" the woman at the counter asks the Indian.

"Two ninety-six," he snaps back. I open my mouth and narrow my eyes. I should say something. How can someone cop such a nasty attitude over four lousy pennies. Such a small difference.

The Indian looks past me to Mia and nods with a smile. With one curved hand he scoops a handful of pennies into his other hand, and then drops them into a box beneath the counter. "Two ninety-six," he says again, calmer now, while he fills his fist with a handful of coins.

The woman resumes counting. My skin tingles when through the thin shirt I'm wearing, Mia's fingertips travel up my back. She brings her mouth to my ear, "I was out of line last night," she whispers, "I'm really sorry."

I don't answer. Instead, I count silently with the woman at the counter; seventy-eight, seventy-nine . . . I clear my throat and continue. Eighty-one, eighty-two . . . There are no words, just an inner voice that counts along, breaking all the same.

"I think I was at sixteen," the woman at the counter says. She glances over her shoulder at me at me and Mia, as if she's searching for confirmation. "Wasn't it sixteen?"

"No. It was Four dollars and one," the Indian claims. He bends over the counter. "Four dollars and one. Why you like to cheat me?"

The woman shakes her head. "I'm sure it was four-sixteen, wasn't it?"

Mia whispers into my ear again, her warm breath dusting my lobe. "We have to promise each other that we'll try to deal with our small differences." She presses her palm tight against my back and lowers her head onto my shoulder. The scent of her hair floods my nostrils.

"You're the one cheating me," the woman at the counter says. "I know it was four sixteen."

The clerk snaps his wrist twice, giving the woman the 'go away' gesture. He smirks. "I keep bread. You don't go back here my store." He crouches behind the counter, comes up with the box of pennies and slams the box down beside the bread. He grabs handfuls of pennies off the counter, those that have been counted, those that haven't, and dumps them into the box.

"How much is the bread?" Mia suddenly says, floating past me toward the counter.

The Indian looks up and smiles. "Four forty-two."

Mia's pocketbook snaps open. She places a ten dollar bill in front of the clerk. "I'd like to pay for it," Mia says. Then she adds, glancing back at me. "Oh, and a bottle of aspirin, right?"

The woman at the counter, a foot shorter than Mia, has raised her head to look at her benefactor. She tugs her halter top's slid strap again..

The clerk whirls around, scans a shelf against the wall with a finger, looking for the aspirin.

I clear my throat. "Tell you what, we don't need aspirin. Go ahead and give the ten bucks to this woman."

The woman whips her head around, eyes wide. She tries to stammer out her thanks, but Mia touches her arm and says, "It's our pleasure. We know where you're coming from."

Two steps later Mia's at my side. She takes my elbow and urges me toward the door. When I pull the door open, the air outdoors blows warm across my face. Mia squeezes my hand. Somehow I know I've begun to chip away at the insecurities that have always plagued me.

Before the door closes completely, I can't help but smile when I hear the woman at the counter say, "No, no. I want to keep the ten dollar bill. I'll pay for the bread with these pennies."