Crossroads at the Gas Station

“Would you hurry up and pick already?”

Melissa’s finger hovered by the rows of candy bars, lingering somewhere between a CoffeeCrunch and king sized Snick-Snack bar, staring somewhere a thousand miles away from both.

“Hello, Earth to Mel.” Her friend waved her hand directly in her face, blinking rapidly as the minute’s worth of unbroken gazing had instantly caught up with her.

“Sorry, sorry,” Mel shook her head, “kinda zoned out there for a second.”

“Well, hurry up, space cadet, haven’t got all night, y’know.” The other girl pulled out her phone from her hoodie’s pocket, noting the time at about a quarter to seven.

Mel turned her attention back to the rows of candy bars, not feeling a particular pull towards any, but settling on her usual to sate her friend’s growing impatience.

“Oh, look,” she deadpanned, “a Munch bar. Glad it took you three days to pick it, not like it’s your default choice or anything.”

“Okay, okay, cool it, Jeanie,” Mel said, tossing it into the basket tucked under Jean’s arm, “What are you picking, anyway?” Jean held the basket up, already filled near to the brim with all manner of chips, cream filled non perishables, and ice cream bars to compliment a cavalcade of bad choices on this warm, late Summer night. She could see tucked underneath a Twinkle bar bag and an ice cream cookie wrapper was a bag of Rainbow Bites (tropical flavored).

“Picked it out, like, ten minutes ago.” Jean said, moving towards the soda section of the refrigerated shelves. “If you’re gonna take forever to pick a candy, at least pick something you haven’t tried before.”

“Says the girl who’ll just complain she didn’t get the Malt Balls in thirty minutes.” Mel grumbled, not quiet enough for Jean to pause and turn back towards her.

“What’s that?” She asked, broadening her shoulders and puffing her chest in the way she typically did before squaring up for a fight. Admittedly, it had some small effect at making the five-foot-two girl seem just a mite bigger.

“I’m just saying,” Mel said, easily stepping around her, “you could stand to be a little more patient. It is a virtue, after all.”

“An overrated one,” Jean said, shoulders falling back to their neutral position as she joined the other girl by the sodas. “Besides, it’s a candy bar, not a college application.”

Mel gave a mirthless laugh in her throat, repeating her choosing ritual as her finger hovered among the various soft drinks on the other side of the glass. Jean, meanwhile, opened the nearest door and, barely looking, grabbed the closest bottle of Doctor Pop she could wrap her fingers around, chucking it at the top of the basket’s junk pile.

“Aren’t you worried it’ll fizz over?” Mel asked.

She shrugged. “That’s a problem for future Jean.”

Mel shook her head, the faintest smile crossing the corner of her lips. To avoid a similar candy bar debacle, Mel opened the fridge door and picked out a simple Limeade, placing it with more care next to Jean’s in the basket.

They sidled up to the back of the line leading to the counter, manned by a bald cashier with an impressive mustache and goatee combo, currently serving a beleaguered looking father of two; Desperately trying to maintain a professional conversation about some sort of gas coupon that had expired by a few days while also trying to wrangle his spawn who insisted on touching everything they could get their grubby little mitts on.

“Hey, how cool do you think the cashier is?” Jean asked, noting his stolid expression as the male equivalent of a Karen blabbered on about society and the rules therein that kept us from descending to chaos.

“Probably not enough to sell you cigarettes, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Mel said in a slightly hushed tone, just enough to ensure the older woman in front of them wouldn’t hear.

“Oh, please, I kicked the habit ages ago,” Jean insisted, though the slight twitch in her fingers suggested otherwise. “I was just thinking of asking for a lotto ticket or whatever. A chance to try out that fake ID and see if it works, y’know?”

Mel scoffed. “Not a chance, you’ve been stuck with the same face since you were twelve.”

“Bah, who asked you?” Jean barked, furiously scrolling whatever app her mind wasn’t truly registering. “Maybe if you let me hook you up with a fake ID, Miss Fifty-Year-Old Trapped in a Teen’s Body…”

“I wouldn’t be a very good accountabilibuddy if I indulged your terrible vices now, would I?” Mel said, smirking as she could practically see the little fumes of anger fizzling over Jeanie’s head. “I wasn’t named the DARE spokeswoman of our class for nothing, after all.”

“Oh my God, shut up.” Jean groaned, her soul momentarily leaving her body.

The metallic ring of the doorbell clanged as the dad dragged his kids out of the store, the red sheen on his face indicating that he hadn’t managed to plead his coupon case convincingly. A woman who looked a few years older than them took his place at the front, piling all manner of ramen packets and instant coffee mixers onto the desk. From her frazzled hair and general demeanor, Mel had guessed she was a college student long before she pulled out her school ID, the shade that had fallen over her back at the candy aisle creeping upon her again.

“Have you started looking at colleges yet?” She asked Jean, who blinked at the question, looking up from a random video of a duck tangled in a girl’s hair she had seen a dozen times already.

“Huh?”

“What you said before,” Mel explained, “about college applications.”

“That was, like, thirty minutes ago.” Mel shrugged, eyeing the line and the three other people ahead of them as though there were nothing else for it. Jean rolled her eyes, returning to her phone. “No, not yet.”

“Why not?”

Jean looked up at the security camera as though it was recording her life for a reality show. “‘Cause we’re juniors, Mel, and the year hasn’t even started yet. We’ve got plenty of time to get courted by every poindexter and army shill in the country before then.”

“Yeah, sure…” Mel’s voice trailed off, glancing around the store and at the patrons inside.

Another family was perusing the chip aisle as a trucker burst through the door, wordlessly asking for the bathroom while the cashier jerked his head towards it, never breaking his conversation with the college student. The older woman in front of them swayed slightly in place, clutching her purse as she stared forward, concentrating on the signage above the cashier in lieu of an endless slew of apps to scroll through. In front of her was a slightly younger, though still middle-aged, man who was watching some kind of reel at nearly full volume while the college student desperately dug through her purse for an elusive credit card that hadn’t been maxed out or expired.

“Alright, what’s up, Mel?” She was drawn back to her place in line when Jean spoke.

“Nothing.” She shrugged, earning a raised and skeptical eyebrow from her friend. “Well, it really is nothing, I’m just… thinking.”

“Always concerning,” Jean said, shoving her phone back in her hoodie pocket. “Thinking about what, college?”

“A little,” she admitted, her eyes locked on the college student as she gathered her things and left with little fanfare save for the metallic doorbell, the line inching forward. “And just… the future in general, I guess.”

“So don’t.” Jean said simply.

“Wow, thanks, I didn’t know it was that easy.” Mel adopted her friend’s deadpan snark from earlier.

“It’s like I said,” Jean shrugged, “we’re sixteen, we’ve got time.”

“You said that when we were twelve,” Mel reminded her. “Just before we started junior high.”

“It was true then, too.” Jean shrugged again. “Four years is a long time.”

“Not really,” Mel shook her head. “Four years ago it felt like we’d never even turn thirteen. Now we’re just two blinks away from eighteen, and after that we’ll be twenty-one before you know it.”

“Good,” Jean said, “save me the trouble of carrying a fake ID.” The old woman turned around slightly at this, earning an indignant scowl for her eavesdropping.

“Yeah but…”

Mel wasn’t quite sure how to articulate what she was feeling. Her mind seemed to stretch in various directions, none of which could easily be contained to this particular pocket of the universe. Finally, she could no longer restrain herself and blurted out the first thing she could. “Do you ever think about dying?”

Jean’s face scrunched like she had just gotten a whiff of something rancid. “Wh-what?” She asked.

“Do you ever think about dying?” Mel repeated.

Jean’s eyes darted all across her friend’s face, unsure whether or not she was being serious. “I… try not to.” She eventually said, turning forward to look ahead of them in line. The cashier and the middle-aged man were in the middle of some conversation regarding monster trucks that she would much rather be part of.

“Are you scared of it?” Mel asked, refusing to be ignored.

“Not really,” Jean said without looking back. “I just prefer not to talk about it in a gas station.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Mel conceded, “blame it on my… Christian upbringing I guess. Seems all we ever talk about every Sunday is dying and Heaven or Hell and all that stuff.”

They stood in silence for a good minute. The man and the cashier had finally finished their conversation, the former going about his business, letting the faint smell of gasoline and the threat of a coming rainstorm seep into the room as he slipped out the door, bidden farewell with the familiar metallic chime.

“I guess,” Mel said, unprompted, “I’m just getting all heady about the next couple years; Graduating, college, jobs, marriages…”

“Marriages?” Jean turned back. “Your family double dipping suitors, Mel?”

“You know what I mean,” Mel groaned as she threw her hands up. “Our childhoods are practically over. We’re in the final stretch of our school years, we’re gonna have to start taking SATs and looking into scholarships and getting jobs and getting cars and…”

“And, and, and,” Jean swayed her head with each ‘and.’ “I keep telling you, we’ve still got a whole year’s worth of time before it gets that serious, at minimum.”

“It’s already serious!” Mel raised her voice, too impassioned to care how many heads were drawn their way. “You keep acting like we’re not on the precipice of the rest of our lives! That what we do in the next couple weeks alone isn’t going to impact the course of our entire futures! What if we screw around too much and our grades slip, what if we end up with the wrong guy and wind up with a kid we have to raise, what if we get so caught up in everything that we hardly see each other anymore, what if-”

“Cripes, Mel, calm down for God’s sake.” Jean interrupted, not exactly unkind but not entirely sympathetic either. “We’re in a gas station convenience store, it’s not like you’re being forced to pick between Harvard and Yale or whatever right now.”

“How can you be so calm!” Mel held her hands parallel to Jean’s head, shaking them slightly as though she were holding back every instinct to strangle her. “How do you not feel this… this crushing weight on your chest the closer we get to the end?”

“Well, who says I don’t?!”

The air in the shop grew colder, punctuated by a still silence broken only by the soft ruffling of the old woman in front of them digging for money in her purse. The metallic doorbell clanged again as a trio of preteens poured in from the freshly pouring rain, giggling in a tizzy about some joke one of them had just said. The atmosphere returned to neutral upon their migration to the slushy machine, chattering about in some language that even the girls had grown too old to understand.

“Who says I don’t,” Jean repeated, softer so only Mel could hear. “Feel it, I mean.” From the way she was staring at the floor, it was obvious Jean was content to leave it at that, but Mel’s puppy-dog eyes got the better of her, as they always did.

“It’s like, you spend all your childhood just thinking it’s gonna be that,” She said, gesturing at the back where the incomprehensible gaggle of the preteens emanated. “Then somewhere along the line, bam! You need to start thinking about the rest of your life before it’s even really begun. You need to get a job, you need to start thinking of what college you wanna go to, you need to stop getting used to feeling provided for and comfortable because in the real world nobody’s gonna give two craps whether you succeed or fail.” She recognized she was rambling at this point, but since the old lady in front of them seemed to paying in quarters there was nothing else for it.

“Y’know,” she continued, “my dad’s been all hyped about taking me to look at used cars. He walks up to me one morning and is all, ‘Jeanie, we’re going to Val’s Garage or wherever, here’s a catalog.’” She mimed a catalog being thrown on her lap. “And now I’m supposed to know or even care about the difference between a Camaro and a Mustang, and I don’t even have a license yet! Can’t I just… not worry about that for a little while longer?” Her voice trailed off, staring back at the floor, her shoes scuffing on the aged linoleum.

Mel stared at her, scratching her brain for the right reassurance. A slight smile crept over her lips as she puffed a small laugh through her nose. “Jeez, Jeanie,” She said, “it’s a used car, not a candy bar.” Jean looked up at her, silent for a moment before a snort forced its way past her defenses. The two were laughing so hard even the preteen trio took notice.

“Excuse me,” the cashier said, “sorry to interrupt what looks like a very heartwarming moment but are you two gonna move up already or not?” Indeed, the older woman was long gone, the two of them too engrossed in their in-joke to hear the metal doorbell. They moved up, Jean hoisting the basket onto the desk as Mel helped unload it, the cashier scanning each item with a look of hard-won indifference only veterans of retail bore.

“Can I ask you something,” Jean said to him, digging out her fake ID much to Mel’s disbelief and wide-eyed horror. “If I asked for a lotto ticket and showed you this, would you give it to me?” The cashier looked at the ID, squinting a little though apparently not deeming it worthy of the effort of donning the reading glasses hanging from the collar of his shirt.

“Well, first of all, America is spelled wrong, so probably not.” He said, returning to scan the rest of their junk food.

Jean looked at the card in disbelief. “So it is,” she nodded, sporting a surprised frown. “Could’ve sworn it had three A’s.”

“Stay in school, kid.” The cashier said, ringing up their total. Mel was first to pull out some cash, waiting as the cashier gathered change for a twenty.

“Y’know, Jeanie,” she said, “for what it’s worth, I’m glad to be here with you.”

“In a dingy-ass gas station so cheap they can’t even afford proper name brands? No offense,” she added quickly for the cashier’s benefit, who merely grunted in indifference.

“No, I just mean… in general.” They exchanged small but meaningful grins as Mel was handed her change.

“What are fellow DARE graduates for?” Jean asked, hoisting the refilled basket back in her arms as they cleared the way for the younger kids to stampede the desk with their own collection of junk. They paused by the front door, watching the rain fall through the glass.

“Damn,” Jean said, “it’s really coming down now.”

“Yeah,” Mel sighed, closing her eyes to listen to it. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“I’d probably like it better if we didn’t walk here.” Jean said, placing the basket onto a stack near them and stuffing her pockets with her share of their junk food. She noted the time on her phone. “We’ve got less than ten minutes to get back before the late night marathon starts. Think we can make it without getting too soaked?”

“That’s a problem for future Jean!” Mel said, grabbing a handful of her snacks and stuffing them in her pockets as she bolted out the door, the metallic ring of the doorbell growing fainter as the rain washed over her.

“Hey, come back!” Jean cried, “you didn’t take all your crap!”

“Can’t hear you, too busy winning!” Mel called back, her voice already faint.

“Winning?!” Jean said, stuffing the rest of her snacks into her overflowing pockets. “Oh you’ve done it now…”

After an experimental shake to make sure the snacks wouldn’t fall out of her pockets, she sprinted out the door after Mel, nearly sliding onto the sidewalk as she picked up a good speed to nearly overtake her friend, picking up her own pace with a cartoonish yelp. They ran off as such; a couple of carefree kids screaming and laughing all the way as the evening faded into night.