As mentioned in a previous entry, I recently self-published my novel, Dr. Teen. Read the first section below and visit the book’s Amazon entry to learn more.

Part I. June

At the supermarket, Errol has discovered a trick that would lose the store manager his shirt if everyone knew about it. It involves raisins. 

There are “name brand” raisins: your Sunmaid, your Newman’s Own, a few gourmet brands with less market saturation. Then there are the generics: Cub Foods brand, ValuTime. These come in boxes and cylinders, which should tell you something right off the bat. With the name raisins you’re paying for the marketing and such, but even with these cheapo raisins you are still paying for the packaging they come in.

Eliminate both categories right off the top. Those raisins are strictly for suckers.

It is mid-morning on a weekday. Just housewives and Errol Gropp here in the supermarket.

Forget the boxed raisins and head over to the dry-goods section, where you can scoop your own couscous, nuts, granola, etc. Raisins here are $7.99 a pound. It seems steep, but that is markedly cheaper than boxed raisins, which go for over $10 per pound if you bother to do the math. 

Seems like a good deal. But hold on.

At the salad bar, Errol has noticed, you can sprinkle your salad with sunflower seeds, crumbled pecans, wasabi peas, wonton noodles, and the like from pourable plastic containers sitting above the sneeze guard. 

Among these miscellaneous salad toppings: raisins.

The salad bar costs $6.50 per pound. That’s a significant savings!

Errol is there today, pouring raisins into a plastic container, and regarding his reflection in the sneeze guard. Dark mustache, medium height, body mostly trim still. He’s turning slightly, looking at a slight paunch that is forming around his midsection, when someone behind him says,

“Mr. Gropp?”

He turns, and his whole body tenses.

“Carmen—how are you?”

Summer’s just barely begun but already the sun has brought a spray of freckles out against her cheeks. She looks just the same as the last time Errol saw her, nearly three years ago now.

“Doing well, Mr. Gropp. And yourself?”

She’s pleasantly unkempt in faded denim overalls cut off at her knees, where a little boy with white-blond hair clings, hiding his face.

“And who have we here? One of your charges?”

“This is Hunter,” Carmen says, cupping the boy’s head. “He’s actually, well, he’s my son, if you can believe that. Which no one ever does, on account of his hair.”

“Ah,” Errol says. “My mistake. I didn’t know you were—well, congratulations, first thing. I didn’t know you were expecting, or married, or—not that you have to be married, of course.”

To his relief, Carmen laughs. He was always so damned awkward around her. Shelly used to tease him about it. Addled by all those cliches about married men sleeping with the babysitter—as if he’d make one false move, accidentally charm her, and she’d be all over him. Ridiculous. Carmen always had such a gentle, laughing, sympathetic energy, as if she never noticed a thing. Hunter’s eyes peer out at him for a moment, then vanish.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” she says, her nose crinkling pleasantly as she nods past him to the salad bar, “what do we have here?”

“Oh, this?” Errol regards himself, the plastic container of raisins. “Yes, I guess this looks a little odd, doesn’t it?”

“I mean—a little.” That beautiful, unself-conscious laugh! He hasn’t heard it in ages.

“It is pretty weird, I’ll admit it. But Carmen, I think I’ve discovered what you’d call a market inefficiency. Raisins here are much cheaper than the ones that come in boxes. There’s no comparison.”

“Ah.”

“But, look,” Errol says, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. Trying to make a joke out of it, to be on the right side of the joke. “Keep it under your hat, if you would. Too many people get wind of this, they’re liable to catch on.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, Mr. Gropp.” She peers around suspiciously and grins. “Andy considers himself a savvy shopper, but this is going to blow him away.”

Andy. Errol remembers him now, the big golden retriever of a boyfriend who came by the house a few times to pick Carmen up after her shifts ended. Strong handshake, goofy buck teeth, and Hunter’s same Midwestern corn-silk hair. 

“It’s stupid, really,” Errol says. “I know it is. I suppose this is how it starts, turning into an old eccentric.”

“I’m glad I ran into you,” Carmen says. “I saw the For Sale sign in front of the house a while ago and I wondered if you were leaving town.”

“No, no. Just moved. Little apartment by the highway. Mortgage gets pretty steep when you’re pulling the weight on your own.”

“And did I see that a dentist is in there now?”

An orthodontist, Errol says, and rocks on the balls of his feet. All those years in there trying to make teenagers relax, let go of their neuroses, he says, and now an orthodontist is in there, tormenting them, creating new neuroses.

Carmen laughs, more exuberantly than the joke deserves.

Yes, Errol goes on, he’s here, he’s rooted to Weymouth. In fact he’s starting a new job next week, a terrific firm down in Rockford, across the Illinois state line, counseling adolescents. And of course the summer means he gets to go on the radio up at Weymouth College.

“That’s right, I remember you doing that,” Carmen says, squinting at the vague recollection. “Your show had a funny name, didn’t it?”

“‘What’s It All About, Dr. Teen?’” he says, laughing gently. “I forgot, Carmen, you were around the first summer I did it. Very cool program, letting us townies go up to their precious ivory tower and get our paws all over their equipment. And somehow they haven’t changed their minds yet.”

“I love it,” Carmen says. “And you’ve kept up with it, which is so wonderful.”

“Yes, it should be starting soon,” Errol says. Through the long winter and the wet spring, Errol’s been looking forward to getting back up to the station. The smell of all that electricity, the tight pressure of the headphones cupping his ears. The scratch of the needle hitting the record, the touch of the control panel as he put a caller on the air and tinkered with the volume.

“In fact,” he says, “as soon as I’m finished here I’m going to give the student managers a call. The broadcast season starts next week but I haven’t a clue the day or time of my show. Just a small detail, you know.”

Carmen laughs. “I’ll have to tune in.”

“Anyway, nothing’s standing in the way of my becoming one of those old-timers you see around Weymouth,” Errol says. “Old white-haired guy riding a recumbent bike, hollering at buses. Railing against zoning laws at the township meetings. Or hopefully something more charming than that. Feeding ducks on the river, or giving ghost tours.”

“Or buying up tons and tons of raisins?”

Errol laughs. “Or hoarding raisins, yes.”

“You could make carrot cake,” she says, “Or—”

But Hunter is tugging at Carmen’s arm. She gently chides him. “Mommy’s talking to an old friend, baby,” she says, then turns to Errol. “He wants to see the lobsters in their tank.”

“Can’t blame him. How old are you, big boy? Two, two and a half?”

“That’s right. He’ll be three in November. Time is flying.”

“I’ll bet.” Errol smiles at her.

“I had a nice card from Shelly the other week.”

Errol nods, and looks past Carmen at a bundle of balloons a store employee is carrying through the produce section. A butterfly, a badger, a yellow Big Bird. He makes himself look back at her and smile.

“Is that right?” Errol asks. “We talk every so often but it’s been a while. I did know about her getting remarried.”

“And she has a cool-sounding job with a school district out there. I guess she was just promoted.”

“That was quick,” Errol says. “With the promotion, I mean.”

Hunter tugs at Carmen’s arm. He’s pointing at a balloon that’s escaped the employee’s grasp and floated up to the ceiling. It’s Big Bird.

“Uh oh,” Errol says. “Somebody got away. That bird has flown.”

“I want you to know that Andy and I pray for you,” Carmen says. “You’re on our list.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Some employees have gathered to look up at the yellow balloon, their hands on their hips. An invisible current rustles the mylar. “Thank you, Carmen. Your kindness is appreciated and very kind.”

“I’m sorry, I hope I’m not embarrassing you by saying that.”

“Thank you. No, not at all. Thank you.”