It’s my turn to go to Mr. Zeigler’s delicatessen. We only go there when we need groceries on credit. I always peek in through the glass door first to see if Zeigler has customers. If he has a lot, I wait outside with Mama’s note clenched in my fist, my hands dug into my coat pockets. Tonight it’s cold and I give up waiting for the right moment. I plunge in, head down, stomach knotted.
Mr. Zeigler’s meat case is unreasonably high. Coins slip out of hands, clinking against the metal countertop and sliding down the glass front of the showcase of kosher cold cuts and German potato salads. I reach up as close to the top of the counter as I can, straining to keep my balance and my dignity. Zeigler takes the note and clucks his tongue. He knows me, knows what my note will say.
Zeigler fetches the items, muttering and complaining the whole time, handling the things roughly, his hands raw and red from the cold meats. He grumbles louder whenever my mother puts cupcakes on the list, something really not needed. My sister Irene hates when Mama asks for cupcakes. She feels the same way Zeigler does about them because she knows we need cereal and bread more than sweets.
Zeigler finally takes a heavy paper bag, leans over the counter, and begins working his figures, the skinny stub of a pencil lost in the pads of his thick fingers. Its squared point makes dark noisy numbers against the coarse paper, and for a time that’s the only sound in the store—that and his muttering.
But then the entrance bell tinkles. It’s Beth Colasurdo and her father. Beth is in fourth grade with me at school, although I’m not sure she knows it. She never says hello, never even looks at me. They come to the counter just as Zeigler is about to get his account book. The book has a place on one of the highest shelves. He brings it down in a great fanfare of getting and reaching in step to a soliloquy that bemoans deceitful deadbeats and the thankless work of grocership and the proper way they did things in the old country. Beth watches him. There sits this dusty courthouse of a book and the pathetic collection of ingredients for our supper tonight, and she looks at me as if this must be some strange, sordid transaction.
Mr. Zeigler turns the cracked yellowing pages until he comes to McGuigan. He takes his time entering the figures into the ledger. As usual, he reads me the new total and reminds me to be sure to tell my mother how large it’s getting. “I can’t run this store on charity, you know,” he croaks. “You people think you got everything coming to you. Well, that’s not the way it is for the rest of us. The rest of us have to pay our way.”
“Yes, Mr. Zeigler,” I say. He likes kids polite, and I’m hungry.
I can see Mr. Colasurdo is embarrassed. He takes Beth to the back of the store and pretends to look for some cereal. I watch them as Zeigler packs the groceries. It seems like they have important things to say to each other, funny things too, because Beth laughs when he looks down at her. When she steps away from him to look at something, he notices the hem of her coat is up in the back, so he reaches down and fixes it for her. I can tell he probably does that sort of thing all the time, because Beth doesn’t even notice.
Mary Ann McGuigan’s creative nonfiction has appeared in Brevity, X-R-A-Y, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. The Sun, Massachusetts Review, North American Review, and many other journals have published her fiction. Her collection Pieces includes stories named for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net; her new story collection, That Very Place, reaches bookstores in 2025. The Junior Library Guild and the New York Public Library rank Mary Ann’s novels as best books for teens; Where You Belong was a finalist for the National Book Award. She loves visitors: www.maryannmcguigan.com.
Lost Balloon 