Canned Strawberries

By Windy Lynn Harris

Kim stood in aisle seven of the giant grocery store and groaned. Coming to the mega-store was supposed to make her shopping trip quick and easy, far simpler than shopping at the small organic grocer near her apartment on Shale Street had become, but standing in the seventh row of prepackaged fruits and vegetables, Kim was stumped.

She blamed Jake, the man who got her hooked on the obscure brand of organic canned strawberries that she was unable to find in this uber-large grocery store whose sign promised that they carried “everything you need in one stop.” Not everything, Kim thought as she scanned the bottom shelf for any sign of the yellow label she had come to love.

Kim had laughed the first time Jake handed her the now-familiar can of strawberry deliciousness. “I can’t believe you sell this here,” she had said, rolling the can in her hands. Walking into Jake’s family owned grocery store was an accident. Kim, desperate to recreate a recipe that would remind her of home, had stumbled into the small store looking for fresh strawberries. What she found was something much better.

Jake’s eyes were the exact shade of blue as the walls of her childhood bedroom, but he was far more handsome than any of faces in the posters that hung there years ago. When he smiled, she had a new definition of perfection:  slightly messy sandy-brown hair and smile dimples deeper than the Grand Canyon.

“They’re organically grown,” he’d said pointing to the fancy script across the bottom of the can’s label. He smiled convincingly and smelled like eucalyptus.

“But they’re in a can,” she’d told him, “I need fresh strawberries.” Kim’s mother had always used fresh local ingredients for her blue-ribbon winning strawberry rhubarb pie, and Kim refused to believe that a tin can could be any-kind-of-ribbon worthy.

“Uh, you missed the season by about five months,” Jake’s dimples, though distracting in a fabulous way, couldn’t soothe Kim’s need. She missed her dog, she missed her friends, and she missed her mother’s cooking.

“But I need them,” she said. She hoped he would stand closer.

Jake looked at her then, right straight into her eyes. She could feel him read her emotions as clearly as the fancy script on a can. “New to the city?”

Kim tensed, not wanting to be judged and categorized as some small town girl still new to the big city, when of course, that is exactly who she was. Not that he needed to know that.

“I’ve been here a while.”

“Two months, tops,” he said nodding.

Perhaps hoping for fresh strawberries on the streets of Seattle in November was what gave her away, but she didn’t want him to know he’d been right. He and his fabulous dimples looked like they were enjoying themselves far too much for that. “You don’t know anything about me,” Kim said. She’d crossed her arms then, challenging him to guess again.

“I do know something about you,” he said slowly, “I know that you could use one of my special wheatgrass lattes.” He smiled shyly then, leaning his body just a little closer. How was she going to say no to that?

“Is the grass from a can?” Kim couldn’t help but tease him. She felt a distance close between them with each breath.

“Fresh cut,” he said. She wanted to bite one of those perfect little dimples.

Jake’s special wheatgrass drink turned out to be a murky green liquid, something she wouldn’t have sipped on a dare only a few months earlier, but living 300 miles from home had given Kim a new sense of adventure. Selecting a metropolitan city for her first real job out of college was only the first step. Besides, after watching Jake meticulously prepare two identical drinks, she felt obligated to lift the glass to her lips and try it.

“Mmmmmm,” she said nodding.

“You hate it.”

“No, really. It’s refreshing.” Kim looked into her glass of liquified grass and wondered how many sips she would have to take before she could politely set it down and ignore it for the rest of her life.

“It’s kind of an acquired taste,” Jake said, “but it is packed with vitamins.” He talked for a few minutes about the health benefits of his grassy concoction, but Kim didn’t hear him. She was too busy watching his mouth form each and every word.

It was only when his lips stayed still for a moment that she realized he had asked her a question. She studied the expression on his face and nodded. For all she knew, she had just agreed to drink on of those horrible green lattes every day for a year, but it didn’t matter. Her nod had him smiling again, and the dimples were back.

“So you’ll try them?”

“Um, yep.” Kim started to panic, maybe she really would be drinking grass again soon.

“How many will you need?”

Kim blinked. “Just the one.” She glanced at the green gunk and swallowed hard.

Jake left her side and came back with one can of organically grown strawberries. Whew, she thought. Kim studied the small can. It wasn’t nearly enough for her recipe, but she left the shop with a small grocery bag in one hand and her wheatgrass latte in the other, lifting her glass in a “cheers” pantomime at the door.

Kim set her purchase on the small kitchen counter when she got home.  No longer set on baking a pie, she opened the lid, sniffed its contents, and plucked one plump strawberry from the top. When she popped it into her mouth it was heavenly.

Each strawberry she ate was better than the next, perfectly formed and deliciously sweet. Kim detected a hint of mint and smiled. It was her mother’s blue-ribbon winning secret ingredient. By the time she arrived at the small organic grocer the next day, she had a legitimate excuse for her return:  Kim was hooked on the organically grown strawberries in the little yellow can.

Although she found her favorite new snack right where she had the day before, Kim saw no sign of Jake. She bought one can of strawberries from the man behind the counter, who she could only assume was Jake’s father, a handsome older version of his son. Kim planned a return visit the next day. She would need more strawberries, she was sure, and the disappointment of not seeing Jake was hard to ignore.

The next day Kim stood at the check-out counter buying one more can of strawberries from Jake’s father. And again the day after that. Although Kim was treated to kind smiles and even a few jokes while shopping, she always left with a heavy sigh. Her only consolation was the delicious strawberry snack she ate each night. She’d spent a week buying one small can at a time until, on Saturday morning, the shelf was empty.

Which, Kim decided, was her cue to give up trying to run into Jake at his store. She didn’t know if he worked there full-time and hadn’t had the guts to ask his father. Jake could have moved for all she knew. Why was she trying so hard? But giving up the plan to see Jake again didn’t solve her strawberry problem. Kim had looked forward to dumping an entire can over a bowl of vanilla ice cream all day, which was why she was pouting in the seventh aisle of a gigantic grocery store on this particular Saturday night.

Kim finally spotted the tiny bar-coded item ticket that listed the name of her beloved fruit snack. Unfortunately, it was in front of a giant empty shelf. Kim’s lips pursed as she let out a deep breath. No strawberries, no snack, no dimples. She walked to the front of the store empty-handed.

That’s when she saw him, the sandy-haired organic grocer’s son, paying at a register near the exit. Her stomach tightened and she wondered if he would recognizer her, or if he would even remember her. Before she could walk past, he looked up and saw her. Their eyes met with a deep smile from each, and she stopped to wait for him.

“Cheating on me?” he asked with mock surprise. “I thought you only shopped with us.”

“You were out of what I wanted,” she said. It was as much about the strawberries as the man. Kim swallowed hard.

“I was in Oregon for the week,” he said slowly, “but I wish I’d been here.”

Kim wondered how he knew she’d ever returned, then pictured Jake’s father telling his son she had come in every single day. Her cheeks burned. She knew Jake saw it, those dimples were back. He was enjoying this.

Kim tried to keep the giant smile building inside her from showing on her face. She looked around the store as she spoke, “So, you’ve been gone for a week and your first stop is at someone else’s grocery store?”

“Well, I had a plan.”

“Plan?”

Jake leaned the paper bag in his arms forward enough to expose the groceries inside. The top layer revealed a jumble of yellow labeled cans, probably the entire stock if she’d had to guess. “My dad thinks you are addicted to these things,” he said smiling, “and I was hoping he was right.”

Her cheeks flamed again. Did the cutest grocer’s son in America shop a mega-competitor just to keep her coming back? Kim could feel every beat of her heart. “I can’t get enough of them,” she said looking up at him.

Kim was so distracted by those deep smile dimples that she didn’t realize he was going to kiss her, until he did.

Delicious, she thought, even better than strawberries.

  About the Author:  Windy Lynn Harris

Freelance writer Windy Lynn Harris lives in sunny Phoenix with a husband, two kids, and the world's neediest dog. Visit her at www.windylynnharris.com to see what she's up to next and link over to The Backstory Cafe Blog where her fictional characters come to hang out after a hard day in her office.