Chapter Text
The shopping trip was supposed to take five minutes, tops, but as he went through the aisles of the Ralphs, Steve Carlsberg found himself grabbing impulsively at flashy food-stuffs. ‘It’s all marketing’, he told himself as he grabbed a particularly fancy box of Gogurt; ‘They set it up so you feel like you gotta have all this stuff. ’ He wished the clever marketing tactics didn’t work on him, but he was only human. With a basket settled in the crook of his elbow, Steve picked out a box of Flakey-Os to finish out his shopping- the only item he’d entered the store intent on buying- and took his spot in line. Before too long, Steve piled up the contents of his basket onto the counter, a dull ding echoing after each item was scanned and put into a bag.
“That’ll be 25 even.” A teenage cashier informed Steve, tapping at his register while he watched Steve reach for his wallet, only to pause.
Patting himself down, Steve let out a deep sigh at the realization that he was without his wallet, reluctantly left on the floorboard of his Corolla. His hands dived into his pockets and all he could summon from them was a crumpled up twenty.
“This is all I got,” he chuckled shakily to the unimpressed cashier, who simply sighed and took it as Steve tried to find up more money. He glanced through his items, trying to hurry and remember just how much all the junk he bought was labeled as. “... Could I put some stuff back?“
Before the cashier could muster another sigh, a quiet voice behind Steve chimed out, “There’s no sense in that. Here.”
A brown, freckled hand appeared in his peripheral, and he blinked as a five-dollar bill was waved towards him. He followed the hand up to a bare forearm, with a sleeve bunched up at an elbow. The same warm freckles dotted the arm, and then the face he finally reached. Four eyes blinked back at him; a left eye sat in its common position, and a right eye mirrored it, but below the right eye rested an extra, and another beneath that. Her strong nose lead down to her lips, held in an awkward smile as she tried to pretend Steve wasn’t staring. The bill was waved once again. Steve let out an odd gulp and took it gingerly; his fingertips tingled as they brushed against the strangers.
“Thanks! I’ll, uh, I’ll pay ya back!” Steve said. He felt so loud as if everyone in the Ralphs could hear just him and his booming, weird voice.
“You don’t have to?” The woman said a light laugh peppered into the end of her words that made Steve’s hand, oddly enough, tingle again. “It’s just five dollars.”
“Well, I’m not gonna just let you loan me some money without paying you back!” He added in his own laugh, a row rumble compared to hers. A fainter, less strained smile settled on her face. Steve matched back with a grin he swore looked more oddly intimidating than endearingly inviting.
“It’s not a loan?” She traded her basket off between her hands idly. “A gift, I guess. Think of it as a gift.”
“Still, I owe ya!” Steve finally handed the bill over to the cashier, who shoved it in his register and handed Steve a receipt. Stepping forward, Steve lingered by the bagger as the woman stepped out with her own basket. He could’ve sworn he knew her from somewhere; she was familiar in a way that was so strange for Nightvale. She was not a looming, ever-present threat; she was just a face he swore he’d seen before. His mind went down a list of places he thought she matched to, and he paused at the image of her with much longer hair, younger features, and a book bag slung on her shoulder.
“Abby Palmer!” Steve clapped, and Abby jumped a bit at the pop. The bagger sighed in unison with her cashier associate, shared a glance, then went back to their work. “You went to Night Vale High?”
“Yes…?” She blinked, slipping a card from her pocket and handing it over to the cashier, who returned it paired with her receipt a moment later. Staring her card, she gasped and shot a look back up to Steve. “Steve Carlsberg?”
“That’s me!”
“So Steve Carlsberg owes me money, huh?” Abby said, taking up her groceries and throwing a ‘you too’ in response to the cashier and bagger’s telling her to ‘have a good one’. Steve only laughed as he followed behind her, his own bags hanging freely in his hands.
“I guess he does. And I owe Abby Palmer five bucks!”
“I guess you do.” She hummed, pausing at a red SUV. In an awkward shuffle, she tried to wrestle her keys from her pocket, grumbling lightly. Steve held a hand out, and Abby surrendered the bags on her left arm so she could pop the trunk. Once they had everything thrown in, Abby turned back to Steve. “Give me your receipt.”
He did so with no question, only a slight confusion plastered to his face. She scribbled some numbers onto the paper, then added her name above with an underline.
“My number,” she informed him and slid the folded paper into his shirt pocket. “So you can let me know when you can get that five back to me.”
“Oh!” he laughed. He patted the pocket. “Would… you like mine too?”
“Yes,” she handed her own receipt and pen to him. She cleared her throat with a cough. “Just so I know it’s you, and not threatening calls from the DMV or anything.”
“Yeah, I’ve been getting those too. Spam calls are weird!” Steve clicked the pen closed and handed the receipt back over.
“I know,” Abby said softly, pocketing the pen and paper. “The DMV stopped taking blood as a fine payment option months ago. Someone should let those scammers know.”
“Yeah, poor guys aren’t gonna trick anyone with that shtick!”
“Nope,” she chuckled. Her keys clicked together as she fiddled with them. “... Well. Have a good one, Steve. I look forward to getting that five back.”
“I look forward to gettin’ it back to you!” Steve called out, making his way to his Tan Corolla on the other side of the parking lot. “Have a good one, Abby! Bye!” he waved with his whole arm while her hand waved back gently, and then Steve was sat in his car, staring at his dash.
‘It was always nice to see a familiar face’, Steve thought as he ran his hands up and down the wheel. The receipt in his pocket felt as if it was dragging him to the floorboard, and it made his chest warm. He pulled it out and stared. It hadn’t changed since it was given back to him. It was still a group of numbers with a name labeled at the top, but Steve could help but smile to himself widely as he repeated the number in his head.
When Abby Palmer returned to her home, she held her bags close to her chest. The back of her head itched, a nervous feeling manifested as a physical annoyance. She had no idea what pushed her to so willingly give anyone her number, especially Steve Carlsberg . Steve Carlsberg, who still filled holes in conversation with laughs and still had the warmest smile of anyone in Night Vale. Steve Carlsberg, whose number was resting in her jeans pocket as if it were nothing. The sound of a faint giggle further into the house pulled her from her own mind, and she abandoned the bags on the table to follow the sound.
Abby smiled as she saw Cecil shaking a stuffed spider in front of Janice, who roared with laughter every time she saw the plush. Janice sat up by herself, and Abby didn’t know if that was typical for nine-month-olds, but after all her baby had been through, Abby considered everything Janice did right on schedule.
“I didn’t hear you come in,” Cecil said, handing the spider over to Janice and rising. “How was the shopping?”
“Fine. The line at Ralphs wasn’t too bad.” Abby took his place on the floor, where Janice clumsily showed off the spider. “How was Janice?”
“A delight as always!” her brother cooed, fluffing Janice’s hair. He slipped his shoes on and fluffed Abby’s hair too, only Abby grumbled and swatted the hand away while Janice was still giggling. “And now, reluctantly, I must take my leave. Take care, you two.”
“We will. Be safe driving home, Cece.”
“Don’t call me that,” Cecil warned with a huff. “I’ll be as careful as I can be. Bye.”
“Bye.” When Abby heard the door click, she took Janice in her arms and gave her a big kiss on the forehead. “Now, I have so much to catch you up on.”
Abby carried Janice into the kitchen and sat her in her highchair, a blue owl-patterned seat with a surprisingly low number of stains. Placing a bowl of Cheerios on the tray, Abby let Janice eat while she put food away and rambled. She never intended to use her baby as a tiny diary, but it was easier than writing it all down. Seeing the smiling face of her daughter as opposed to a hardback book was another plus to just speaking out loud.
“So,” Abby sighed, sliding a can into its place, “You’ll never guess who I saw in the store. Steve! Steve Carlsberg! You don’t know how he is, but he’s nice, I promise. At least, I remember him being nice. I bet he’s still nice,” She felt a thump in her chest and put the bread in the bread box, then put that into the bread cage. “So we kept talking, and usually I hate talking to people in public, but it felt alright with him. He just makes things feel easy, but also makes them so complicated. Or, maybe that’s me. Am I making things complicated?” Abby asked Janice, who had thrown half her Cheerios on the floor and babbled incoherently back to her mother.
“I can’t help it! I just feel flustered around him. And then, oh, then , I gave him my number in the parking lot. And he gave me his! So I think we’re friends? Oh, We haven’t even spoken since junior year, and he held my bags and talked with me and gave me his number !”
Abby bunched up all her empty plastic bags and put them in a loose drawer, then crouched in front of Janice.
“I think I still like him. But I also thought…” She sighed, and let the words hang while she pushed dark curls behind her daughter’s ears. She wouldn’t say it out loud, not to Janice, but Abby had also thought her ex was a nice person, only to be proven horrifically wrong. She shook the thought from her mind; she could let anger fester later. Abby wanted to live in the frame of mind that maybe Steve liked her too, and nothing bad would ever happen again to her or Janice. She knew the latter was impossible, but the former still held its weight.
“... Blink once if you think he’ll call.”
Janice blinked, once, and Abby heard the chime of her phone from the living room. Abby stood quickly and answered as fast as her hands would let her.
“Hello?” she whispered, busying herself with hand-feeding Janice Cheerios.
“It’s Steve Carlsberg! Uh, I can pay you back tomorrow, do you mind stopping by my work to grab the money? You can just go to the counter!”
“I don’t mind at all, but you have to let me know where you work first.”
“Oh, whoops!” his laugh scratched against her speaker. “Last Bank of Night Vale, just go up to window 7 at about noon!”
Abby smiled, and Janice smiled, and Abby smiled wider. “I'll be there.”
“Great! See you then!”
“Talk to you later,” Abby said softly, hanging up. “... I‘m not going to rush into this. I'll run for a minute, then I’ll just go and let whenever will happen, happen. We’re just friends.” She assured Janice, holding her daughter’s hand in her own. She kissed the bundle of hands lightly and put them to her forehead. “But I hope he likes you, when and if he meets you at all.”