The First Encounter

“Carrots, milk, and….ah, there’s the bread.”

I look over my list again. Yep, looks good. Just as I get ready to leave, I overhear a loud voice from the next aisle over. Curiosity gets the better of me as I poke my head past a shelf full of cookies and take in the sight before me.

There’s a dark-haired girl with messy hair yelling into her phone. She’s standing in front of the candy aisle with a look of pure frustration.

“I already told you, they’re out of rock candy!” she yells.

I can’t quite make out the voice on the other end – but whatever they say, it seems to frustrate the girl even more.

“Listen, you should be happy I’m bothering to get you any candy at all! There are other candies, just pick another one!”

Ah, this conversation sounds familiar. I just had a similar one with my younger siblings a few minutes ago. My heart goes out to this poor, disgruntled stranger.

“Milk? Ugh, I don’t know where the milk is! Are you sure we need it?!”

The girl begins to frantically look around before her eyes land on me… then trails down to my cart, where a fresh jug of milk sits. I stiffen as she makes a beeline for me.

“Hi there! Where’d you get that milk?”

I’m initially taken aback by how forward she is, but recover quickly. Or, at least, I hope I did.

“It’s about three aisles down to your left.”

“Oh, perfect, thanks! You’re a lifesaver!”

She pauses, frowns, then starts yelling into her phone again.

“No, not you! I wasn’t talking to you!” she then promptly shuts her phone off.

“Sounds like you have your hands full,” I say.

“Oh, you don’t even know the half of it. Honestly, they should be happy that I went out of my way to go grocery shopping for them at all.”

I look over to her cart and notice for the first time that it’s filled to the brim with snacks, with a few healthier options tossed in.

”I’ll bet. That’s a lot of food. You must have a big family.”

“Uh… Yeah, I guess you could say that?”

There’s a pause before the girl, as if suddenly making up her mind, thrusts her hand towards me.

“Thanks for your help!” she smiles. “My name’s Vega, by the way.”

I shake the offered hand, then notice that she’s looking at me with an expectant gaze. Ah, right, she’s probably waiting for me to introduce myself too.

It should probably be fine. She seems nice enough.

“My name’s Altair. Nice to meet you too.”

“Altair, that’s a pretty unique name. Say, do you —“

Suddenly, both of our phones start ringing at the same time.

“Uh, sorry, I need to —“ we both say in perfect unison. The timing is so perfect that we both can’t help but laugh.

“Sorry,” I say after recovering first, “it’s my little sister.”

Vega nods. “Uh, yeah, I have my, erm, brother on this line. I guess I’ll see you around?”

I nod and answer my phone. This town isn’t particularly small, so I doubt I’ll see her again so soon, but hey, weirder things have happened.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Not even a week goes by before our second meeting. It’s in a hardware store and Vega is, once again, screaming into her phone. I’m just about done with my errands, so I decide to say hi, but Vega notices me before I can even get the chance to make my presence known.

“Oh, Altair! Fancy seeing you here!”

“I could say the same. We've got to stop meeting like this.”

My gaze drifts to her shopping cart, which is once again filled to the brim, but instead of snacks, it’s filled with an assortment of building materials. I try to gauge what she could possibly be planning to build with all of that but come up empty. I look back at Vega, whose expression has turned sheepish.

“Shopping for your family again?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“That’s… a lot. You planning to build a house or something?”

“More like a weapon.”

….What?

Vega seems to catch herself as she lets out an awkward laugh.

“Kidding, kidding! It’s a joke! My, erm, siblings have this big project for school.”

“Oh, for the science fair?”

Vega’s face lights up. “Yes, that’s it!”

“Huh, no kidding. This stuff here —“ I gesture to the more humble findings in my cart. “They’re for my brother’s science fair, too.”

“Wow, what coincidence!” Vegas starts to lean against the shelf, and it’s then that I notice how tall she is.

She’s probably at least ten centimeters taller than me.

“So, do you come here often?”

I raise a questioning eyebrow. “To… the hardware store?”

There’s a pause, and I almost feel bad for what I said. The poor girl was just trying to start a conversation, I probably should have been more receptive.

She starts fumbling for words as a blush spreads across her face.

“Ha ha, of course not. That was weird, uh, I guess I should —“

“I don’t come to the hardware store often. I’m more of a software kind of guy.”

Wow, now it’s my turn to blush. I can feel my face start to heat up as soon as the words leave my mouth. But then Vega starts laughing, and I feel the blush on my face start to die down. Yeah, that makes it worth the embarrassment.

“Well, I guess I know who to call if I ever have any issues with my computer.”

Then she pauses as her eyes start to grow wide. She looks back at her phone, as if panicked, before tentatively placing it to her ear.

“Please tell me you’re not still on the line.”

With our closer proximity, I can hear the voice on the other line a bit better this time. It’s an older female voice. Huh, I thought for sure that Vega was the oldest in her family. She just exudes oldest child energy.

“Okay, I’ll say that I’m not still on the line.”

Vega’s expressions seem to shift to all five stages of grief

“Hey, boss,” the voice begins, “is that the guy you’ve been talking abou-“

Vega abruptly ends the call and stuffs the phone in her pocket. It vibrates again, but she ignores it until it stops, flashing me a practiced, serene smile the entire time.

“Um…”

She smiles and waves her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it! Just a meddling old auntie!”

“An auntie…that calls you Boss?”

“It’s a nickname,” she says without missing a beat.

You know what? I’ll buy it. I’ve had my fair share of weird nicknames too.

“Anyway,” Vega says, “do you have any other plans after you’re done here?”

“Not at the moment. Why do you ask?”

Vega grins and she opens her mouth to say something, but then her phone vibrates again.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!”

She takes out her phone and frowns.

“Ugh, it looks like I have plans now. These guys couldn’t have waited for a couple more hours?!”

Wow, she must have really wanted to hang out. I take out my phone and offer to exchange numbers. I normally don’t do this with people I’ve just met, but she seems new around here and she could probably use a friend. She seems grateful enough for it and we promise to get into contact again once we’re both free.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

As I exit the hardware store, I get a phone call. I heave a heavy sigh once I see the familiar caller ID.

“I’m supposed to be on vacation right now.”

“Sorry, but we need you now.”

“This better be a quick one.”

My old mentor lets out soft chuckle, and even though I can’t see her, I can already imagine a teasing smile gracing her wrinkled face.

“I’m sure you’ll make it work. I’m sending you the mission brief now.”

I wait until I’m back in my car, away from prying eyes, to check my back-up phone. There’s a new message with the mission briefing, as promised. It’s pretty standard, and I find myself wondering why they went out of their way to request me for it… Until I see the photo of the target.

“Vega?”