Remedies

Rita wakes up one morning with an itching burning feminine issue. Rather then say anything to her husband or teenage son, she goes directly to Google and begins typing in search words before breakfast. One product that sounds promising is listed with zip code based locations that includes her local health food store. Although Rita would prefer that the product arrive via mail or UPS in a plain brown box, she does not want to wait five to ten business days or pay extra for overnight delivery. Discomfort tells her not to wait that long. After her family leaves for school and work, Rita hops in the car with her feminine solution written on a piece of paper.


Although Rita prefers more privacy, she feels confident that a woman will be in the body care department of the health food store because this is her regular health food store and she knows women are always in the body care department.

Rita, who likes to arrange her closet by color, sometimes thinks of the thirtyish woman often working in the body care department who, as far as Rita has been able to tell, has worn only black for years. The only contrast in her appearance is that one side of her head is shaved displaying a heavy metal ear with a light metal nostril, while the other half of her head is covered by a thick lock of straight black hair. In response to Rita's question about the nontoxic gray cover-ups she had explained, in a kind soft voice, the hair products in terms of ingredients and how they might work on someone's gray roots.

“And, if it makes you feel any better,” the tall bony woman shrouded in black had said from above the top of Rita's head, “I don't see any gray.”

Rita remembered feeling tongue tied as though she were being mocked for wanting to cover her gray roots although the woman speaking to her clearly dyed her own hair black but maybe not to cover gray.

Rita thinks of another woman working in the body care department who is about Rita's age with gray streaks that shine like highlights in her vibrant long hair. When Rita had asked her once about cold remedies to enable Rita's teenage son to play more comfortably in his school basketball game, the gray streaked woman's eyes shone with the knowledge that she was connected to something spiritual that sustained her well enough to eliminate any negative focus on menopause whatsoever. She had coasted to the natural cold remedies as though she practiced yoga every day and never put anything in her body that was in any way disruptive to her well being. Homeopathic and herbal cold remedies were described to Rita in the clear confident voice of someone who has achieved harmony with the universe.

Rita feels somewhat comforted, as she parks the car, thinking about the possibility of familiar faces in body care. There is a young woman there who simply looks like a college student. She is talking to an equally young man with short multihued hair and a fitted shirt. She leaves the counter and he stays. Rita realizes it's a Saturday with a weekend staff. Pulling the piece of paper out of her pocket, she looks at the name of the product needed for her feminine problem, and decides to search the shelves of remedies without asking the young man behind the counter who is safely looking down at something as though he's reading. Rita wonders if he's entirely comfortable working in body care.

Then, Rita becomes hungry enough to forget the whole thing and walk over to the deli where they're serving her favorite Italian vegetable soup with multigrain rolls. Sitting at the counter, facing the wall with her soup, Rita butters her roll and notices a man sitting next to her and drawing. He's gray and balding and wearing a blue striped polo shirt covering a stocky frame. His empty plate is pushed to the side and he's sipping a clear glass of tea.

He stops drawing, turns toward Rita with a reddish ruddy face and explains the figures in his drawings, “yoga postures.”

“Are you an artist?” Rita utters without having time to think.

“I don't have an artistic bone in my body. I took a figure drawing class in college and understand enough to create these drawings for my students.”

“You're a yoga teacher.”

“Wrong again. I lead a basic class for the company employees once per week. My wife is a real yoga teacher and she got me into it enough. It's really improved my tennis game.”

“Who are the company employees?”

“Mostly sales people. Our product is wine.” He flips the pages on his drawing pad and shows Rita some accurate drawings of wine bottles. Each bottle has a description with a list of stores and contacts.

“Can't you just print these off the computer if you need a hard copy?” Rita notices that each label contains a lot of detail.

“I only draw the top ten sellers rewriting the descriptions based on feedback.”

Rita focused her attention on a label showing the many action lines of a flamenco dancer. “You really enjoy penciling in the details.”

“Excellent Spanish wine.”

“You are an artist.”

“Just the basic college class. Art 101. You should try it.”

Rita reflects back on teaching second grade for a few years before having a baby. Using so many visuals with the children, s­he had considered taking an art class at the time.

“Would you like to see some of the real bottles.”

Rita weighs down her hand basket with the thirty-four ninety-nine bottle of flamenco decorated Spanish wine even though she only buys wine for guests and only spends ten to fifteen dollars usually.

“I love the label,” she justifies.

“Me too,” he says standing only a couple of inches taller than Rita's five foot five inches. He's stocky but probably fit enough to bend into yoga postures and play tennis.

“It also has a wonderful mildly spicy flavor with pomegranate overtones.”

Rita can hardly wait even though she rarely drinks any wine or anything. She also feels pleased about not hurting the feelings of the wine salesman.

The burning, itching feminine problem comes back after a brief respite through lunch and contemplations on wine labels and other things.

“Nice to meet you,” Rita says weakly while hoping he doesn't follow her to body care.

The wine salesman puts his feet together so they're touching, bows, lifts Rita's hand and kisses the back of her hand. She freezes for just a moment wondering if anyone saw, turns around and walks towards body care where she immediately finds her product without disturbing the young man with multihued hair.

There are two open cashiers. A young woman with bleached blond hair and large red hoop earrings is waiting on a customer unloading a large amount of groceries. At the other register a young black man with a foreign accent and long dreadlocks stands idle. Rita remembers from previous encounters that he is polite, helpful and will just quickly swipe the barcode like when she buys tampons from anyone. For some reason the scanner does not read the barcode. The young man holds the feminine remedy box up close to his eyes so he can read the tiny barcode numbers. Hand punching the numbers doesn't work so he walks over to the customer service desk as the wine salesman who isn't an artist takes his place behind Rita.

“Is there a problem with the cash register?” he smiles at Rita.

“Maybe.”

“Perhaps I should move to the other line but that woman has a lot more groceries.”

“This could take awhile.”

“I like it here.”

Rita feels flustered for a second time because she can't tell if her face is hot and her head feels light because she is a victim of changing hormones, a flirtatious comment or/and embarrassment over the dread locked cashier returning with her remedy.