Very long for the start of a story; once I find focus, maybe I'll know what to cut.

Robin was turning forty-three on the day of her daughter's orchestra performance at the high school. There was no time to bake cakes; the presents from her husband and kids sat ribboned in shine on the floor where she'd sit to open them, if there wasn't too much homework to do when the performance ended, if her husband stayed awake long enough, if she really wanted to acknowledge turning forty-three.
The day could come and go for all she cared, but here she was in the parking lot of the local grocery store to pick up a bakery cake, just in case. She’d already decided to skip the candles. She grabbed a cart because undoubtedly her memory would kick in halfway through the store and she didn’t want to be balancing bread and peanut butter and eggs on top of the weak plastic protector of the pink and blue cake.
Dumpling soup, her daughter had mentioned. Robin added it to the child seat at the front of the cart and counted her items. She needed the fast lane; the minutes to performance time were counting down. Would strawberries take her over the limit?
Five-forty-five p.m., she skipped the strawberries and sped up to a place behind the customer loading his nine, ten, eleven items onto the checkout conveyor. Five-forty-six. The checkout boy slid the yellow plastic divider down the track toward her. She grabbed it, ready to toss her groceries on the black runner, about to offer a customary thank you smile to this apparently aware and efficient checker. She glanced up.
Her hand hung on a buoying breeze. How did dusk fall so silkenly in a cold, fluorescent store? Her mouth gaped, and she tasted sunlight baked in adobe, evening air on a black bird's wing. The checkout boy smiled. He was new. He was stunningly gorgeous. If she placed her ten items on the counter, she didn't remember, but he was speaking to her, giving her a price, and her fingers, wiser than her racing heart and tumbling stomach, managed to place cash in his.
“Thank you,” she said and hoped it didn’t sound as breathy as it felt.
Rolling the cart out the door, she checked the time, 5:52. It was a Wednesday.
Wednesday, 5:52. If she came back at the same time next week, she assured herself, piling bags in the trunk, clicking her tongue at the flighty adrenaline rippling up her arms, if she came again on a Wednesday evening, though no cake was needed and no performance would make it necessary, she would laugh at herself. No one was that beautiful. She’d just been startled at a new face; she'd just been taken in by the color of him, reminded of that late afternoon in the Moab desert, when the arches' color deepened and the sky slipped into twilight.
Turning the ignition, she rolled her eyes. What was he? Nineteen? Twenty? Brown-skinned, black-haired, polite despite watching the clock probably in desperate hope of seeing his girlfriend?
Shaking her head, she laughed and looked in the rearview mirror. Her lipstick was intact, no embarrassing blemishes, but her eyes looked tired. Apparently the adrenaline rush didn't shake her back down to sixteen.
A car pulled into the space beside hers. Five-fifty-six. She hit reverse; the performance. Her daughter would be dressed in concert attire, the cello case balancing at the door. And Robin needed water; she needed water not just to drink but to spray-wash her mind. Six-fifteen: she didn't remember driving home.


Robin didn’t take sleep aids or cold medicine and rarely succumbed to the Advil she kept just in case. She didn't like dependence on anything. She liked self-control. It was a joke between her and her husband that he could break through that control.
But a husband was one thing, a beautiful young man, another.
So, when she poured the last of the milk into her daughter's hot chocolate on Tuesday, she scratched out an entire grocery list and told the kids she was shopping a day early this week, rather than wasting gas with a trip for milk one day and the full load the next. Tuesday had been normal last week; Tuesday had not entailed stomach-dropping, hand-shaking adrenaline rushes.
Grabbing her purse, zipping on boots, she waited for the garage to grind its way up. Had she brushed her hair? Had she lotioned her hands after dishwashing--all that hot water damaged skin, and her hands were looking more and more like her mother's. She remembered Madonna's crass flirtation with Britney, how no matter how toned the older woman was, she had texture that didn't belong to youth.
The garage door snapped at gear's end, and she told herself, none of it mattered. A boy, not far from her daughter's age. He'd be no more beautiful than the models that littered the TV. Besides, it was safe. It was Tuesday.

Her shopping list stretched into two columns. She glanced around the store, feeling assured, certain of the planet's steady pace through a normal Tuesday. And there he was in one of the full checkout lanes, breezily scanning food and packing up bags. She could only see the back top half of him, but it was definitely him--no one had hair that dark and silken, small locks edging along his black uniform, a hint of brown satin neck. The list fluttered to the ground, and Robin bent for it, feeling her face flush. The store was crowded, and there were other checkout lanes besides his open for the rush-hour shoppers. She'd slip into one away from his. Life didn't have to be complicated, not if she made the right choices.
She knew the store and wrote her list aisle by aisle; yet, she found herself backtracking three times for items she missed, and twice she rattled the cart down baked goods, in direct line to his checkout, seeing his slender arm, his brown hand scan item after item, in fluid, Olympic-worthy motion, his eyes just once glancing up, catching her stare.
Robin quickly carted into the aisle next to his. Let someone else take the challenge of this beauty's lane. Such things weren't for her. Her life required the calm of soft wind chimes, birds quietly picking at the birdfeeder, kids tapping out school papers or bowing the cello.
Offering an easy smile to the checkout girl, Robin grabbed coffee and mayo and a tumbling bag of oranges, about to scoot the cart up and start unloading. And she saw his legs, dressed black, slender as onyx reeds, and she followed the subtle rise up. This she hadn't anticipated, that the counter where he worked was open at the back, that he could step right out, that she could see the full of him.
Cereal, pasta, frozen peas. "Do you have your rewards card?" the girl asked. And now she had to fumble through her purse, set the big old bag up on the cart to zip it open, to seek out the wallet buried under CDs and notepads and reading glasses she never wore.
From the corner of her eye, she saw his legs turn.
He was turning. Why? His torso curve slightly as he leaned back, apparently without customer, easing into waiting mode; his arms folded across his chest. With the rewards card trembling between her fingers, she held it out to the checkout girl. A swipe and she had it back.
She glanced up at him. There was no smile. Under dark brow and dark lashes, his hazel-brown eyes met hers. She swallowed, feeling heat rush her, and quickly pushed past him. The girl was bagging as she checked out, and the stack of food extended past the farthest horizon. This would take eternity. Robin was frozen with her back to him. He needed to move off. She prayed to hear him greet a customer, a small "hello," that would release her.
"Hi," she heard finally, "how're you?" His voice was pitched gentler than the dark look he'd worn, lighter and friendly. The freeze thawed and she felt a sweet, slow melt. She chanced one more look at his back side, slim, belted at the waist.
This wouldn't do. She had daughters near his age. She had a husband she loved. Rolling the cart out the door, angry with herself, she reminded herself to focus, to keep her eyes open; there’d be no memorizing what she’d seen. In her chest, evening swallows nestled down for the night, in her throat the river trickled. She passed a russet pot of golden mums on her way out the door and decided it was time to paint the living room. She would buy sienna, and umber, and satin black.

The following week, the kids had field trips and her husband was working late. She really didn't need groceries, at least not many, nothing that a trip to the convenient store wouldn’t solve. So she asked,
"Are you out of shampoo?" No. "How about deodorant?" Nah, uh. "I see you were getting low on toothpaste." S'okay, there's another in the cabinet.
There were no excuses to shop. She sat on the edge of the couch, hands between her knees, feeling jittery. What was this? Her heart felt erratic and her mouth dry. She needed a fix. That's how it felt. People didn't become addicted to beauty. She laughed alone in the living room and pulled the new brown pillow over her lap. But the jittery feeling didn't stop.
What was this? "Are you done with the computer?" she called down to her daughter.
"Yeah," came the vague reply.
With a cup of tea, pomegranate because it had more flavor, Robin rolled the chair to the computer screen and typed in "physical reactions and the science of attraction."
He was her genetic opposite, and thus a natural attraction, the article said. Opposing genes assured a healthier offspring. She was no moral misfit; she was reacting to hormones she couldn’t necessarily control. He was brown-skinned, Latino, a genetic opposite to her Northern European paleness. His black hair shone with a universe of color over her bland blonde.
Apparently, she'd progressed quickly in this science of attraction, and was into a more addictive pleasure: "When latching onto a sight, fixing on it," she read, "the brain released phenylethylamine, which created a focused ecstasy, a pleasure similar to cocaine." She sipped her tea absently, catching the tea bag she'd forgotten to discard against her lips. "This hormone," the article said, "propelled people to something they might normally ignore."
In the streak of sun, across the computer desk, the white-petal lily had opened, its burnished sienna stamen quivering. This could be his skin at her lips, burnished, rippling under the flicker of her tongue.

This was going too far. Robin called her sister who knew about men, who met relationships head on and didn’t shy from genuine feelings.
"You are not a pedophile," her sister assured her. "He’s not a child. Men go off to war at his age. And no, you’re not cheating by looking. Everyone looks."
Everyone looks. But not everyone's heart races, hands shake. Not everyone begins collecting paint swatches, chalk, crayons, rubbing color over paper to try to create the beauty they see.
With the phone cradled on her shoulder, she pulled out the art pad and picked up burnt sienna chalk. Could her fingers match on paper the eclipse of his cheek, like the edge of the sun, curve to the slight shadow along his nose, follow that smooth rise up to the bridge. She needed to see him again to recall the shape of his eyes. She knew what to call this obsessive scrutiny she desired, what chemical the article blamed: a fitting word, dopamine, a concentration of receptors reacting in her brain. The blood flow surged, stirring up euphoria, craving, addiction.
He was dusk over the virgin pine forests; he was the soft-needled ground.
In bed that night, trailing her finger down her husband's neck, circling the sensitive nipple, she spotted sienna chalk under her fingernails. She nibbled his shoulder and tried to suppress a grin, then slid on top of him, her lips an inch from his, and knew she loved him and wanted him and always would. The boy was chalk rubbed into skin, beauty to be captured. A muse.
Tonight, the muse inspired long, exploratory kisses.

Wednesday would not go by without her. A busy night, multiple lanes would be open, and this time she would be smarter. She'd take a lane distant enough that she could study him, try to see the shape of his eyes, to define the elegance of his form. And risk no eye contact.
From the bin of apples, she tried to see him, catch a glimpse and determine which lane would be safest. She caught a side view, the graceful slope of him. She had painted Utah arches, the russet stone set against twilight sky, and it hadn't been as beautiful as him. And the dip of his stomach? What better shadow, what lovely relief from sun, what an adventure into the cooler deep mystery of caverns.
She twist-tied the apples and headed to tomatoes, out of viewing range, though she felt the sleek form of him slipping down through her chest, a column of heat that made her legs weak. The grocery list blurred and she had to close her eyes a minute. His face flashed close in her mind, spreading the warmth deep past her stomach. She felt the same grin she’d kept hidden last night, a secret smile that made her push the cart to the next aisle, head down.
"P___, customer service, P___."
She stopped. It was his name. About to turn the cart from canned vegetables to catsups, he passed by the aisle--walking in his black uniform, gracefully toward the customer service desk. No, this wasn't walking--this was a russet river's ambling, a caress along the soft-soil bank. And there again was his voice. They needed him to help someone. Now was her chance to checkout her food without worry of any confrontation. Without finishing the remainder of her list, she rushed into the closest line, one person ahead.
Through the candy rack, she saw him round the service desk, talking to the customer, grabbing forms, bending over to write, and glancing up to the customer with that light smile. His eyes were hazel-brown, framed by soft black lashes, a dark arch of brows. He seemed not careless but unaffected, without ego or self-consciousness. His lips were full and soft but not prominent. A delicate mouth, she thought. It would require tenderness to open, a locksmith, a safe cracker who could sense remote tension and find the mechanism’s slightest click.
"Ma'am?" The checkout girl had moved on to her items. "Your rewards card?"
"Sorry, yes." Robin dug clumsily through the purse, glancing from purse to customer service desk because the customer had left, and he was on the move again.
She had the wallet, but the card was jammed in the skinny slot, stuck behind other store cards, other grocery stores where she could have gone, should have gone, because he was heading this way, and if he loaded the bags again, she …
The card slid out; she handed it to the girl.
At the end of the counter, his slender brown fingers slid into the slit of the plastic bag, opened it, and he reached for the mangoes up the long conveyor.
Robin raised her eyes.


At home, she made enchiladas and Spanish rice and wondered how he would smell, taste. This she would never know, but her husband's neck when he came in from work, when she raised her arms up his height, over his shoulders, tasted like copper. She didn't want dinner, she wanted to follow the trail of copper scent to collar bone, shoulder, down his arm, in the elbow's crux, to the shiny palm that rested across his pelvis.
Her husband laughed at her lingering kiss, "What's up with you? You must have been painting."
Yes, drawing and painting left her in a state of arousal, and though she hadn't picked up the chalk or dipped paint in sienna and sepia, Fragonard brown and burnt umber, she had been painting in her mind. And now, there was a male home.
"When's dinner?" her daughter pranced through the kitchen, pranced out.
And there were kids home.
"Ten minutes," she said. Her husband grabbed a coke, pulled out his chair, ready now to eat. It was going to be a long night, and the enchiladas were sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Robin picked up the black chalk first that Sunday morning and started with the boy's muted, graceful body, a gentle ripple through the world. She couldn't imagine him unclothed because he'd become these two colors for her. She traced the wave she'd drawn of his back, his legs, smoothed it with the black chalk, rubbed it with her finger. This was the closest she'd get to touching him.
"I'll go with you," her husband said, feet propped up on the couch armrest, lying across it while he watched Sunday morning TV.
"That's okay." She had to go out for lunchmeat, tomatoes, fresh rolls for the work week. Sundays were unsure. Sundays were unpredictable at the local supermarket. You never knew what could happen on a Sunday.
"I need to get brackets. We can do both."
She nodded and closed the art tablet. Chalk blackened her fingers, palm, and up through her elbow. Under cool water at the kitchen sink, she rubbed her skin clean.
Outside the window, the trees were budding and the grass greening up after a soggy spring start. Sometimes she and her husband took coffee out on the porch and listened to the bird chatter, catching an amazing flutter of activity in the patch of trees in their backyard.
But the coffee pot was drained to a thin black bottom. There'd be no more lingering this morning. Perhaps the fog of fatigue she was in would keep her adrenaline in check if he happened to be at the store. Perhaps she wouldn't flush because she’d had little sleep these past few weeks, and her blood would be sluggish too.
She had lovesickness memorized, could track those high levels of dopamine the Web article predicted. The dopamine sparked yet another hormone, norepinephrine, which in turn fired up her attention, leaving her hyperactive and sleepless. At night after the release of sex, after relishing the exquisite feel of skin, the tingling penetration that stirred the blood to life, she still couldn’t fall asleep. She'd lie awake, no longer thinking about sex, but wondering what this young man would do with his life.
The same article on attraction claimed that long-term relationships required the chemicals oxytocin, vasopressin, and endorphins. Was this oxytocin she was releasing? She wanted him to find a young girl who was as friendly as he was, as open and honest; she wanted him to find a job he loved, to have children. She'd hear the memorized lines of the article: "Ongoing sex with a comfortable partner freed endorphins, basking partners with wellbeing." She'd nestle her head near her husband's pillow, listening to him breathe.
"Ready?" Her husband was even taller with his work boots on, and he wore work clothes ready to start a project when they returned. His jeans were loose fitting over his pelvis and thighs, swells and dips she wanted to press close, to find what was real.
"Yep," she said. Oxytocin. Bonding. A healthy connection. She would carry herself through the store as a mother, a caretaker. Besides, Sundays were safe.

Well, they were. A day of rest, a day free from sin. Her sister had laughed at her when she’d mentioned the sin of lust. She’d said if what goes on in our minds was sin, we’d all be destined for hell. Then she'd asked if Robin had bought anything good at the grocery store lately, and Robin had answered, “You mean I can buy him?"
It wasn't only lust that worried her, it was such a frivolous statement as that. Disrespect for someone she respected. Much of good behavior was really just plain respect. She had her chin up when they’d entered the store. Her eyes and mouth dropped it back down when she saw he was working. Fast lane. Did she have enough money to top that ten-item limit?
Ham, tomatoes, rolls. She'd need eight more items to steer the safe course.
The store was a game to a husband who rarely ventured there. And he was off searching aisle while she kept counting the singles in her wallet, hoping they'd multiplied magically, because she doubted she'd find eight items that could keep her under thirteen dollars. She recounted and her husband came back shaking a box of Good-n-Plenty.
Four. There was always the hope that a long queue had fixed itself in front of the fast lane, leaving the full checkouts empty.
Her husband snatched the cart from her, reeling down the aisle. She'd lose him again if she didn't catch up. She snagged his back pocket, laughing. Wanting to slide her fingers all the way in. He pinched her waist and she fell against him, the cart rolling forward.
Her face flushed. Her husband was not only her mate; he was her security. She could do this, whatever came.
Following beside him, they approached the checkouts. They were all wide open. They could choose any! She headed for the friendly girl with short cropped hair, but the cart turned opposite. "No!" she wanted to call, but already it careened off course, heading into danger zone, into the fast lane. Robin stared blindly at the candy rack, the magazines, her feet at a reluctant pace, following the lead of the cart.
Already the tomatoes were on the counter, the pink and white box of candy, his brown fingers taking it, sliding it over the scanner in one smooth sweep, and with equal ease slipping it into the bag. The bag met her husband’s hand. Her breath was caught somewhere in the passage. She had thirteen dollars. She remembered that, and she saw her hands giving over all she had.
It was hot in the store. The cart's silver shine glared. She kept her eyes on his hands, couldn't raise her face. Caught the change clanging down through the machine. The receipt was a flag of surrender and she decided she needed it, walking away from his lane, folding it one-handed, keeping it against her palm. In the parking lot, she latched onto her husband’s free arm. He was the staff to hold the flag.

(Um, this keeps going, waaayyy too long. A document of the progress and so there's no ending yet, just more pages and pages. I need to figure out a story to tell, besides incorporating the science of attraction material. Is the story what's happening at home? Should the story be fictionalized much more at the store level?)