#81, Teddy.

Ted. Teddy. The Tedster. You worked inside of the grocery store that i work outside of. Always a smile, always a scheme. Always using our microwave to heat up the frozen lunches that you'd hidden in the waistband of your jeans. Always sitting on our stool, checking out the myriad female specimens that sashayed by on their way to the beach, the bar, the tanning salon. You were crushed when your girlfriend admitted to (drunkenly) kissing another boy, even as you were sleeping with another girl. And yet, there was something charming about you. Something, we felt, that could be lifted out of the mire to be shined, something that could be saved. But we may have been wrong. You were a nurse who got hooked on (stolen) prescription painkillers. Your own boss thought so highly of you that he got you into a pricey rehab program. Once completed, you jumped headfirst off of that rigid wagon. Career gone, bridges burned. Worked at the grocery store until they fired you too, and last i heard you were cleaning carpets around town, that girl you loved long gone. But the thing about you, Teddy, was that you were smart. You had a glint in your eye. On your sober days we had deep, interesting conversations and i felt like i could sense the regret, see the redemption creeping in. But you always managed to kick them to the curb because something better, something funner, something more right now came along. Then you'd show up weeks later with unwashed hair and dirty teeth and an aura of precarious confusion, a box of stolen Mochi under your shirt so that we would still like you.

We still like you, Ted. Quit living in the right now and try to visualize your future. Those blue eyes will only take you to the edge, not necessarily back.

#80, Lorraine.

Lorraine is a Little Old Lady who comes and sits at our shop every afternoon, weather permitting. She has some problems with ambulation, but at around 3 or 4 every afternoon she comes slowly shuffling up with a shopping cart (i believe this is her way of never having to purchase a walker. Good for her.) and a smile on her face. She sits at one of the tables in the deli area next to the shop drinking a cup of coffee (from the 7-11 on the corner) and reading the day's paper. If i am working the closing shift– or, more likely, staying late from the morning shift– she will meticulously rip out the New York Times crossword for me and hand it over on her way down to the beach. Sometimes she will save them up for a week or more and give me a giant envelope full of them. i don't have the heart to remind her that i only do the Sunday crossword, so i try and be gracious. She wears the same dark blue windbreaker and jeans almost every day, and although she lives with her adult daughter, she has rather poor hygiene and i always wish there was someone to take better care of her. She doesn't seem to mind, though– it sort of fits in with her strong personality. She told us once that when she was young, she would scandalize the town by rolling up the legs on her bathing suit. Yes, you read what i said. Rolling up the legs. To mid-thigh. SHOCKING! She loves spider mums, and carries around her own water tube so that we don't send her home with one after another, thereby being wasteful. Love ya, Lorraine. Don't ever change.

#79, Johnny P.

Johnny lives across the street from my dad in Montana, with his wife Linda. He says "crick" instead of "creek" and has a softly booming, mumbling voice. Wears flannels, vests, jeans and boots and trucker caps. He used to send over homemade salami and sausage for us during the summers, back when we kids were young. He was an avid hunter, you see, and still is, despite losing a couple of fingers at the steel mill where he works. He has a white horse named Dooley who has been around forever. (Our dog Chewy, rest his little soul, was overly fond of stealing across the road to eat Dooley's steaming piles of excrement. This is completely true.)
Johnny saved my dad's life. After lying on the landing for two days because of suffering a bad stroke, my dad finally managed to crawl to the phone and call... Johnny. not '9-1-1', but Johnny. He ran right over and took dad to the hospital. When my brother and i went up by train a couple weeks later, Johnny drove us around to buy air mattresses and groceries. Even though he uses derogatory words a lot, i just can't hate him. (i wish he wouldn't say things like that, obviously, but unfortunately i don't think the man will change any time soon.) Thank you for being there, Johnny.

#78, Ms. Donohue.

My 7th grade French teacher. i was new at this school, and late to start, so i had a helluva time. French was the only language class with any space left, otherwise i would have been in Spanish and who knows how my life would have turned out? i certainly wouldn't have been able to enter that shop and ask for a parapluie that time i was walking around the streets of Paris and it suddenly began to rain cats and dogs. (Chats et chiens.)
Where were we? Right, Ms. Donohue- lots of big, horsey teeth and a short crop of dark silver hair. A winning smile and a sweet, pretty face. For some reason i always thought that she didn't have very many friends among the other teachers at my school. My name in class was "Françine", which i absolutely loathed, but there was no translation of "Heather" and all the cool feminine names were already taken. i used to sit at the back of the class and tie rubber bands around my fingertips just to watch them change colors and become cold, bloodless. (Did you know that each finger on your hand turns a different color? It's true.) i remember once winning an art contest in class, and always thought it was because she felt sorry for me. On special days we would watch movies (La Boum!), and once a week or so we'd watch Téléfrançais, when i swear Ms. Donohue would stand in the back and smile and sing along with the opening song. Adorable. i think she worried about me being so strange, and tried to befriend me by talking to me about rock music, although her references were usually a tad old; we once had a halting conversation about Golden Earring's "Radar Love". And when she found out i drank coffee (no idea how that happened, by the way), she became quite concerned and cited a study that linked caffeine consumption in women with higher breast cancer rates. So mothering. i hope she's still there, still teaching, and still caring about the next crop of troubled kids.

#77, Brian from H's.

An adorable young chappie who used to work at the market where my flower shop is located. With a mop of curly hair, skin-tight jeans, and pea coats on colder days, Brian was amazed that i had Muslim Gauze on my iPod, and got me hooked on the song "Blind" by Hercules and Love Affair. We were constantly talking about music; old and new, live and recorded. B was still figuring out his sexual identity and was almost always hung over when i would see him walking to work in the early afternoons. He finally moved to a cooler area of the city, and i never realized how much i would miss him spending his break at the flower shop: changing the music we were listening to without asking and using our microwave to heat up his food, always bitching about his managers and sitting on our (only) stool. Brian! You cad. Where are you these days? It's lonely here without you.

#76, "John Poet".

He comes in every week, usually on Tuesdays. Quiet, slim, soft-spoken, greying hair and jeans with boots. Always a satchel. Buys one stem of alstroemeria, one piece of fern, and a pinch of bear grass (for the cat, he explains). Likes to have long chats with a certain co-worker of mine, which used to make me weirdly jealous, because i had never spoken a single word to him. One day he brought in a miniature crystal blue rose in a vase, because the week before she had convinced him to finally read The Glass Menagerie. He'd asked me if i'd read it, and because i said no he brought me a copy of the play today. He was transporting it in the bubble mailer, still, and the name on the label? John Poet.
And we've discussed this. We don't think it's his real name, but all the same– it really should be.

#75, Jeanelle.

We worked together at the stained glass store. You were tall and boyish, with a mischievous grin and short black hair. When we "helped out" with the night classes, we'd sit in the front of the store watching Sifl and Olly videos while everyone diligently worked on their lamps. We drove around in your Impala blasting "Slim Shady" when Eminem first appeared on the scene. Often we would end up walking along the train tracks, drinking Heinekens, ogling graffiti in complete silence. Once, we clambered atop a defunct locomotive car and threw our empty bottles through the nearby (also defunct) warehouse windows. Filled with thrill, we clambered back down to the car, laughing as we screeched away because our clothes were covered with soot.