Chapter 4 - The Price of a Handbag
The silence in aisle six was thick enough to suffocate a hurricane.
Nobody moved.
Not the shoppers holding their phones, not the stock boys leaning against their pallet jacks, and certainly not Beatrice.
She looked down at her three-hundred-dollar designer heels and then at the muddy floor near the grocery checkout.
“You want me… to deliver groceries?” she whispered, horrified.
“To a stranger's house?”
“I want you to learn what a dollar actually means,” Arthur replied without blinking.
“And you won’t just be delivering that turkey. You’re going to buy her whole weekly list.”
Beatrice clenched her fists, her knuckles turning bone white against her skin.
“I don’t know what poor people eat!” she snapped in frustration.
“Then you’re going to follow Martha through every single aisle and find out,” Arthur countered calmly.
He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out Beatrice’s personal black American Express card, and snapped it cleanly in half right in front of her face.
The sharp crack of high-grade plastic sounded like a gunshot in the grocery store.
Beatrice screamed, reaching out as the two pieces tumbled onto the floor.
“My card! What did you do?!”
Arthur pulled a battered leather money clip from his pocket and peeled off two twenty-dollar bills.
He handed the cash to Beatrice, forcing her fingers to close around the crumpled green paper.
“That’s your budget for the rest of the day,” Arthur stated coldly.
“If you go one cent over, it comes out of your remaining dignity.”
Martha watched the drama unfold with a look of deep sorrow in her tired eyes.
She didn't look triumphant or spiteful; she just looked like an exhausted grandmother who wanted to go home.
“Come along, dear,” Martha said softly, reaching out to touch Beatrice’s sleeve.
Beatrice recoiled as if she had been burned, jerking her camel coat away.
“Don’t touch me!” she hissed.
Arthur stepped into her path immediately, towering over her with eyes full of warning.
“Beatrice, one more word like that, and I will donate your entire shoe collection to the local women's shelter before sunset.”
Beatrice bit her bottom lip so hard she tasted copper.
She grabbed the handle of the shopping cart, her designer rings clattering against the cold steel wire.
She pushed the cart forward, following the elderly woman toward the fresh produce section under the glare of forty smartphone cameras.
Arthur walked behind them at a distance, his attorney Eleanor taking notes on every move.
The supermarket had completely abandoned normal business; customers formed two lines along the aisles just to watch the spectacle.
“We need potatoes,” Martha murmured, pointing to a five-pound burlap sack on the bottom shelf.
Beatrice stared at the dusty bag on the floor, waiting for someone else to pick it up.
When no one moved, she realized that Arthur was watching her like a hawk.
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She bent down slowly, her expensive camel coat brushing against the dirty linoleum as she hoisted the heavy sack.
A sharp rip sounded near her shoulder seam, and a tear formed in the Italian cashmere.
