The Papaya Scheme

Maya stood in the produce aisle at 11 PM, her thumb hovering over her ex-husband's number in her iPhone. The phone had 14% battery. She hadn't decided if that was symbolism or just poor planning.

She reached for a papaya — something she'd never bought before, never even wanted. David had hated them. Called them mushy and overly sweet, like everything she'd tried to become in the last three years of their marriage.

"They say life begins at the end of your comfort zone," the woman next to her said. She was maybe sixty, with expensive highlights and eyes that had seen too many pyramid schemes. "You look like someone who just realized her comfort zone was actually a prison."

Maya laughed, a startled sound. "Is it that obvious?"

"Honey, I've been selling wellness supplements for thirty years. I can spot a woman who's been running on empty from three checkout aisles away." The woman picked up her own papaya. "My name's Beverly. And you need to know that the only difference between a pyramid scheme and a corporate ladder is which direction you're climbing when it collapses."

Something in Maya's chest unknot. "I left him. Tonight. I'm staying at a motel.

"Good." Beverly's manicured hand touched Maya's arm. "Now let me tell you about papayas. They're messy. They stain everything. But they're alive." She leaned in. "My first ex-husband said papaya tasted like regret. My second one said it tasted like money he never saw. Turns out, it just tastes like papaya."

Maya's iPhone buzzed. David. Again.

She pressed decline and dropped the phone into her purse.

"I'm Maya," she said.

"Nice to meet you, Maya. You buying that papaya or just contemplating its existence?"

Maya looked at the fruit in her hand, then at Beverly, then at the phone lighting up her bag like a dying star.

"I'm buying it," she said. "And then I'm going to eat it in a motel room with the air conditioning on full blast and the television turned up way too loud."

Beverly's smile crinkled around eyes that had survived everything. "Perfect. That's exactly how it starts."