my mom was a&p famous

on grocery store grief

Being famous at The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known to most as “the A&P”, was like winning the Academy Awards in Middletown, N.J.

“Hello, Mrs. Leiner and don’t you look pretty today,”Mr. Freddy the manager would say. “The flank steaks your ordered are in, Mrs Leiner,” and we’d scoop up the ready for barbeque fare, wrapped tightly in Styrofoam packages.  

My Mom was A&P famous – and I have the receipts to prove it.

She was a fashionista on a Loehmann’s budget and the aisles her runway.  A whole lot of head turning ensued upon her entry as those electric doors swung wide to welcome her entrance.  Like the pages of magazines, she kept on the coffee table come to life--she was our very own movie star. Her smile so big her Borghese shadow bedecked lids closed beneath her mile high cheek bones. Some said she had a Sophia Loren/Jackie O look – I never knew exactly what that meant, but it seemed major.

I watched as she talked to our neighbor Mrs. Green – a hand on her shoulder as they exchanged whispers. I could run to the aisles when she was doling out lady advice.

“Don’t buy any paper towel if you don’t buy Bounty,” she’d say. They could be the plain quilted or the pretty printed ones – but they had to be the quicker picker upper.

Not one of the check-out ladies ever needed to see an ID when she wrote one of her signature yellow bank memos. Mom knew everyone we ran into on any given grocery day, their kids’ names and their address. You see, she was also an award-winning realtor. 

I watched Mom carefully inspect produce. “I don’t care how much fruit costs”, she’d tell me, snapping a plastic bag from the roll and filling it to overflowing with Bing cherries or scooping up a copious mound of Santa Rosa plums -- their once-a-summer dark insides a mysterious phenomenon.

On June 18 of ‘93, it was 99 degrees in the shade. I was living in the city and she called to let me know “sweetie it’s too damn hot to sell a house” and she was taking a beach day. We know from the receipt in her sandy bag, she stopped first at the A&P.

Three pounds of Santa Rosa plums. A paperback called Ivana. (Predicting the future – or warning us – you decide!) A fresh bronze-y tube of Ban De Soleil. Her year-round olive skin always looked like she’d just returned from an exotic port of call and was especially dreamy in the summer.

I imagine her zipping through the aisles cart free. Her “just a few things” saunter and flip, flop of her Jack Rogers thongs hitting the cool tile floor in time to the muzak and humming along. “Do You Know The Way To San Jose…hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.  

I bet she came upon the big wire basket of plastic beach balls and took one out. Bouncing it, and tossing a leg over. Her quick and playful giggle.

The sun set for her forever that day. Last at Sandy Hook National State Park. Last time ever at the A&P. 

This year I made a pilgrimage to Santa Rosa, California. I entered a grocery where nobody knew her and they don’t likely take checks anymore. But it was in fact plum season. I pass the Bounty and tears well. Varieties for days. She never lived to see the “pick a size” roll – but I know she’d think it was brilliant.

I use the self-check and the “black plum” advertised, is weighed and priced on the built-in silver scale. I pay with my phone. Mom would not likely believe this either! As I go to toss my receipt, I notice the price. Eighty-one cents. I do the math with the help of Siri, of course.  Hey Siri – what is 2024 minus 1942?  Yep, 81. If Ellen were alive that day, she would be 81. A soft tear strolls down my cheek beneath my sunglasses. I close my eyes about to partake.  In this flash I remember the one we would take from the brown paper supermarket bag and enjoy on the way home. Mom would rub the outside on her Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress. I would hang over the backseat and open the Bounty in preparation for the juicy adventure.  

I bite. It’s not very dark inside. It doesn’t taste like the ones she used to buy. But I eat it anyway, in her honor. And memory.

We’ve long since lost that faded receipt, but this year for my birthday, my daughters recreated and framed it.  

While they never knew their Grandma Ellen, the legend lives on.