The local store is a relic from a past Jim wishes he could forget. He couldn’t look more out of place, with his thick rimmed glasses and long coat. The clerk gapes at him and Angie. Jim grabs a lighter.

“Can we get a magazine, too?” Angie asks.
“Let’s just go,” says Jim.
“Please? It’s a long way to Toledo.”

A pair of teenage girls stand at the back, engrossed in a pastel-colored mag: “Kim’s New Money Woes”, “Make Them Jealous” and the like.

“Excuse me,” Angie says, picking up the same mag they’re reading. Jim sighs.
One of the girls looks Angie up and down. “This magazine’s not for fatties like you.” She snorts.

Jim snatches the magazine out of the girl’s hand. He stares at the page. “Thinspiration” reads the title, “find your real, beautiful self in four weeks!”

Jim dangles the magazine by the pinup page, flicks the lighter and watches “Us Weekly” catch a chemical blue flame. He drops it and stamps it out. The girls shriek.

Jim walks to the counter.
“How much for the lighter and some Marlboros?”