mollie

"I don't need matches," Alice says as she puts the change into her red nylon Marlboro wallet and swipes the box of Marlboro reds from the dusty bodega counter. The bells on the door shake behind her as she leaves, declaring her victory. Two steps from the store, she tears off the plastic wrap and carefully removes the proof of purchase from the side of the cigarette box, slipping it into her coat pocket. At the end of the block she smiles and hands the cigarettes to an expectant homeless man and turns onto her street. Alice quit smoking when her father died of lung cancer three years ago.
###
Alice digs in her bag for her keys, finally pulling them out by the soft plastic Marlboro logo keychain. She opens the front door of her building and fingers the keychain as she walks up the three flights of stairs, two steps at a time. She opens the door with a push to the smell of her roommate's weekly stew. She yells “Hey!” through her roommate's door, and her roommate returns the greeting. She walks to her room and closes the door. She picks up a shoebox labeled “P.O.P.” on the ground and sits down with it softly on her bed. Alice opens the box. It is filled with stacks of Marlboro proofs of purchase bound by rubber bands. She counts the nineteen stacks of ten, and then the nine spare ones at the bottom of the box. She pulls the new one from her coat pocket and binds it with the other nine. “Two hundred,” Alice says. Alice grabs her Marlboro rewards catalog from her desk and turns to the page titled “200 Point Rewards.”
###
There are fifteen rewards shown on the two-page spread. Marlboro toothbrush with holder. Marlboro baseball cap. Marlboro lighter 5-pack. Marlboro flashlight. Marlboro tote bag. Marlboro thermos. Marlboro horse and cowboy figurine. Marlboro checkers set. Marlboro yo-yo. Marlboro stationary. Marlboro white t-shirt with pocket. Marlboro pennant. Marlboro pencil set. Marlboro book light. Marlboro socks 2-pack. Her excited eyes dart from image to image. She fills out a card from the catalog and stuffs her stacks into a manilla envelope.
###
Ten days later she returns home from work to find a cardboard box in front of her apartment door. Inside her room, she rips through the packaging like a dog with an unattended box of Milkbones. Inside she finds her reward: a large red and white thermos with a handle. The Marlboro logo on the top looks fresh, almost wet. Alice begins to cry.
###
The next morning, Alice fills her thermos to the brim with her roommate's leftover stew. She stops in the bodega on her walk to work. “Can I have two packs of Marlboro reds, please?”
###
Note: Can you please disregard my first submission? This is a further edited version.