Chapter 7
7
Lunch with Ginny gets Elsie through even the worst days.
This morning, she tried to act normal. Mondays are full of contractors starting their workweeks and DIY home improvers who realized they needed something for what was supposed to be a weekend project. The register isn’t terrible. Elsie is a friendly face. She’s a professional at small talk, makes the same jokes to different people all day. A hardware store isn’t saving the world or anything, but they do help people, and it feels good to work at her family’s business. She likes the tradition of it.
She likes her family, too, for the most part, even if they annoy the hell out of her sometimes, today included.
Her mom had some kind of sixth sense, appearing every time Elsie’s line died down. “How are you doing, sweetie?”
A lot better when not being asked that question in such a pitying voice. It didn’t matter how many times Elsie told her parents the breakup was her idea, her mom clearly thought she’d been dumped.
Lunch with Ginny was a respite. The not-honeymoon next week with Ginny will be even more of one. Almost a full week in fucking paradise. The thought buoys Elsie as she takes a deep breath and yanks the staff door open. The employee break room is the first door off the hallway, but she slides silently past it rather than deal with whatever combination of her siblings is in there finishing up lunch. As for her dad’s office door, there’s no need to sneak past, because—like always—he doesn’t look up from whatever absolutely critical work he’s in the middle of.
Elsie’s mom is checking someone out when Elsie gets to the registers. She’s standing, even though there’s a stool right next to her. It took years to convince Elsie’s dad that stools were acceptable at the register, that cashiers weren’t lazy if they didn’t want to stand in place for eight hours a day. Every time Elsie’s mom covers the register, she never sits.
As soon as the customer leaves, Mrs. Hoffman turns a pitying eye to her daughter.
“How was Ginny? Did they make you feel better?”
Of course they did. They always do. Nothing is ever too terrible as long as she has Ginny. But the question from her mom puts Elsie right back into a bad mood.
“I feel fine, Mom,” she snaps. Very convincing.
“Are you sure you want to work a full day? It’s quiet this afternoon, I could stay on the register.”
Elsie has an idea. “Actually, could you? I’ve been wanting to talk to Dad about rebranding again.”
“Oh, Elsie, he’s very busy today,” her mom says, like she didn’t just say it was a quiet afternoon. “Don’t bother him with that.”
“He’s always busy,” Elsie says. “Besides, it’ll be my own project. He won’t have to do anything.”
Her mom clocks out at the register. “Let me talk to him first. You take over here.”
Elsie knew that would work. Distract her mom from the breakup with talk of a rebrand her dad’s never gonna go for.
Elsie hasn’t talked about rebranding in years, not since she took Principles of Marketing her second semester at Minneapolis College. In her highlighted, color-coded notes were the seven P s of marketing, the last of which is physical evidence, aka packaging. It’s the brand.
Hoffman Hardware doesn’t have a logo. It has a signature font, swooping script in navy blue. Kids aren’t even taught to read cursive anymore, and somehow her dad still doesn’t think it’s outdated. Elsie had never particularly liked the sign, but once she took Principles of Marketing, she had more reasons than navy blue is boring.
She brought it up at their once-monthly family dinner—that way, her dad couldn’t claim he was too busy with work to talk about it. Though family dinner with five kids, plus their partners and children, was rather busy in and of itself.
Elsie had a plan. She printed out an article her professor had had them read for class. It was about the difference between a rebrand and a brand refresh. Her dad always says, Hoffman Hardware is an institution, and honestly, Elsie agrees. She’s proud of the store, always has been. She’s proud of their values. She doesn’t want to change everything. But a refresh would breathe life into their history. Her plan was to bring it up when someone asked her how school was going.
Except no one did.
It was all fawning over grandchildren and waiting on Danielle, who was due with her first kid the following month, and their mom, ever the hostess, rushing around making sure drinks were full and all the food would be ready at the same time.
In the middle of dinner, everyone having different conversations, one on top of another, Elsie abandoned the plan.
“I think we should get a new sign.”
The chatter stopped. Elsie focused on her plate instead of how the entire family turned to stare at her.
After a too-long stretch of silence, her dad’s gruff voice said, “The sign’s fine.”
“The sign is like twenty years old.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Elsie said, though that wasn’t exactly true. It was busy and absurdly outdated. “But we can make it better. Our visual brand needs to be modern, memorable, and versatile. Updating our sign would be the first step in—”
“That sounds like a lot of unnecessary trouble,” her dad cut in. “The sign is fine. The store is fine. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And this is family dinner, not work dinner.”
Her dad talked about work constantly, family dinner or otherwise. Elsie didn’t point that out. Neither did any of her siblings. She still didn’t give up.
“This isn’t me being annoying. It isn’t just some wild idea I have. I printed out this article from class—it’s in my bag.”
She started to stand to get it, but her dad waved at her to stay seated.
“Not now, Elsbeth,” he said. “Leave it on my desk tomorrow morning and I’ll get to it. Now, Danielle, are you still refusing to tell us what you’re going to name our newest grandchild?”
The conversation moved on.
Elsie left early, claiming she had homework.
On Monday morning, she left the article in her dad’s office chair. His desk had so many piles of paper on it, she couldn’t even see the desktop. At least on his chair, he’d have to look at it to move it when he sat down.
The next week, she asked if he had time to chat.
“Not much,” he said, gesturing to the disaster of his desk.
“I want to talk about the article I gave you last week,” she said.
“Oh, Elsie, I haven’t gotten to it yet.” Her dad squeezed his eyes closed like she’d hurt him. “Now’s really not a good time, okay? We’ve got inventory next week and your sister is about to have her baby. Let’s not get mixed up in this mumbo jumbo.”
Her nephew was three months old when Elsie snuck onto her dad’s computer and added herself to his calendar.
“Hey.” He stopped by her register Saturday morning. “Any idea why I’ve got a half-hour meeting with you at noon today?”
“You’ve been too busy lately,” she said. “I’m making sure you eat lunch.”
His grin was so soft there was a pang in her chest over lying to him. She normally didn’t take lunch on Saturdays—Ginny was at the market, and Elsie’s shift ended early enough that there was no reason for the break—but if pastrami on rye was the only way to get her dad to listen to her, so be it.
But he didn’t listen to her then, either.
She presented it well, she knew she did. Powered through the argument she’d memorized, only had to look at the outline in front of her twice. Her dad was hard to read, chewing his sandwich passively, but Elsie made good points. She didn’t even stumble over her words. As she finished her conclusion, she felt strong. Confident.
Her dad stayed quiet when she was done, the only sound in the office Elsie’s slightly labored breathing, like she’d run a marathon rather than presented a business idea.
Finally, her dad shook his head and scoffed. Elsie’s stomach dropped.
“A couple of classes and you think you know everything about running a business.”
“Obviously I don’t know everything, Dad,” she said. “But why am I going to school if we’re not going to use anything I learn?”
“You’re going to school because you wanted to feel special.”
Elsie blinked. It had been a rhetorical question, really, but even if she had wanted an answer, she never would’ve expected that . “What?”
“I’ve run this store for twenty-two years without going to college. My dad did it before me. You’re not even going to be the one in charge when I retire. I can only assume you decided to go to school because you wanted to feel smarter than us.”
You know what you do when you assume.
She didn’t say that. He clearly wasn’t listening to her anyway, so why bother? She’d put together this whole argument, and for what? Her dad was right; she wouldn’t be the one running this place when he retired. What she thought was best for it didn’t matter.
Elsie’s mom found her soon thereafter.
“I’m sure he was just feeling sensitive,” Mrs. Hoffman said. “This is our life and our livelihood, Elsbeth. He’s never done anything but love this store. It’s not easy to be told you’re doing it wrong.”
“I didn’t say he’s doing it wrong.” She loved this place, too. She was trying to help.
“And I know you don’t know the finances like your sister, but everything is more expensive than you expect.”
Of course her mom wasn’t listening to her, either. Why fucking bother?
Elsie’s dad apologized before the end of her shift. Well—he didn’t say he was sorry, but he at least admitted he was out of line. He claimed he was glad she shared her ideas even if that didn’t mean he was going to implement them. He claimed he wanted to hear what she thought.
She appreciated the non-apology, but she didn’t believe it. No one in her family had ever been interested in her opinions. It was more exhausting to share them and be dismissed than to keep them to herself.
So no, Elsie never had plans to talk to her dad about rebranding again. But this afternoon, it gets her mom to stop hovering and leave her alone. It’s easier to handle the brush-off about rebranding than the pity over Derrick. At least her ideas for the store being ignored is disappointment she’s used to.
She picks up a pen and marks the calendar next to the register with a giant red star on Monday. Five more shifts and she’ll be in the Caribbean with her best friend. That thought will sustain her through anything.