Chapter 7 #2
The customer clears her throat, and I spin around to see a vast collection of dish soaps, air fresheners, and toilet paper rolls.
Ugh, One of those! The couponing biddies were older ladies who came in regularly with multiple clippings from that week’s paper.
They also insisted on paying with pre-rolled coins and crumpled singles.
I didn’t mind that they wanted to save money, just that I had to validate their change.
This usually causes an unnecessarily long line to form behind them.
As if on cue, she places her hanging glasses onto her nose, opens up her foldable wallet, and begins shuffling for said vouchers.
I begin scanning, unable to help watching the former, more handsome customer heading toward the sliding glass doors.
I pull out my phone, open up the newest message and type, ‘Polo.’ I hold it just below the register, because I wasn’t exactly wanting to advertise that I was using my phone on the floor.
His body stops on a dime as he reaches for his phone, upon me sending the message. A smile blooms across his chiseled face, as his thumbs race across the phone.
My phone vibrates in my hand. He instantly wrote back.
Unknown: If you ever feel like a fish out of water… please tell me.
Tell him? I haven’t even told my best friend… would I really discuss anything like this with Eamon?
It was so crowded in Star Mart. Everyone likes to stop at this one as opposed to the other one off of Huntington Ave. It was hard to see, but I could have sworn I saw Mairead on the other side of the store, sticking her tongue out at Eamon from her lane.
Was he shaking his head? Exiting through the sliding doors, he disappears down the street.
See? This is what a shitty night of sleep does to you.
Your imagination is getting away again.
Once the coupon queen finishes paying in quarters and questionably weathered singles, I check my phone again.
Andrea: Any hot customers wearing loafers?
I bite back a grin, quickly messaging her back.
Cindel: None yet. Have you tried the Financial District?
Dots appear before a message pops up.
Andrea: NO WAY! They walk like they have a stick up their ass. Plus, they’re not even into strap-ons.
A laugh bursts out of me, just as Craig happens by.
I try to discreetly slip my phone back into my front apron pocket but based on how quickly he’s waddling toward my lane, I know I’ve been caught.
“Miss Mari, was that a personal phone I just saw on the floor? Per company policy, all employees are to leave their electronic devices within their designated cubbies in the backroom.”
No one used those things. Half the time our stuff turns up missing. That’s why most of the girls shove their purses in the bottom of a filing cabinet.
His voice is ridiculously loud, causing customers to look in our direction. I hate when there’s unnecessary attention on me.
Craig just stands there with his hands on his hips. It feels more like a disappointed coach, who was waiting for an excuse as to why their star athlete went against the play he just carefully laid out.
Don’t chew on yourself, Cindel. Speak!
“I was sending a message to my uncle! He’s sick...” I fib.
“Do you commonly laugh when your family gets sick?” His too shiny face glistens beneath the store’s fluorescent lighting, as he continues his reign of middle management terror. “Hm?”
This guy really takes his job too seriously.
“It was kind of an inside joke. Sorry. I’ll put it away now.”
He licks his top set of teeth then gives his pants a small lift around the belt.
“I’m glad you're choosing compliance. Flip off the switch for your lane light and follow me.”
I let out a small sigh. Reluctantly doing as I’m told. The guests clear just enough for me to see Mairead’s look of confusion from across the store. As if to say, “Where the fuck are you going?”
I follow the real life Humpty Dumpty, with a stache, to the far back corner of the store, where we find another Star Crew member busily cutting open boxes.
The pimple-faced teen is working around glops of fallen contents and broken containers, in an attempt to shelve more products in the baby section.
“Christopher needs his fifteen,” he tells me, once again adjusting even higher on his waist. “I’d like you to clean up this mess while he’s gone.”
The pubescent boy mirrors my astonished look. Like, really…? She’s cleaning it up, not me? I attempt to replace the look of shock from my face. I won’t give Craig the satisfaction of thinking he’s winning with this form of punishment.
“It’s Vaseline! How am I supposed to clean this?”
He walks away. Temporarily disappearing, then reappearing with a yellow bucket on wheels and mop.
“That should do the trick.” He thrusts the wooden handle into my hand. “Come on, Christopher. I don’t need the state slapping my hands, every time a minor doesn’t get their little breaks.”
They both head toward the backroom, on the other side of the store.
Leaving me with an impossible mess and the most useless cleaning tool ever.
This is so unfair. There’s petroleum jelly everywhere!
The floor, the shelves… just as I’m taking in the extent of this god-awful mess, I notice something on the shelf.
Something that doesn’t belong. Past a row of diapers, just above a huge glob of oily goo, I see purple.
Shifting the shelved items to the side, I find a small, black box with a violet ribbon.
No! It can’t be.
Instinctively, I look down the aisle both ways, seeing no one in sight. I crushed and flushed the last one.
“Argh!”
Of course, another would show up. I pull at the loose bow end, flip off the top, and see it. The earbud. The insulting device with the purple mark, that might as well be a boomerang. No matter how hard I try to get rid of the thing, it just keeps coming back.
Craig is looming and I don’t want to be caught doing something else unregulated. The last thing I need is to be fired.
Tucking my hair behind my ear, I carefully remove my hearing aid and drop it into the front pocket of my apron. Despite my better judgment, I nestle the cursed earbud into my vacant ear, then push the box back, behind a line of disposable diapers.
Not wanting to give him a chance to write me up, I set to work mopping the floor. Instantly, the water has a sheen to it, regardless of how many times I ring out the mop. All I’m doing is smearing the gloopy contents in circles. I can feel myself becoming stinky and hot with this impossible task.
Looking for relief, I hastily pulled my hair back into a ponytail, prior to ringing out the mop again. I startle when I hear the sound of drums, paired with a familiar guitar riff. Of course, this ‘plague of a device’ is playing music again! I know this song.
Thanks to sharing a wall with my brother, I had the pleasure of listening to this song a great deal of times, when he was in high school.
He would commonly become obsessed with songs to the point that he would play them over and over.
Once everyone became utterly sick of hearing it, he moved onto his next hyper fixation.
“Really?!” I all but whisper yell to no one in particular. “Vasoline?!” I object. “I don’t think Stone Temple Pilots meant it like this?”
I was quite literally squabbling with an empty aisle. As the song plays, I grow more irritated by the second. I drop the handle of the mop, just before peeking down each aisle for anyone who may be watching me. Obviously, my stalker thinks they’re funny. Whoever it is has to be close by!
Turning the corner, I peered around a tower of boxed stuffing. Beyond a customer, Craig catches sight of me.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
I scurry back to the mess on aisle nine, hoping he didn’t realize it was me. Unfortunately, as soon as I reach down and pick up the wooden handle, there he is. Red faced and slightly panting. Did he run?
“Are we finished already?” he says between short breaths.
Yes, he definitely ran… or rolled. How is he so quick?
He crosses his arms and pins me with a look.
“That was awfully fast. I thought it would have taken you at least—” He stops mid-sentence, staring at the side of my face like a bug was on it. “Are you listening to music, Miss Mari?”
Oh crap. I was so focused on the mess, then the song played… I didn’t think about covering the earbud with my hair. Before I could even respond, he looks past me, where small puddles of water and shining swirls of Vaseline has only grown in size.
Just like before he shuffles off momentarily, only to return with a yellow caution sign.
“Please follow me to my office.”
Craig pivots and starts toward the backroom.
He didn’t have an office. He was a supervisor at a shitty grocery store! Damnit, I’m going to lose another job. I cross my arms over the top of my apron, hiding the words, Star Crew. I wasn’t in the mood to direct any naive customers to the bread aisle when I was on my way to getting fired.
My balding manager was more round than tall with a superiority complex that caused subordinates to hate him while corporate adored the man. Christopher, not quite done with his break, was evicted from the room mid granola bar and ordered to promptly clean up the impossible mess.
“Have a seat, Miss Mari.”
I put myself into the slightly rusted metal chair, just in front of the breakroom’s lunch table, with him on the other side. The plastic table was riddled in mysterious smears of food, while Craig snagged the only semi-comfortable chair in the whole space.
He scoots forward, leaning his upper body onto the table, with thick, meaty forearms. Being this close to him was so much worse than him sitting and grading me on my performance. At least then I had distance.
“How long have you been with us, Miss Mari?” he asks, with all the confidence of a man who already knew the answer. Seeing as he’s the one controlling the questioning, I sense a power trip coming.