Chapter 16 #2
I haven’t written anything for the zine in a couple of weeks. Hal emails. He wants me to write a preview of a local punk compilation and I can’t say no. He tells me that people have been asking what happened to me.
Retail, Hal. That’s what happened.
The night before Thanksgiving, I work until after midnight to make sure everything’s ready for Black Friday.
I’m exhausted, but I haven’t bought the ingredients for the cranberry sauce I’ve been assigned for tomorrow’s family dinner.
I stop at a 24-hour Walmart near the store to buy fresh cranberries, an orange, a bag of sugar, and cinnamon sticks.
I pass a display of inexpensive bouquets in yellows, oranges, and reds.
It’s been weeks since I bought myself flowers, and even though I’m hardly ever at home, I buy one.
I give Moses an extra helping of 9Lives Seafood Platter, his favorite, but because he’s pissed at Brianna and me for working such long hours, he crawls under the couch as soon as he’s done eating.
No snuggles for me. I put the Walmart bouquet in a vase, make the cranberries, and shower until the water runs cold.
I’m up until two and barely sleep, startling awake every hour or so, worried about sleeping through my alarm Friday morning. Black Friday. The end times.
I spend most of Thanksgiving at my parents’ house, where the cranberry sauce is a hit, although Mom didn’t bother to hide her can of emergency Ocean Spray.
“I spoke with Bobbi McVay the other morning,” Mom says as she pours everyone coffee after dinner to go with the pumpkin pie. “You remember Bobbi, the church secretary?”
I do not.
“Bobbi said she knows someone who knows someone over at The Green Thumb. She said she could try to get you in over there.”
“The garden center?” Scout asks. “What would she do at a garden center?”
“No, no, she’d write for The Green Thumb Gazette. You know, the newsletter they mail out.” Mom sits down in front of the tiniest sliver of pumpkin pie. Mine’s gigantic and piled high with Cool Whip. I need to keep my strength up for tomorrow. “When can I tell Bobbi that you’ll be available, Abbey?”
“Um, never? First of all, I don’t have time for an interview. I worked almost seventy hours last week. Secondly, The Green Thumb Gazette? Really?”
“Why not?” Mom asks. “It’s a newspaper, isn’t it?”
“I want to write about music and concerts, not… not soil types or whatever they write about in The Green Thumb Gazette. I can’t even keep a spider plant alive.”
“Well,” Mom sniffs. “That’s because you’re never home.”
“Now, Jeannie, give poor Abbey a break,” Glamma says. “She’s working so hard.”
“There’s nothing wrong with working retail,” Dad chimes in. “Builds character.”
I don’t sleep through my alarm Friday morning, thankfully, and I’m showered and out the door by 2:30.
My mouth falls open when I turn into the parking lot.
A line of people, bundled up against the cold, begins at the front door and wraps around the corner of the building.
Some sit in camp chairs, some huddle together against the brick building, wearing various items of winter gear, sleeping bags, and fuzzy blankets.
I was expecting a crowd, but I wasn’t expecting this.
“What time do you open?” asks a middle-aged woman with orange, fake-tan skin and platinum blonde hair with dark roots. Her teal and purple Charlotte Hornets jacket is so saturated with ashy, bitter cigarette smoke that I have to hold my breath.
“Six,” I gasp out.
“Walmart opens at five,” she whines.
I’d like to say something along the lines of, “So go shop at Walmart and get out of my line, you cow,” but instead, I smile pleasantly, turn, and suck in a lungful of fresh, cold air.
I straighten my reindeer headband. The jingle bells hanging from the antlers chime.
When Jeremy informed us that we could “enhance” our uniforms in the spirit of the holiday, I immediately went to Glamma’s and raided her Christmas totes for accessories and vintage clothing, and I’ve got more than enough embellishments to get me through the next few weeks.
“Morning, toots,” a greasy, bearded guy of indeterminate age in a flannel jacket says as I walk past. His coat does nothing to mask the ripe, sweaty stench rolling off him in waves. “I like the way you jingle.”
Gross. It’s official, I’m a creep magnet.
I balk and clutch the straps of my backpack, glad to see that Wil is only a few yards from me.
He waits at the front door with a white bakery bag at his feet and a gas station coffee in each hand.
He looks… amazing. Messy black hair, those sexy dark glasses, scruff on his face like he couldn’t be bothered to take time out of his holiday for something as mundane as shaving.
He smells a thousand times better than the people in line.
I wonder how much sleep he got yesterday.
I wonder if he spent the day with his family or if he stayed home and watched football alone.
“Hey,” he says in that low, scratchy voice that turns me inside out, and I want to put my palms against that scruff and mash my face into his. Me and Wil against the world.
Clearly, I’m sleep deprived.
“What is wrong with people?” I whisper. “I already need another shower.”
“It’s only downhill from here,” he says. “Black Friday brings out the worst.”
“And the stinkiest.”
He hands me one of the cups, warm with wisps of steam rising through the little hole in the lid, and then the bag.
He shrugs, a tiny smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
“I got you a donut. And I know how much you love your Irish cream lattes, but gas station house blend was the best I could do. Nothing else is open.”
I blink. Wil bought me a donut. And coffee.
Before I can thank him, Jimmy whips his pickup into the parking lot and flings himself out of the cab.
He’s wearing a bright green sweater with the Grinch’s face and blinking, battery-powered Christmas lights.
Jimmy’s the new merch TC, a transfer from a Chicagoland store who calls me by a different Beatles album name every day.
“Ho ho ho!” Jimmy runs through the parking lot singing “Sleigh Ride” by TLC at the top of his lungs.
“Jesus,” Wil mutters.
“Is the reason for the season!” Jimmy shouts.
“Jimmy! You look so festive!” I hug him. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Was that… TLC?” Wil twists the key in the lock.
“Fuck, yeah! Let’s do this!” Jimmy pulls me into a headlock. “Oh, whoops, fans. Pardon my language. But what up, Wil? I saw you give Magical Mystery Tour a coffee. Where’s mine?”
A few minutes later, Wil calls a meeting. I lean up against a huge bin of five-dollar off-brand Christmas cartoons on VHS and sip my gas station coffee. I’m saving the donut for my break.
“Ad set is prepped and ready to go.” Jimmy looks at his watch.
“We’ve got a little more than two and a half hours to get this sucker signed.
Hopefully, we get ourselves a Thanksgiving miracle and there aren’t any major fuckups in the packet today.
” He bows his head and places his hands together in prayer.
“Dear Heavenly Father, we beseech thee.”
Wil clears his throat. “Moving on.”
“Five-minute breaks today only,” Jimmy continues, and Mick from Merch makes a sad trombone noise. “Pee fast. Staggered lunches start at nine-thirty. Check the schedule at the merch desk. What you got, Rubber Soul?”
I move away from the mass display, clutching my clipboard tight to my chest (hot pink; I had to buy it myself so why be boring?).
“Signs are printed, and I’ve got a chart with everyone’s assignments.
” I lift the clipboard and show the color-coded table I worked so hard on Monday night at home while I watched White Christmas.
I glance at Wil, and I wish I hadn’t. His smile skims across his face like a ripple of water.
He looks… proud of me. It’s rare but it’s glorious.
I look away but the image of that smile is burned into my brain.
We’ve got outrageous revenue goals, and I need my team to interact with every fan to make sure they buy all the things they need. And all the things they don’t need.
Do not think about that smile, I remind myself as I set the music ad without incident, then zip through movies while Collin and Kevin work on software and video games.
I silently throw up a plea to the universe that they can handle this day.
They’re good kids. And I realize that what I told Tamsa is true: I kind of love working here.
Once Donnie unlocks the front door and the stinky fans stream in for their Black Friday deals, time passes quickly.
For the first ninety minutes, I stand at the front of my department and direct people to ad items, then refill endcaps and feature spaces from the boxes I’ve stashed on the base decks.
The well-oiled media machine keeps on machining.
At 8:15, I go back to the break room and fill the gas station coffee cup from the big commercial pot that Crystal brought in, then pull the white paper bag from my locker and sit at one of the tables. Five minutes. I’m giving myself five minutes to eat this donut.
Boston cream. Solid choice. Too bad I don’t have time to savor it. Instead, I cram it into my mouth and wash down each bite with hot, muddy coffee. Still. It’s the best donut I’ve had in my life.