Shelter Me

by Mina Bennett

  Then again, there was Mark's nice house. George was always a good boy, but sometimes he brought up a hairball or his food disagreed with him. And then there was his litter box, and the smell...maybe it was better not to bring him. After everything else we'd talked about today, I'd feel horribly guilty if George ruined Mark's perfect living arrangement.

  I wiped my eyes, trying to pull myself together. Mark stood up and shook his head a little, like he was trying to shake off this whole encounter.

  "Okay, I think I'd better go," he said. "I've made a mess of this whole conversation, huh?"

  "No, no, it's fine," I insisted.

  "I'll let you calm down," he said. "We can talk more about this later. I'm sorry, Mari, really. I am. I'm not very good at this."

  I shook my head in protest, but he was already leaving.

  George finally crawled out, sauntering up and winding himself between my legs. I couldn't bring myself to reach down and pet him. He had no idea.

  Ugh. I had to stop being so melodramatic. I'd come back and visit him all the time; he'd probably never even notice that I was gone.

  He purred, so hard that I could feel his chest vibrating against my calf.

  "Is everything okay, Mari?" My mom was standing in my doorway. I hadn't even noticed her coming up.

  "Yeah," I said. "We were just having a talk."

  She sighed, looking me up and down. I was sure my eyes were still red and swollen, my nose still running slightly. I sniffed.

  "I just..." I took a deep breath. "Do you think it would be okay if George stayed here, after I moved out?"

  "Of course, honey." My mom came in and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Is that why you're crying?"

  "I guess I never thought about leaving him behind."

  "Well, you could take him if you wanted to." She looked vaguely concerned. "I'm sure he'd adjust to a new home just fine."

  "I don't really think he'd fit in," I said. "Mark's house is...really nice."

  "Well, honey, he loves you. I'm sure he'd learn to love George, too."

  "Yeah," I said. "But I don't know if it's a good idea."

  "Well, okay, honey." She came over and patted me on the head, gently. "Whatever you want."

  If only, I wanted to say.

  If only.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jacob

  I expected to be at least a little nervous on my first day of work, but instead, I felt strangely calm walking through the giant sliding doors. I'd been shopping here since I was a kid, despite how my parents protested when they razed the apple orchards and replaced it with the outdoor mall, with Ashefield's as the anchor. It was just too convenient to be able to run in and grab a cheap pair of socks, or a five dollar DVD for the night. As a kid I'd spent most of my time in the bike section, and today I still caught myself wandering in that direction, momentarily forgetting why I was here.

  The wall of TVs was blaring behind Mr. Harris, who was standing in the middle of the round counter that filled up the center of the department. He was fiddling with a digital camera when I walked up.

  "Hello there," he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. "Jacob, yes? Did you clock in?"

  I nodded, gesturing to the employee ID card slung around my neck. "It said I was too early, but that's okay, right?"

  "Well, yes." He smiled. "Being early is good. But generally you want to wait until no more than seven minutes before the beginning of your shift to clock in, otherwise the system ends up reading it as overtime. It's no problem, though, I'll just have you leave a few minutes early."

  "Got it. Sorry."

  "Please, don't apologize. Better early than late." He walked me over to one of the lower shelves in the lesser-trafficked corner of the department. "I'd like to get you trained on register sooner rather than later, but until then, I'll have you working on some of our regular cleaning and organizing. Most of what we handle is customer service, honestly, but until you can cash out I'll teach you the rest of the stuff."

  He took me on a tour of the department, pointing out things I'd never noticed before as a customer. When he showed me the key ring that opened the glass case with all the video games, my inner six-year-old felt like he'd been let into the Holy of Holies. Mr. Harris also showed me how to use the strange magnet contraption to open some of the locked alarm cases and shelf hangers.

  "The after-work rush will be starting soon," he said. "These thumb drives over here, they're in the ad, and they meet the supply list criteria for basically every school within a 20-mile radius, so expect to be handing a lot of those out."

  I nodded, looking at the dwindling supply on the shelf. "Do we have any more in the back?"

  "The sale ends today, so that's all we've got." He handed me the keys and went behind the counter. "Okay, I'll probably be stuck on register for the next few hours, so you can help people on the floor. Just come get me if you have any questions, and remember that anybody with small-ticket items can check out at the main registers up-front."

  I heard the faint sound of people chattering as they approached, and a few customers started appearing from the main aisle.

  "All right," said Mr. Harris. "Here they come. You ready?"

  I nodded. Did I have a choice?

  The activity picked up so quickly that I didn't have time to process it. Suddenly, every time I turned around, someone with a cart full of notebooks and pencils was asking me to unlock a memory card, and did we have any more copies of the new Bourne movie, and by the way, would we be keeping normal hours on Thanksgiving or would the store be closing early? Within a few minutes, my head was swimming. But somehow, I managed to juggle it all, smiling at everyone and acting like there was no place on earth I'd rather be.

  I'd heard horror stories, of course, mostly from Brandon - by the sounds of it, customers in this town could be downright insufferable at times. But everyone was surprisingly nice.

  At first.

  "Excuse me." Something about the tone made me bristle before I'd even turned around.

  "Yes, can I help you?" I said, as cheerfully as I could manage. The woman stared back at me, her eyes like flint and her mouth turned down into a permanent frown.

  "Where are these thumb drives?" she snapped, shoving a well-worn copy of the circular in my general direction. "I see them if your ad, but I don't see them on the shelf."

  "Um - well, let's see, they should be..." I looked over to the spot that Mr. Harris had pointed out to me. Of course, it was empty. "Oh," I said.

  "Oh?" she repeated. "What does that mean?"

  "It looks like we must have sold out," I said. "See, it was a limited time offer and..."

  "Well, get me some from back, then!" The woman's two children, huddled around her like frightened rabbits, just stared at me. I could tell they'd been through more than one experience like this today. "You must have more in the back."

  "Unfortunately, we don't," I said, putting on the most apologetic face I could muster. "My manager just told me..."

  "What, you won't even go look in the back for me? That's your job, isn't it?"

  "Well, yes, part of it, but the thing is that -"

  "I don't want to hear excuses, I came into this store to spend money and you're talking back to me. I'm the customer. Go look in the back."

  "Ma'am," I said, barely concealing the exasperation in my voice, "I really, really wish I could sell you this thumb drive. I do. But we're one hundred percent sold out. There's none left. I'm very sorry. It's the last few hours of the sale, so we just..."

  "Excuse me? It's the last few hours of the sale? Are you trying to tell me that if I don't come in as soon as the ad drops, I can't get the prices that you're promoting in your circular? That's false advertising."

  "Actually, it says 'while supplies last...'"

  She just glared at me. Mr. Harris had a line of several people he was helping at the register - I had to handle this one on my own.

  "Fine," she snapped, after a moment's silence. "Just give me a rain check
, then."

  I looked down at the ad, and then back up at her seething face. Printed in big, bold letters across the product description was:

  NO RAIN CHECKS

  I cleared my throat, and swallowed a few times. "Uh," I said. "Well, I don't know if we..."

  "You'd better be able to do it," she snarled. "I'm the customer."

  Seeing no alternative, I took a step back. "I'm going to have to check with my manager," I said.

  "Yes," she said. "You do that."

  I approached Mr. Harris softly, as he counted out someone's change. "Hi," I said. "I'm sorry, but...is there any way we can do a rain check for those thumb drives?"

  He shook his head. "Limited time sale, it says so in the ad. Why, can someone out there not read?"

  The customer he'd just rung out looked at him slightly askance, and I had to smile. "I guess not," I said, softly, mindful of how close she was. "I don't know, she just seems really upset, I was hoping there was something we could do."

  "My hands are tied, really. If I hand out a rain check now, the service desk won't honor it. And if I honor it myself, then they'll find it in an audit and the money comes out of my paycheck. That's if I don't get suspended for going against policy in the first place. Believe me, I wish I could give these people whatever they want sometimes, so they'd go away. But policy is policy."

  "Okay," I said, glancing in her direction. "But I don't know what to tell this lady. She won't take no for an answer."

  Mr. Harris looked around the department. "All right," he said. "I'll come talk to her for a second. It looks like things are quieting down, anyway."

  As soon as he turned around, his face fell.

  "Oh," he muttered. "It's her."

  Before I could ask him what that meant, he was walking out from behind the counter, squaring his shoulders like he was headed in to battle.

  "Hello there," he said, with a forced smile. "How can I help you, ma'am?"

  "Well," she said, letting out a long sigh. "Your stock boy over here is telling me that you're all sold out of these thumb drives that my daughter needs for school. That's just not acceptable. If it's in your ad, it should be in your store."

  "Ma'am," said Mr. Harris, his smile freezing a little, "I know we've had conversations about this before. Like the disclaimer says, it's while supplies last. Our sales last from Sunday morning to Saturday night, and right now it's Saturday night. People have been coming in and buying it all week. I'm sure you understand - other parents and other kids needed them, too."

  "That's not the issue here," she insisted. "The issue is that I need it now. What are you going to do for me? I've agreed to settle for a rain check, but this stock boy keeps acting like there's some kind of problem with that."

  "Well ma'am," said Mr. Harris. "The problem is, as you can see in the ad, it does say that no rain checks will be issued."

  Her lips thinned even more, somehow. "That's not my problem," she said. "I'm not leaving here until I have a thumb drive or a rain check, your choice."

  "If your daughter needs one for school on Monday, we have several other options," said Mr. Harris. "Some of them are very reasonably priced."

  "No." The woman crossed her arms. "I'll only accept the one that's on special. The one that's in your ad. Unless you want me to call corporate and tell them your store is engaging in false advertising."

  Mr. Harris was grabbing another thumb drive off the shelf. "This one, for instance, fits the same criteria from the supply lists, and it's only..."

  "Are you not hearing me?" she demanded. "This store is absurd. I can't stand the way I'm treated here. Like a second-class citizen, when all I want is what's been promised to me. This ad is a binding contract, did you know that? My brother-in-law is an attorney, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to come down and explain it to you."

  Mr. Harris looked utterly defeated. "If you like, I can call around to some of the other stores in the area and see if they have any."

  "No! I refuse to shop at any other location. I've already driven here. If you expect me to go to another store, you'd better be planning on reimbursing me for gas."

  I thought I could hear Mr. Harris' teeth grinding together.

  "Ma'am," he said, finally. "We can stand here all night doing this, going back and forth on what you think our policy should be. But I know no matter what I do, you're going to go home and leave another message with corporate, and they're going to call me and ask me if I could have done anything more to make you a satisfied customer. And once again, I'm going to explain to them that I'm just trying to work within their policies, and they're going to tell me that there's always a way to make someone happy without breaking policy. And I'm going to tell them that I tried, and they're going to tell me that they're disappointed in the outcome of this situation. I know that's going to happen, because it's happened exactly like that, five times before. Do you think I enjoy this? I don't. I'm just trying to keep my kids clothed and fed."

  The woman stared at him. For a few, terrifying moments, I wondered if she was actually going to start screaming.

  But instead, she finally turned on her heel and stalked away, her kids hurrying after her like birds scattering from a loud noise. As she left, I swore I heard her mutter "never shopping here again," but somehow I didn't believe she meant it.

  I turned to look at Mr. Harris. He seemed like he'd aged about ten years during the exchange, his shoulders slumping as he made his way back to the counter.

  "So she's a regular, huh?" I said, because I didn't know what else to say.

  "Yes," he replied, his voice very quiet and subdued. "Her name is Mary Rose. Corporate customer retention has a file on her three inches thick. She has a particular dislike for me. I've never really known why. But every time she walks in here, she has a problem with every single thing, and she declares she's going to have us all fired, or call corporate, or have her lawyer brother-in-law sue us. And of course, she's 'never shopping here again.' Then, the next week, she's back, starting the whole cycle all over again. Corporate, being run by several robots who've never worked customer service a day in their lives, is never happy with how I handle it. I've been working with the public since I was fourteen." He looked at me, seeming to suddenly remember who he was talking to. "How old are you again, son?"

  "Eighteen," I replied. "Nineteen, soon."

  "Well, let me tell you something. It never gets easier, this kind of work. You just get used to it, but it's never easy. I got stuck here, at the one out in Smithfield, because I guess I didn't know what else to do. I didn't have a lot of options, and as a kid, it always seemed like so much money. I started putting in more and more hours, and before I knew it, they were promoting me and training me and making me feel like I was important. When this one opened, it was close to home, so of course I put in a transfer. By that time I'd married my high school sweetheart and had a few kids. Sometimes I look back and I don't know where the years went, and I've given over half my life to this company."

  He let out a long, tired sigh.

  "You start to figure out, after a while, that to most of these people you're the scum of the earth. It's not that they don't like you - they don't think about you at all. You just don't matter. After a while, it gets exhausting. Customer after customer, snapping their fingers at you like you're a dog, talking on their phones while you try to help them, and glaring at you when you talk. And then there's the ones like Mary Rose, who just seem to like it - coming in here and getting everyone all worked up into a frenzy. Even the good days are bad, and the bad days are hell. Whatever you have to do, kid, I don't care - go to trade school, learn a skill, start a business, dig ditches for a living. Anything is better than this."

  I didn't really know how to respond to that.

  "Yeah," I said, quietly. "Actually, I'm just trying to save up some money to open a bike shop."

  Mr. Harris' eyes lit up. "A bike shop!" he exclaimed. "Now, see, that's a great idea." He clapped me on the shoulder. "That's what I'm talkin
g about. Build something for yourself. Worst case scenario, you'll still turn out better than me."

  "Hey," I said, trying to lighten the mood a little. "Maybe if things go well, you can come work for me someday."

  "Oh, kid," he said. "Don't get my hopes up like that."

  ***

  A while after Mary Rose had stormed out, Mr. Harris was in much better spirits. Eventually, he sent me over to the corner where the printer cartridges were, with an empty tote and a printout he called a "planogram." The idea was to make it so the shelf matched the layout on the paper, with all the right products in the right spots. Anything that wasn't listed was discontinued, and had to be pulled and sent back to the warehouse. This was exactly the kind of mind-numbing work I'd been hoping for, so I set to my task eagerly.

  The dust stirred up from some of the older specimens made me cough and sneeze, but overall, I was feeling pretty good about things until I heard a voice.

  "...are you sure you can't just print it out at the computer lab, when you get there?"

  My heart plummeted into my stomach, then shot up into my throat.

  "Oh," said Marissa. "Hey, Jacob."

  I cleared my throat a few times. "Hey," I said. "Sorry about all the...dust."

  She looked a little amused. Mark was standing behind her, and slightly off to the side, staring intently at some of the toner cartridges.

  "I didn't know you worked here," she said.

  "Oh," I said. "Well, I just started. Today."

  "That's great," she said. "Well, apparently we need a new ink cartridge. Urgently."

  Mark sighed. "I told you," he said. "If I don't turn this paper in tomorrow, I don't pass the class."

  "All right, okay." Marissa hugged herself, stepping away from him a little. "So, how are you liking it here so far?"

  "Pretty good," I said. "I mean, you know. We had a customer in here a while ago who was pretty mad that we were sold out of something, and threw a fit over it."