“When’s the window getting replaced?” Dad asks, because if there’s one thing Dad hates, it’s false modesty. “That will cost quite a bit more than the six-pack, I’d bet.”
Gus knows Dad’s question isn’t a question at all and shrugs. “Better get back. The cops will wonder where I’ve gone.” He pushes open the door and lets it drop onto his back as he walks into the cold. “Thanks for the coffee,” he calls, his voice instantly muffled, his bulky silhouette already fading to gray like everyone else’s. I pour myself a cup of coffee and stir in my three Splendas and four caps of cream. What if the burglar comes here next?
“I’m calling that security company,” Dad hollers on his way to the office.
“How did he do it, Dad?” I slip off the stool and follow him to the back. On the rusty-legged card table is a supposed “system” of paper piles amid empty coffee cups and gummy-bear display sets. Dad digs his hands under the bear figurines and onion-skin receipts for the powder-blue phone with the curly rubber wire dating back to the same era as the cracked security mirror up front. It’s not like he doesn’t have a cell phone or the money for a better security system, but in this store, ancient history wins out over pretty much anything else. The light-blue coil wraps around him unevenly as he paces, and a part of me—a part I’m not proud of—wonders if that story about the cigarettes is true. “How did Gus defend himself against a criminal with a gun?”
“When someone’s got a gun, Charlotte, you don’t defend yourself. You go with the flow.”
“But Gus didn’t go with the flow.”
“Gus is a big talker.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“He was burglarized alright. But I don’t understand how the guy left without a cent and Gus survived without a scratch.”
“Maybe it was the burglar’s first heist,” I say.
“Could be,” Dad answers, but it’s like he’s staring at something miles away. “Although Gus’s Gas isn’t heist material. Heists happen at international nuclear warehouses.”
“Maybe Gus put up more of a fight than he let on.” I pause. “And since when are you an expert on heists?”
“What I do know is that a burglary is the last thing Gus needs.”
“The last thing anyone needs.”
“When Gus’s parents died last year, Gus incurred dozens of bills that they’d kept from him. Bills they thought would just disappear into thin air. Thousands of dollars’ worth.”
“No wonder he fought to keep the cash in the register.”
“I guess,” Dad says.
“It’s that adrenaline rush,” I say, as if I would know. Dad shrugs and rolls his eyes, which tells me that he doesn’t know much about it either, which in turn gets me wondering again about the cigarettes.
The front door creaks open, and I stretch away from the table to catch Mom unbuttoning her faux-fur jacket. She shakes the thick coating of snow from her hair and shoulders and searches for her reflection in the front window. I watch as she runs her hands over her hips the way she always does, the way I do, and I feel my top lip curl into a sneer. I can’t help it, it’s beyond my control. People say that the qualities we loathe in others are those that we recognize and dislike in ourselves.
“Did you hear about Gus?” she hollers toward us in the back, her eyes still on her reflection.
But before we can answer, the front door rings in a client.
“Hi there, darling,” Mom says, all chipper. “May I help you with something?”
For a second, I think Mom is calling me darling, but I should know better. Mom and I have been so entrenched in cold warfare that “darling” is about as ancient as the powder-blue phone. I lean through the doorway to spy on Mom’s new “darling,” and a pang of sadness, of loneliness, washes through me along with random flashes of Mom and me before things froze up with the divorce. Long talks at the counter over our glossy magazines, afternoon trips for ice cream, late-night poker breaks during end-of-the-year inventory.
I hear the mystery customer shuffle down aisle one while Mom makes her way toward us. Everything about my mom—the stripe of bright pink blush below her cheekbones, her uniform-crisp blouse, that rose-vanilla musk—is an attack. I can tell that as she approaches, she’s sizing up her opponent too: my black Converse low-tops, skinny jeans with a hole in one knee, the T-shirt with “Peace” written in black graffiti lettering and long sleeves that reach below my knuckles. She opens up for a hug and I wrap my arms around her body but don’t squeeze. That’s what you do in a cold war. You go through the motions but stay distant. But as I half-nuzzle into the crux of her neck, I miss her, and it’s this missing that gets me pulling away.
“Cute little girl in the front browsing,” Mom whispers, unwrapping Dad from the blue coil around his waist while he’s on hold. Dad waves to her and she whisks over and gives him a peck on the cheek. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who remembers they’re divorced.
Dad perks up and uncoils as a customer representative picks up his call. He heads to the back door to talk.
“I’m not going tomorrow night, Mom.”
And as Mom backs away from me frowning, I spot the wedge-heeled boot and ankle zipper.
“Get yourself to the register, Charlotte,” she says with her signature eye roll of exasperation. “We have a customer, and I’ve got to feed the meter.” She shoves me out of the office and follows.
“We don’t have anything, Mom,” I say. Mom’s blasé use of the first-person plural is starting to grate on my nerves.
Mom’s musky aura fades as I wrap around the counter behind the register, and before I settle on my stool, I hear her welcome our “customer.” I breathe slowly, silently, in an effort to hear what’s being said as my mind runs frenzied with questions. Is Margo’s visit, the second this morning, a sneaky pre-dinner reconnaissance mission? A chance to introduce herself to Mom before tomorrow? Or is she here for more snacks? Whatever it is, Margo knows what she’s doing. I wonder if I should introduce them properly in an effort to short-circuit any more devious plans.
“Looking for something special, honey?” Mom looks Margo up and down the way she looks at me. Except this time, she likes what she sees. The corners of her mouth have turned upward into an accepting smile. The glimmer in her eyes says, Now that’s what I’m talking about! A part of me wants to tell Mom who this nutshell of perfection really is. The other part wants to wave a white flag, hand over my mother-daughter rights, move to Alaska or Europe, and let Mom figure it out for herself.
“Hi, Mrs. Miller.” In the corner mirror, I watch Margo peel off her wool glove to shake Mom’s hand. “I’m a classmate of Charlotte’s.” Now there’s adrenaline for you, pure and uncut. Gus’s variety.
“A pleasure to meet you, darlin’.” Mom’s southern twang—due to one summer in southern Virginia—has blossomed out of nowhere, which means she’s been charmed.
“Well, hon, be sure to ask Charlotte for a nice discount on that lollipop you’re eyeing.” Mom bundles her coat around her shoulders and whisks out the door to the meter.
Before the door chimes shut, Margo is running her hands along the spring display of foil-wrapped chocolates, knocking them to the floor. The ones that don’t topple she drops into her bag. And then it’s the lollipops. Margo may not have a gun, but as far as high school warfare goes, her popularity and biting audacity translates perfectly. And like Dad said, you don’t fight someone with a loaded gun.
And that’s when Jenny Cho flashes across my consciousness. Even after Margo crammed Jenny’s locker with dildos and other sex toys that then burst out onto the floor when Jenny opened it one morning, Jenny still talks to Margo in the halls like nothing happened. I mean, here’s a fish-on-Friday kind of Catholic who, even with God on her side, wouldn’t think of crossing Margo Price. I guess it could be Christian forgiveness, but I’d bet my potential afterlife on a motiv
e of self-preservation. I’ll bet Jenny is no more friends with Margo than I am, but Jenny’s chosen to survive, and so do I.
“Hey, Margo.”
But my words evaporate as soon as they enter her atmosphere. She slides an extra-large gourmet lollipop from the display case, slips off the thick plastic covering, and pops it in her mouth. With the plastic lollipop stick poking out of her mouth like one of those long, chic cigarettes from old movies, she grabs a plaid tin of shortbreads from the shelf, setting off a cascade of falling raisin boxes that she steps over before turning down aisle two.
I run my fingers over the left side of the register and feel the sticky layers of tape safeguarding that dollar bill I used for my first purchase as a Miller’s customer. I remember the green corduroy skirt and canvas lace-up shoes my four-year-old self was wearing that day. I still have the chocolate figurine I’d chosen to buy. In fact, it’s just like the foil-covered ones that Margo has either dropped into her purse or left for broken on the floor.
“What have you chosen to buy, Miss?” I can still picture Mom behind the register on the same stool I’m perched on now, with her pixie haircut and the royal-blue sweater she wore practically every day until she didn’t anymore.
I stretched my arms above me and nudged that dollar bill and chocolate duckling wrapped in orange-yellow foil beyond the counter’s edge to the flat surface. I remember listening for the cha-ching of the old register and then waiting as Mom, with her bubblegum-pink nails, slipped two silver coins under the tips of my fingers. The bells on the door sound just like the register’s cha-ching, which is probably why I like them so much.
Dad called my purchase a historic transaction. And for that reason, as soon as the dollar was snapped into the till, it was slid back out and put on display. When we changed registers, the dollar bill was transferred to the side of the new one, the way a van Gogh painting is moved from one museum to another. Or at least that’s how I see it.
I run my fingers over the wrinkled dollar and think of that chocolate duck still stashed in the back of my sock drawer. I never ate it, probably for the same reason my parents taped up my dollar. As far as family pride goes, maybe there is some hope for me yet.
Margo saunters to the counter lopsided. Her purse, now deformed from what she’s thrown in it from the shelves, is weighing down her left shoulder. From up close, her skintight black outfit makes her look about as curvaceous as the tine of a fork. And because I’d bet that she’s the sour-grapes kind of gal, I wonder if her arrow-straight nonfigure isn’t the reason why she decided on Pudge as a name for me. She shifts the lollipop from one cheek to the other and stares at me with dead, sharklike eyes.
“Think we’ll have school tomorrow, Charlotte?” She struggles to utter my name with the massive sugar ball wedged between her cheek and teeth, and despite myself and the dollar bill under my fingertips and the chocolate duck, I am slightly appreciative of her effort.
“You can have that lollipop for three dollars instead of four,” I say. “If you decide to buy those shortbreads in your bag, the lollipop’s two fifty.”
“Don’t think so.” Her immediate refusal to negotiate slumps my shoulders and drops my gaze to the counter. It’s just like Dad said. You don’t fight someone with a gun.
In the school halls, her comments fly like darts, but by the time they sting, she’s out of sight. Here, however, her wrath stagnates over the counter like a poisonous, black vapor, and I have nowhere to hide. Any potential bravery on my part would be maxed out after an initial retort, and where would that leave me? Out of my league, that’s where. Margo has enough venom-stoked nerve to last a lifetime.
When I look up from the counter, I am faced with her cold stare and an expensive leather bag full of stolen merchandise. She stretches behind for a bag of chips that she squishes in next to the bottle of sparkling lemonade.
“Two fifty, right?” She pulls the shortbread tin from her bag to fish for her wallet among the chocolates, lemonade, and chips. As she digs, the bag of chips rustles and the silver cap on the lemonade twinkles under the overhead lights. When she pulls out her wallet, there is a lone foil-covered chocolate sunflower half-wedged under the flap of the change pocket. It’s as if the rustling and twinkling and wedging are a dare to speak up. But instead of following their heed, I reach toward the radiator for the nail file that burns me a second time.
“Two fifty for the lollipop.” My voice is astonishingly firm and I clear my throat. “You’ve got lemonade, chips, chocolates, and a tin of cookies, and you—”
“You said two fifty.” She repacks her bag and presses against the counter playing the disgruntled customer. She sheds the thick leather strap of her bag and lets it splat to the ground. I picture the chocolate figurines now shattered and worthless inside their gold foil.
“Not two fifty for everything,” I stay firm, but my heart is beating faster and louder than ever before and my cheeks are burning hot.
“Three is my final offer.” Her voice is flat and icy.
A figure appears at the front door just as Margo opens her wallet. It’s Mom, fumbling with her purse and cell phone. Her hand is on the doorknob, but she hasn’t yet pushed through, which gives me another ten seconds to settle this.
“Fine,” I mumble.
“That’s what I thought,” she says, brushing bits of chocolate dust and foil from her hands before opening her wallet for three dollars bills. “I mean we’re practically family.”
And with those words, I feel like throwing up. Family.
“Lordy! This weather!” Mom bursts in, a full-blown southern belle.
“Have a good day, Mrs. Miller!” Margo swishes past Mom and out the still-open door, where the snowstorm mercifully turns her from black to gray to white.
“What a lovely girl,” Mom sighs, squeezing past me to the coffeemaker.
And at that moment I understand what “devil incarnate” means. I brush the remaining scraps of the spring chocolates from the counter and watch them shimmer to the floor.
She points to the sign behind the register, the sign that I have consistently tried through the years to lose in the inventory room. “No shoes, no shirt, no manners? No service!” Mom reads it like other people read a psalm or Walt Whitman.
“Manners, Charlotte. That’s the key.” She sashays to Dad, who’s still wrapped in blue on the phone. “That’s what makes us different. It’s what makes this place different.”
“You’re not part of ‘us,’ Mom. Not anymore,” I say quietly enough for Dad not to hear. I feel like I’ve just kicked myself in the gut with those words, but Mom doesn’t miss a high-heeled step. “And anyway, manners and culture don’t mean squat,” I holler. “Think Hannibal Lecter!”
She swats away my comment like she would a fly. I figure the more she swats, the greater the chance that one of these days she’ll stop coming in so often. This unwelcome sensitivity to Mom’s presence could be a kind of post-Margo unfettering, but I think it has much more to do with the twinkle of acceptance I saw in Mom’s eyes as she sized up my dangerously swat-worthy nemesis.
“What’s wrong?” Jarrid’s voice startles me from aisle two.
“Stop sneaking up on me!”
“You’re staring into space like you were just shot or something.”
“Or something,” I say flatly. “How’d you guess.”
“I want to finish unloading these boxes before my mom picks me up,” he says. “The blizzard’s got her worried.” He sighs.
“I didn’t think Perfect Pamela worried,” I say.
“I see that you didn’t kick Margo out per my earlier suggestion. She was leaving as I came in through the back. Two snack runs before nine in the morning is—”
“Per my ever-constant suggestion, Jarrid, mind your own business.” I look beyond him to the back and am struck by a disturbing image to top off a disturbing morning. Mom is rubbing
Dad’s shoulders, her coat open for better kneading. Dad’s chin is dropped to his chest, which means he’s either relaxed or has succumbed to the nauseating qualities of Mom’s new scent that, come to think of it, is suspiciously similar to Margo’s vanilla, cake-batter-like smell. I’d bet every dollar in the till that the perfume was a gift from Dave. A nauseating flash of a spindly man in black with pointy-toed leather shoes and slicked-back black hair at Clotilde’s Parfumerie on the corner practically lights my brain on fire.
“You’re counting again,” Jarrid whispers from the boxes. “Your lips are moving.”
“No, I’m not.” I stop counting. “And get a life. Pu-lease.”
“You first,” he blurts, untouched by my scorn.
“Mom’s seeing someone,” I blurt.
Dropping the latest Mom bomb has left Jarrid staring and quipless. I motion him to the counter, preparing to put into words for the first time what happened at Herod’s.
“And that’s not the worst part,” I whisper.
“The guy’s on parole.”
“Very funny.”
“He’s a teacher at Lincoln.”
“You’re getting warmer.”
“She’s a teacher at Lincoln.”
I laugh against my will but straighten fast. “His daughter’s a sophomore at Lincoln.” I open my eyes wide, but he’s still staring at me blankly. “The most popular girl in school?”
“No!” Jarrid spins in shock and then hops to the back of the register next to me like he’s a winning game-show contestant. “Margo Price?” He spins again, almost knocking my coffee to the floor. “It’s—“
“Don’t say it.”
“Priceless!” His laughter is so thunderous that Dad, who’s gone semi-comatose under Mom’s magic touch, is startled upright.
“I’m supposed to have dinner at their house tomorrow night to meet him.”
Jarrid spins back customer-side and leans in over the counter. “So Margo’s been here doing a little recon on your mom before the big night.”
Hold-Up Page 8
