The Store

by Bentley Little

  She hoped not.

  But it might almost be worth it.

  The Store was a godsend.

  She touched a pair of Guess jeans hanging on a rack, fingered an Anne Klein blouse. She hadn't realized how much she missed having easy access to all this. Driving down to the Valley and shopping at Fiesta Mall or Metro Center had always been fun, something she enjoyed and looked forward to, but having contemporary fashions here in town, being able to try on nice clothes anytime she wanted to, without having to plan a trip and spend an entire day, was totally different. She felt as though she'd been holding her breath for a long period of time, conserving her oxygen, and now she'd been set down in a rich atmosphere and was able to breathe freely, deeply. She'd been depriving herself, doing without, and while she'd adjusted to such an extent that she hadn't even noticed what she was missing, now that it was again available she was grateful.

  This was heaven.

  They'd never have to go to Phoenix anymore.

  Everything they needed was right here in Juniper.

  The Store was wonderful.

  Shannon wandered happily through the Juniors clothing department. The items here were as good as or better than those in any mall she'd ever been in.

  It was as if they'd taken all the best clothes from all the best shops and combined them in one store.

  A discount store.

  It was like a dream come true.

  She pulled a skirt off a rack, held it up. There were fashions here that she'd only seen in magazines.

  She put the skirt back, looked around for Samantha. Her sister was over by the shoe section, talking to Bernadine Weathers. Bernadine was a bore and a half, and Shannon didn't feel like listening to the older girl drone on in her usual monotone about what _she_ thought of The Store, so she moved away, deeper into the clothes department, past mothers and their daughters, past old women and middle-aged housewives, until she found three of her own friends by the lingerie.

  "So what do you think?" Diane asked as she walked up.

  Shannon grinned. "Awesome."

  "No kidding." Diane glanced around furtively, as though checking to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Ellie and Kim, next to her, giggled. She leaned forward. "Have you seen some of the stuff they have here?" She motioned toward the lingerie.

  Shannon shook her head.

  Diane glanced around again, then walked back a few steps into the nearest aisle. She surreptitiously lifted a red lace teddy from one of the hooks on the aisle partition. "Crotchless," she said. She shifted the garment, holding the crotch out, and Shannon saw a large slit that had been intentionally incorporated into the design.

  "Maybe you should get one," Kim said.

  Ellie giggled.

  "I bet Jake would appreciate it."

  Shannon reddened. "Yeah, right," she said.

  But she stared at the teddy as Diane put it back and thought that Jake probably would like it.

  And she would like to wear it for him.

  2

  Ky Malory looked straight ahead at the shelves of the toy department, his eyes widening. Firecrackers, cherry bombs, and M80s in a multitude of colors were arrayed in a beautiful display before him, and he reached out and tentatively touched one, shivering with excitement as he felt the cool rough paper covering.

  Weren't fireworks illegal in Arizona? Or had he and his friends been lied to about that? It wouldn't be the first time. Adults often seemed to lie or exaggerate when it came to things they thought were dangerous for kids to do.

  "Ky?"

  He looked up to see his dad standing next to him, smiling down at him. He quickly, guiltily, pulled his hand away from the shelf, stepped back, but the rebuke he expected did not materialize. Instead, his dad continued to smile at him. His dad was too tall! He couldn't see the fireworks!

  He smiled to himself. That made him happy; that made him feel special.

  Most stores arranged things for adults. Even the toys. But here was something just for kids like him, something specifically planned so that adults couldn't see it. It was obvious that the fireworks were put on a shelf this low so that parents wouldn't find out about them. Maybe they were illegal. Or maybe The Store just knew that parents didn't like fireworks. Either way, it was as if a pact had been made between him and The Store, and he vowed not to tell either his mom or his dad about it.

  If he'd liked The Store before, he loved it now.

  They were partners in this.

  His dad's big hand clamped down on his shoulder. "I roofed this store, Ky.

  Did you know that? This entire store. From one side to the other. From front to back."

  He nodded at his dad, pretended to be interested, but his attention remained focused on the fireworks. The cherry bombs, he saw, looked like real cherries, their bodies red, their fuses green, like stems.

  He'd never seen anything so cool in his life.

  And the best part, the most bitchen part, were the prices posted next to the bar codes on the small ledge below the shelf.

  M80s: twenty-five cents.

  Cherry bombs: fifteen cents.

  Firecrackers: five cents.

  Five cents apiece!

  If he and his friends put their money together, they could buy tons of them. They could drop them in trash cans, put them in mailboxes, tie them to cats' tails. They could blow up the whole fucking town!

  "So how do you like The Store?" his dad asked. "Isn't it nice?"

  Ky grinned up at him. "It's great," he said. "I love it."

  EIGHT

  1

  Bill had fully intended to boycott The Store, but to his own dismay he found himself going there quite often. He was offended by the way the corporation had bought off town officials, hated the way The Store had bulldozed its way into Juniper, was suspicious of the unexplainable strangeness surrounding its arrival, but he had to admit that The Store had an excellent selection of . . . well, almost everything.

  And the fact was, it was much more convenient to shop here in town than drive up to Flagstaff or down to Phoenix.

  Still, he always tried to buy whatever he needed at locally owned businesses first. If they didn't have what he was looking for, _then_ he'd check The Store.

  But the uneasiness he'd felt, that strange sense of disquiet that had remained with him since he'd seen the first dead deer, seemed to have vanished completely. It was hard to credit animal deaths and mysterious accidents when people were snacking on sushi and drinking espresso in a modern, well-lit, state-of-the-art retail store in which the newest books, CDs, video games, fashions, cosmetics, and household appliances were a mere aisle or two away.

  Again, he felt like a traitor to his principles. But even that feeling faded as the days passed, and it was not long before going to The Store was like going to Buy-and-Save or going to Siddons Lumber, something he did easily and naturally, without thinking.

  That troubled him when he thought about it.

  But he seemed to think about it less and less, and when Ginny said to him one night that Sam wanted to apply for a part-time job at The Store, he did not say that she couldn't.

  "You know," Ginny said, "she needs to save up some money for college. Even if she gets a scholarship, she'll still need money. And she wants to buy a car, too. She mentioned something about going with you to the auction in Holbrook."

  Ginny had hinted around several times before that Sam wanted to work at The Store, and he'd thought of those people outside The Store's recruiting office, thought of all the weirdness that had been buzzing around the place since it had begun building in Juniper, and he'd automatically vetoed the idea.

  But it was hard now to maintain that sense of ominousness. What could happen to his daughter? Especially if she only worked part-time. Other people would always be around, both employees and customers, and it was virtually impossible for him to imagine all of them affected by some bizarre supernatural occurrence.

  Supernatural?

  Even the thought of it seemed lud
icrous.

  "The Store lets part-timers work flexible hours," Ginny added. "And they pay better than George's or KFC or any of the other places kids in town usually work."

  He looked over at her. "We'll see," he said. "We'll see."

  2

  The Store was the talk of the school.

  Ginny could not remember when one topic had so dominated all conversations. Local, state, and national elections, wars, international incidents -- nothing had captured the interest of faculty, staff, and students the way The Store had.

  It was a sad state of affairs when the opening of a discount retail outlet had more of an effect on people's lives than important world events.

  Still, she found herself right in there with the rest of them, talking about the astonishingly new fashions and the amazingly low prices and the vast array of household products now available in town.

  "I'm already in debt," Tracie Welles said at lunch one day when they were talking about how much they'd spent at The Store. "I'm maxed out on my MasterCard, and I had to put a couple of things on layaway."

  For a brief second, Ginny thought of those black trucks traveling at night, thought about large segments of Juniper's population going into debt to The Store, and a quick chill passed through her.

  Then it was gone, and she was laughing with the rest of the teachers in the lounge as they speculated about what their spouses would say when the credit card bills started rolling in.

  What really surprised her was Bill's complete reversal on The Store. For months he'd been almost pathologically hostile toward anything even remotely connected to the business. Now, suddenly, all that negativism had disappeared.

  It was as if he'd been instantly converted. He'd gone to the grand opening, had seen that there was nothing strange or out of the ordinary, nothing evil or unusual, and all of his reservations had vanished. He went there, he shopped there, sometimes he even just browsed there.

  And last night he'd pretty much agreed to let Sam work there.

  Miracles never ceased.

  After work, Ginny drove past the high school on her way home. It was a bad habit, she knew. And, as her friends told her, she should probably trust her daughters a little more. But she worked at a school; she knew what kids these days were like.

  Besides, even good girls did bad things.

  That's how Samantha had been conceived.

  Ginny didn't regret it. She loved her daughter. But the fact remained that her life would probably have turned out far differently had she not gotten pregnant so young. She would have finished earning her master's degree, for one thing. Might even have gone for a Ph.D. But the responsibilities of motherhood had been thrust upon her, and almost before she knew what had happened, she'd dropped out of college, she and Bill had gotten married, and her plans for the future had been radically redesigned.

  She wanted better for her daughters. She wanted them both to finish their educations, to find themselves before they were forced to take on the roles that they would play for the rest of their lives. She did not want them to go straight from being a daughter to being a mother. They needed time to be adults themselves, to forge their own identities apart from parents or mates or children.

  So, yes, perhaps she did keep too tight a rein on them sometimes. She didn't let them run around totally unsupervised. She checked up on them to make sure they were where they said they'd be. She and Bill both enforced strict curfew hours. Bizarre behavior by Juniper's redneck standards. But hopefully their daughters wouldn't end up like most of the other girls in town.

  She stopped off at the farmer's market for vegetables, then picked up bread and milk at the Buy-and-Save before heading home. Bill was gone -- at Street's, according to a note attached to the refrigerator -- and she had the house to herself. For once.

  Shannon arrived a half hour later while Ginny was chopping tomatoes for pasta sauce. She tossed schoolbooks on the table next to the door, plopped down on the couch, and immediately used the remote control to turn on the television.

  "Silence is golden," Ginny said.

  "Silence is boring," Shannon replied. "I hate coming home to a quiet house. It's creepy."

  "I think it's nice," Ginny said, but her daughter was already flipping channels, trying to find the talk show with the most outrageous topic.

  Samantha walked in a few minutes later. She smiled, said hello, went into her bedroom to drop off her books, then came back into the kitchen and got a can of Dr. Pepper out of the refrigerator. She sat down in the breakfast nook, across from where Ginny was chopping.

  She sighed loudly, melodramatically.

  Ginny tried not to smile, continued chopping.

  "I need money," Samantha said.

  "You could try getting a job."

  "That's what I'm talking about." She leaned forward. "The Store's still hiring, but I don't know for how much longer. Those jobs are going fast. They need people to fill those positions."

  "Then why don't you get an application?"

  "Can I?"

  "It's fine with me."

  "I know it's fine with you. But what about Dad?"

  Ginny stopped chopping, smiled. "Ask your father," she said. "I think it'll be okay."

  "You talked to him?"

  "What are mothers for?"

  "Oh, thank you, Mom!" Samantha leaped up, ran around the counter, threw her arms about her mother and hugged.

  "Puke," Shannon said from the couch. "I think I'm gonna barf."

  Ginny laughed. "You could learn a little bit about the art of gratitude from your sister."

  "Yeah, right."

  Samantha remained in the kitchen, talking excitedly about how she'd juggle school and work, while Ginny finished making the sauce and then started to boil the pasta. She stopped talking when Bill came home, lapsing immediately into a nervous, expectant silence, and Shannon giggled at her from the living room.

  Ginny silenced her younger daughter with a quick glance.

  "Hi, Dad," Samantha said, moving out of the kitchen to greet him.

  Bill frowned suspiciously, an expression that was only half put on. He looked from Samantha to Shannon to Ginny. "All right, what's going on? Who wrecked the car? Who broke my computer? Who had the nine-hundred-dollar phone bill?"

  "Oh, Dad," Samantha said. "Can't I even say hello to you without you going overboard and reading something into it?"

  "No," he said.

  Shannon laughed.

  Ginny saw an expression of understanding dawn in Bill's face. He glanced over at her, and she nodded almost imperceptibly, telling him with her eyes to keep his promise.

  "Your mother tells me that you want to work part-time," he said.

  Ginny looked at him gratefully.

  Samantha nodded. "I'm going to need money for college next year."

  "And you want to work where?"

  "At The Store?" she said hopefully.

  He sighed.

  "I know you don't like The Store," she said quickly, "and I understand.

  But the pay's good, and it's only part-time. They'll also work my hours around my school schedule."

  "You already talked to them?"

  "No. I thought I should ask you first."

  "Well, in that case . . ." He pretended to think for a moment. "Okay," he said. "I can work there?"

  He nodded grudgingly. "I suppose so."

  "Thanks!" She gave her father a big hug. "You're the greatest dad in the world!"

  "This is getting _really_ pukey," Shannon said.

  "He is!"

  "Shut up, all of you," Ginny said, laughing. "And wash up. It's time for dinner."

  3

  Samantha looked up at the front of The Store, took a deep breath, wiped her sweaty palms on the back of her dress, and walked inside, running her tongue over her teeth to make sure no lipstick had smeared off.

  She was nervous. She'd expected that job positions would automatically be given to the first applicants, but she'd heard at school that The Store was a
ctually turning people down. According to Rita Daley, Tad Hood had applied for a box boy position, and they'd said thanks but no thanks. Apparently, they were looking for specific qualities in their potential employees and were not willing to settle for anything less.

  In a way that was good. It meant that there were still job openings. But it also upped the pressure factor. Maybe she herself wasn't what they were looking for.

  Maybe she wasn't good enough.

  She thrust that thought out of her mind. She was the smartest girl in her class, bound to be valedictorian, probably prom queen as well. If she wasn't good enough, who was?

  The cold air hit her the second she passed through the doorway, and she was grateful for it. Despite her attempt to be confident, despite her pep talk to herself, she was still anxious, still sweating, and she stood for moment just inside the door, letting the air conditioning cool her off.

  An older man with a plastic smile on his face, wearing The Store's green vest over a white shirt, was standing near the shopping carts, and Samantha approached him. "Where would I pick up a job application?" she asked.

  "Customer Service," he said, pointing.

  "Thank you." She headed in the direction he'd indicated, and a second later spotted the words CUSTOMER SERVICE on the wall high above the electronics department.

  Shannon's boyfriend, Jake, was at the Customer Service counter, getting his own application, and he smiled at her as she walked up. "Hi," he said.

  She smiled back. "Hi."

  She'd never really liked Jake, and she wondered what her sister saw in the boy. He'd been a brat and a wiseass when he was a little kid, and even now there was something Eddie Haskell-like about him, some obnoxious smarminess that set her teeth on edge and that she couldn't believe Shannon didn't see.

  "What are you applying for?" he asked.

  "Whatever's available."

  Jake laughed. "Me, too." He looked at her in a way that seemed far too personal, far too intimate, and made her feel more than a little uncomfortable.

  "You going out with Shannon tonight?" she asked deliberately.

  "Uh, yeah," he said.