by Sachs, Zané
He catches me staring, and our eyes meet.
Blinded by his smile, I blurt, “Hi, I’m Sadie.”
“Marcus.”
He extends his hand and we shake.
“You new here, Marcus?”
“Yeah. We moved in a few weeks ago.”
We moved in. Bummer. Of course, a guy like him is married. Not that a wedding ring has ever stopped me. But I don’t see one on his finger. No jewelry, except a small medallion strung on a gold chain around his neck.
He notices my gaze.
“Saint Christopher,” he says. “Patron Saint of Travelers.”
I lean closer to examine the medallion.
“You religious?”
“Not really. My grandma gave me the medal, and I never take it off. She raised me.”
“Still alive?”
“Grandy passed on a while back.” He takes another bite of chili. “You try this? I swear, it’s as good as hers.”
“Thanks.”
He pauses mid-bite.
“You make this chili, Sadie?”
“Yeah.”
His smile widens to a grin, but before he can take another bite, a little girl runs up to him and grabs his hand.
“Daddy, push me.”
Marcus gives me his bowl of chili as his daughter drags him toward the swings.
Just my luck. Not only married, but a father.
An ache runs through me, not cramps, something deeper. Using the spoon Marcus used, I take a bite of chili and find the spicy meat difficult to swallow. Feeling woozy, I set the bowl on the picnic table, my gaze fixed on Marcus and his daughter.
The little girl pumps her legs, giggling as Marcus draws back the swing.
“Higher, Daddy.”
He pushes her, and she leans backward, dark curls dangling in the dirt as her feet stretch toward the crabapple tree. When the toes of her pink sneakers touch a branch, she shrieks with delight.
My chest constricts, collapsing into a void that used to hold my heart. If you used a stethoscope, you might hear the steady pump of a working organ, but it’s merely mechanical.
“Higher.”
I strain to breathe, forcing air into my lungs, my vision going bonkers like a light show. Next thing I know, I’m lying on the grass.
The sun makes me squint.
“You all right?”
The super’s face hovers over me.
“Sadie?”
The super crouches next to me, offers me a plastic cup. I take a sip. It’s water. I wish it was vodka. Marcus stands beside her.
“Sadie,” he says. “I’m a doctor. May I take your pulse?”
I look into his face, tan and rugged, like he spends a lot of time outdoors, his features boldly sculpted—a high forehead and a pronounced nose.
“Take anything you want.”
“Good to see you’ve retained your sense of humor.” He places his fingers on my wrist, and an electric charge pulses through body. “How are you feeling?”
Petrified.
His dark eyes peer into mine—probing, searching.
I try to stand.
“Sit. Drink some water.”
“I couldn’t catch my breath.”
“You may be dehydrated. It’s hot today.”
He’s hot.
“So it wasn’t a heart attack?”
He shakes his head. “I doubt it, but we can have you tested to be certain. Do you suffer from anxiety, Sadie?”
I like the way he says my name. I detect a bit of a foreign accent. Everyone is crowding around us now—the girls from Bakery, Lisa, little children and their parents, the guy who’s always smoking in the parking lot. Even weird Jayne is watching me.
“Stand back,” the doctor says, like we’re in a movie. Then he asks the super, “Where does she live?”
She tells him.
“Do you think you can stand, Sadie?”
He helps me to my feet, and I lean against his chest, breathing in his scent, feeling the warmth of his body, my mouth watering as I imagine how he’d taste with a sprinkling of smoked paprika and garlic.
I push that thought out of my mind, tell myself that I am sick, sick, sick. Not because I had a heart attack, or whatever, but because I have these appetites.
“Can you walk? Or should I carry you upstairs?”
“Carry me.”
Résumé
Good news: his wife is dead.
According to the super, who heard the story from Lisa, she died about a year ago.
His name is Marcus Archuleta, and I absolutely cannot kill him. I made myself promise. Not only because he’s been kind to me, but because he’s a single parent. His daughter’s name is Carmela. I call her Caramel. She’s seven. I know what it’s like to lose a mother, and I won’t make her lose her father too. He seems like a good one.
Marcus isn’t a real doctor. He’s a psychiatrist.
After my anxiety attack, he put me to bed and wrote me a prescription for this stuff called Xanax. He even picked it up at the supermarket pharmacy. Then he stayed with me until I fell asleep. I hope he didn’t notice the ceiling in the living room. If he mentions the stain, I’ll tell him I’ve been experimenting with paint samples, or that a bottle of ketchup exploded, or that the stupid college kid would not shut up. Kidding—I won’t tell him about the kid. Anyway, I slept all night, and the next morning I felt a lot better, except my stomach was as bloated as a watermelon due to my period. Or maybe the bloating was a result of eating chili. Anyway, I took a Xanax and some Motrin, then called in sick. Did you know masturbation is a great release for cramps? I keep several vibrators in the top drawer of my bedside table for medicinal purposes.
A few days later, here I am, dressed in my uniform, Sadie the Sadist disguised as a Courtesy Clerk.
I think the Courtesy Clerk costume brings Sadie the Sadist out. I’ve given up on trying to control her. Before my alcoholic husband croaked, I attended Al-Anon, and they tell you the only person you can control is yourself.
I recite the Serenity Prayer, silently.
God (or whatever), grant me the serenity to accept stuff I can’t change, the courage to change stuff I can, and the … smarts? ... brains? ... wisdom! to know the difference.
When the Store Manager walks by, I smile at him and say hi, hoping he’s received my résumé and application.
He nods. I’m not sure if he knows my name. If he doesn’t, how will he schedule me for an interview? I ask Doreen at Customer Service to print me a new name tag with giganto letters, so even people with bad eyesight can read: SADIE.
“Sadie, it’s your turn to do carts.”
I’m pinning my new name tag on my shirt, so I ignore Terri.
“Did you hear me?”
I don’t like her tone of voice. I don’t think that’s how she should address the soon-to-be Assistant Manager.
“When am I due for my break?”
Terri checks her clipboard.
“Not for a half hour. Right now, you’re scheduled to do carts.”
Can you believe this bitch? She’s always on me.
I grab the leash and put on the stupid orange vest. Orange never has been and never will be my color, but now that I’ve dyed my hair red the orange vest makes me look like a cross between a pumpkin and a tomato.
Mondays tend to be busy, especially in summer, and the parking lot is packed. Clouds have moved in, so at least the temperature is cooler. Pretty soon, kids will be heading back to school and the tourist season will slow down. The supermarket has already lost a few Courtesy Clerks who’ve gone back to college. Consequently, we’re shorthanded. That’s why I’m stuck collecting shopping carts for the second time this afternoon.
Some clown rammed a cart into the bushes, so I yank it out. Another dodo left a cart at the bus stop. I round up three more, and use the leash to hold them together. Some guys can leash ten carts at a time, maybe more, but five is my limit. The parking lot is on a hill which is a pain. Pushing carts uphill gives m
y thighs a good workout, but going downhill I have to be careful not to have a runaway. It happens. A cart gets loose, crashes into a car, and guess who’s held responsible? Not the store. Once, a cart escaped from me and nearly hit a passing BMW. The car screeches to a stop, the driver’s window glides down, and this jerk yells at me, “Do you have insurance?” I yell back, “Parking lot insurance?” The guy shakes his head, like I’m stupid. I mean, does parking lot insurance even exist? Anyway, he pissed me off. So, after he parked his BMW and went inside the supermarket, I keyed a swastika on his passenger door. When the guy came out, he tried to accuse me of doing it, but he’d parked beyond the range of the security cameras and had no proof. I blamed it on a group of kids.
The job interview thing is making me nervous, so I take a break from carts and pop a Xanax. Doctor Archuleta said Xanax is addictive, that I should only take it when I need it, and I need it now. The thought of speaking to the Store Manager is making me a nervous wreck, but I need to make him notice me. I ran into Liam in the elevator, and he told me there’s a rumor going around Produce that Terri applied for the position—and, according to the rumor, she’s most the likely candidate for Assistant Store Manager.
Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
I need to take action. I need to implement my plan.
Tonight I’m stuck with the closing shift. I don’t minding working late, but when you’re a Courtesy Clerk and you work closing you have to dump a lot of trash, clean the stinky Men’s Room, and other shitty jobs. The worst thing about working at the supermarket is the schedule. It changes every week, depending on the store’s needs, so you never know what days you’ll get or what the hours will be. Sometimes you work overtime, sometimes part time, sometimes days, sometimes nights. It’s hard to have a life. No life may be fine for robots, but it sucks for people.
I’m considering giving the Store Manager this book about Nonviolent Communication. According to NVC, everyone has needs. People fight because of conflicting needs. Peace can be achieved when everybody’s needs are met. The store has needs. You have needs, and so do I.
For example, I need to kill Terri.
For all I know, Terri needs to kill me.
If that’s the case, I feel sorry for her, I empathize, because I’m going to kill her first.
NVC says, before we can empathize with others, we need to feel empathy for ourselves. I feel sorry for myself because of the screwed-up schedule. And I feel sorry for Terri, because she’s a bossy bitch who’s gonna die.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
That’s better. I feel calmer.
Sometimes the universe lines things up for us, but we’re too blind to see it. Like tonight. Reframing my point of view, I realize the closing shift is actually a good thing.
Wow!
This New Age shit is really helpful.
According to my smartphone, the moon won’t rise until 11:41 PM.
That’s why the universe gave me the closing shift.
Terri asked me to do shop-backs, the perfect opportunity to implement my plan.
Shop-backs take me all over the store trying to find the proper place for stuff customers don’t want. Customers decide they don’t want an item for a variety of reasons—they find a better deal, see something they prefer, simply have a change of heart. No problem. But why leave the stuff in strange places? Raw chicken tucked between cardamom and cinnamon, sushi dumped in the cut fruit display, Tampax hanging out with Campbell’s. Really, people? This happens all the time, and Courtesy Clerks have to return the items to where they belong.
You may think shop-backs are easy-peasy, a job any dummy can do. But have you noticed how many items there are in a supermarket? It can take a lot of time to find where things belong and make sure the PLU codes match—the microscopic numbers you see on products designed to control inventory. Pressure increases for hot and cold shop-backs. If the temperature of a cold item rises above 40 degrees Fahrenheit, it has to be tossed. If the temperature of a hot item drops below 140 degrees that food is trashed. And have you noticed how many places you may find similar items? For example, salad dressing: cold dressings are in produce, regular bottled dressings are on the aisle with croutons and bacon bits, but you can also find dry dressing mixes in the baking aisle with spices—others are tucked away in specialty sections like organics or in displays for specific brands. On top of that, sometimes a product has been discontinued, so you won’t find it anywhere. And, with this remodel, even if you think you know where something belongs, chances are it won’t be there anymore. In other words: returning an item to its proper place is a shit job thrust upon the lowest of the low, like me.
But tonight doing shop-backs serves my greater purpose. I fill a small cart with misplaced items, then go along the aisles returning them. The beauty is, when I’m done, I leave the cart in back by the baler, and no one notices. I check my phone: 10 PM. On schedule. All systems go in a half hour.
I check my phone’s log and notice a call from Dr. Archuleta.
I head back to the front of the store.
Terri glances up from her clipboard.
“You’re due for a break, Sadie.”
“Want me to dump the trash when I get back?”
“That would be great.” She smiles at me. “Thanks.”
As if I have a choice. Who else is gonna dump the trash? But collecting it early, instead of after the store closes, serves my purpose.
I head to the break room to listen to my messages. ME TV is playing Gun Smoke. Wendy sits at the table, her eyes fixed on the screen. She doesn’t smile as much as she used to, but at least she’s not crying every minute over Justus.
The new TV and a fresh coat of blue-gray paint hasn’t done much to lift the room’s spirits. Basically, it’s as small and dreary as it was before the remodel. A focal point is the giant trash can by the door, but no one seems to use it. The table is littered with empty soy sauce packets from the sushi counter in Deli, a half-eaten bag of chips, used napkins and, as always, the Gazette. The headline says something about a missing student, and my stomach clenches. But, thanks to Xanax, I remain calm. Avoiding the table and the newspaper, I sink on to the simulated leather couch.
I hit voice mail on my phone. Four new messages. The first is from my father—he must think he called his doctor’s office, because he’s left an angry message about a mix-up with his medication. Delete. The second message is also from father, mumbling something about ignoring the last message. Delete. The third message is from my sister, wanting me to call my father—she can’t deal with him. He took too many meds, and now he’s on a rampage. Delete. Delete. Delete. Then, Dr. Archuleta’s receptionist—Doctor A told me to call him Marcus, or maybe I called him Marcus, and he asked me to call him Dr. Archuleta; I forget—anyway, Doctor A wants me to call his office and schedule an appointment.
My stomach does a somersault and my mouth goes dry at the thought of seeing him alone … just the two of us. What will we talk about? What can I tell him? Anything I say will make me seem mental. I swallow, trying to generate saliva. I get up from the couch, go to the sink. After drinking two cups of water, I pop another Xanax for good measure.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
“You all right, Sadie?” Wendy asks.
“Fine.” It comes out brusquely, so I monitor my tone. “I’m fine, Wendy. Thanks for asking. How are you?”
“I’m here.”
She goes back to her TV program.
I’m wondering why Marcus—I mean, Dr. Archuleta—wants to see me. Does he think I’m unbalanced, demented, looney tunes? Maybe he wants to ask me on a date, but due to some kind of doctors’ code of ethics, he needs to call it an appointment. I know he’s attracted to me. I sense it. But, I read online, seeing a patient socially can be a violation of HIPAA privacy laws. I forget what HIPAA stands for—Hot Incredible Penis or something. Okay, not that, but if Marcus asks me for a date, I’m going to accept. Only, considering my track record, maybe I shouldn’t. I delete the messag
e, play the next. It’s also from Marcus, I mean Dr. Archuleta. A different number, and his voice, so I’m guessing: personal cell.
How are you Sadie? I’d like to talk with you. Please call my office and make an appointment at your earliest convenience.
I like listening to his voice, so I play the message three times. (After adding his number to Contacts) I hit delete.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
My phone says 10:28 PM.
The store closes in half an hour, and it’s time for action.
I locate the trash cart; it’s long and deep with lots of room for stuffed garbage bags, or the average cadaver. It’s my job to go from can to can throughout the store replacing full bags with new bags. I start in Produce, move to Deli, then hit the garbage can in Bakery—my goal. The garbage can in Bakery is by the door leading to the back area where they keep the baler. Leaving the cart by the display of day-old bread and cake, I slip through the heavy plastic panel door, walk past the freight elevator, past the loading dock where trucks unload and head to the baler.
The little shopping cart is where I left it.
A positive sign.
I find the stepstool and set it in front of the baler.
I glance around, making sure I’m on my own. The process is awkward, because I need to balance on this stool while I grab the cart. The cart rolls away, throwing me off balance. I grab the handle and drag the cart toward me, but when I try to lift the cart into the baler’s chamber it gets stuck on the feed gate and crashes to the concrete floor.
I jump from the stool and run to the door by Bakery to see if anyone noticed the commotion. Everything seems normal. A woman with purple dreadlocks is shoplifting; I watch her slip a Mango Passion energy drink into her purse. A gray-haired guy, wearing a motorcycle jacket and what appears to be a tie-dyed tablecloth, reaches out to squeeze a loaf of bread, ruining it for other customers.
I return to the baler. This time I lift the shopping cart before standing on the stepstool, then I heave the cart above my shoulders and throw it into the baler.
Perfect fit.
I hide the stool behind the baler, slip out from the backroom, and pretend to collect garbage. The woman with the dreadlocks and the motorcycle guy are gone. The coast is clear. Dropping a bag of trash, I start yelling.
