At least she didn’t have to worry about some disgusting old guy pawing at her while she slept.
Getting a job so quickly seemed like a good sign. She was starting fresh. Things, she decided, might be different from now on. She knocked on the glass door, and when a woman came to let her in, she said, “Hi, I’m Niki. Max hired me yesterday?”
The woman, a tall blonde with frizzy hair, frowned. Her makeup was harsh-looking and garish under the bright store lights. She cleared her throat. “Yes. He hired you while I was out.” The words hung in the air for one uncomfortable moment, and then she nodded. “I’m Max’s wife, Dawn.”
Niki had a talent for reading people’s moods. Taking the temperature of the room was what Amy called it. From Dawn’s body language and tone of voice, Niki surmised that Dawn clearly did not want her there. Mentally, Niki shrugged. Maybe Max hadn’t gotten her approval, or maybe they couldn’t really afford another employee. Either way, she wasn’t about to give up before she even got started. She was here now and ready to work. “Max said you were in charge and would be training me?”
This seemed to soften things. Dawn said, “Have you worked in nutrition before?”
“No, but I’m eager to learn, and I promise you I will work hard. I think you’ll find that I catch on quickly.” Niki said the words with conviction, but to her they were like lines in a play. She did work hard, and she did catch on quickly, but it wasn’t until Amy had coached her that she knew to say these things. Amy had said, “Employers need reassurance that you’re the right person for the job. They also like it when you let them take the lead.” Let them take the lead. A nice way of saying they wanted to be in charge, and the only thing they expected from employees was blind obedience. Well, Niki could play that game too. It was lame, but whatever.
“Good!” Dawn said. “I think you’ll find there is much to learn, so you must pay attention to everything I say.” She looked quite smug, as if ready to impart some earthshaking knowledge. “Let me show you around.”
There wasn’t much to the tour. The store was one big room, with the checkout counter and cash register off to the right side, and shelves of merchandise on either side. The juice counter was along the back wall, with a few café tables clustered in front of it.
Niki followed as the woman opened the refrigerator behind the juice bar, pointing out all the vegetables by name. “We got our celery, our beets, our carrots . . .” As she kept on, pointing out the ginger, apples, spinach, and on and on, Niki found herself nodding in agreement. When Dawn was done laboriously listing the contents of the fridge, she straightened up and said, rather sharply, “Don’t you think you should be writing this down?”
Writing down the names of produce? Niki didn’t speak the words that popped into her head. Instead, she said, “Yes, ma’am,” and excused herself to get a notebook and pen out of her bag. An obedient employee, that’s what she would be, even if it meant acting less than intelligent. That was the problem with these entry-level jobs. People assumed that if she was smarter she’d be doing something that required more mental acuity. Or at the very least she’d be attending college. They had no idea that she was in survival mode. Going to school wasn’t an option and probably never would be, and just making it through the day was a priority.
As Dawn explained how things were done at the store, Niki realized that her job would be fairly straightforward. Washing and cutting produce was not difficult; knowing to wash her hands and use the provided gloves was common sense. Laminated cards behind the counter gave the directions for making each type of juice. Niki didn’t need Dawn to demonstrate how to wipe off a counter, but she pretended to pay close attention. The cash register, which she would use only if Dawn or Max were not in the store, was very similar to the registers she’d used in other jobs, and wouldn’t be a problem. “We prefer to handle all the transactions ourselves,” Dawn said briskly. “You probably won’t be at the register much, if at all.” In other words, keep your hands off our money.
“Yes, ma’am.” That was fine with her.
“When there are no customers at the juice bar, you’ll be expected to clean, straighten, and stock shelves. If everything is in order, you can read up on all of our products. Customers will ask questions, and you’ll need to be able to assist them in their selections.” She waved at the shelves lining each side of the store, filled with plastic bottles of various vitamins, supplements, and powders. Labels above each area stated their purpose: Energy! Weight Loss! Heart Health! Vitamins! Meal Replacements! Athletic Supplements!
Dawn handed her two sheets of paper stapled together. “This is the employee handbook. Memorize everything on it, and put my number in your list of contacts. If you’re ever going to be late, I need to know immediately. You can be written up for tardiness and fired for an unexcused absence. Here at Magnificent Nutrition, we value reliability.”
Niki looked down at the dog-eared pages and said, “Of course. I think you’ll find I’m very reliable.”
Dawn presented another sheet of paper with a flourish. “And this is the Magnificent Nutrition employment agreement, which you’ll need to sign. It says you agree to work for us a minimum of three months. It also lists all the reasons that give us the right to terminate employment. Also, here’s a W-4 form. I’ll need that filled out as well.”
By the time the store opened, Niki had read the printouts and knew what was expected of her. It didn’t take long to fill out and sign the other forms. None of this was as complicated as Dawn seemed to believe.
As the day progressed, Dawn hovered over her as she interacted with customers, watching carefully as Niki fed produce into the juicer and whispering directions to her every step of the way. It was her store, so Niki understood. She just hoped that with time Dawn would trust that she could do the job.
Max arrived in the afternoon shortly before Niki was to leave. He came in from the back, startling Niki, who was in the stockroom pulling merchandise to fill the empty gaps in the shelves. A trail of cold air followed him from outside. His face was ruddy from the cold. He nodded to her as he took off his hat and gloves, then shook off his coat, putting all of them in a locker off to one side. “So how was your first day?” he asked Niki.
“Fine, thanks,” she said. “I’m learning a lot.”
He nodded approvingly. “Glad to hear it.”
Max walked past her into the store, and then she heard him greet his wife in a booming voice. “So how’d she do?”
Clearly, he was talking about her. Niki strained to listen to the response.
Dawn didn’t even try to keep her voice down. “Not completely hopeless, but she’s still on probation.”
“I told you it would work out!” he said with fake cheer.
Dawn sighed heavily. “It hasn’t worked out yet. One screwup and she’s out the door.”
Chapter Ten
When Niki made it through the first week of work without being fired, she considered it a triumph. Dawn never warmed up to her, but she did grudgingly admit that Niki was doing an acceptable job. Max was more friendly, but only when his wife wasn’t around. Their lack of friendliness didn’t bother her. She wasn’t looking for a fan club, and she wasn’t trying to build a career. She just needed to make money.
Money, money, money. Some people had far more than they could spend in a lifetime, so much that they could barely keep track of it. She wished they’d send some her way. She dreamed of winning the lottery or having some long-lost relative leave her a house and a vast fortune to go along with it. On really desperate days, she’d have settled for a windswept twenty-dollar bill landing at her feet.
She had no one to blame but herself. Amy had offered to pay for university classes or help her apply for scholarships, but she’d emphatically turned down both offers. She clearly remembered telling Amy, “Thanks, but no thanks.” At that time, Niki was in the home stretch of her senior year of high school and mentally tired, exhausted really. She was ready to be done with classrooms and takin
g notes and memorizing random facts. Freedom was within reach, and she couldn’t wait to have it in hand.
At eighteen, Niki was finished with people telling her what to do and giving her curfews. She was eager to get out into the world, to have her own place, to live life on her own terms.
She hadn’t counted on it being so hard.
Right after high school, Niki had stayed on at her previous foster home for a few months, paying rent. Her foster mother, a grandmotherly type named Melinda, had said she could continue living there, but only for the summer because they would be moving that fall. The deadline had worried her initially, but by the end of August she’d met a group of young women who were renting a house and needed a roommate. They quickly worked out the details, and she was out the door and into their apartment on a day’s notice. The place was a dump, and she had to share a bedroom, but their previous roommate had left a mattress for her to use, which was a plus. Rent was cheap, the house was on a bus route, and no one cared about her or her schedule. She came and went as she pleased.
Her roommates were so much fun initially. She reveled in the camaraderie, the sharing of food and liquor, the all-night gab sessions. They were nothing like the girls she’d known in high school. These young women lived for the moment. She found their stories about their families and coworkers hilarious and loved their relaxed attitudes. They were stoners, smoking so much pot that the apartment seemed perpetually hazy, as if in a dream. Even though she wasn’t a smoker, it didn’t bother her too much. What did bother her was the constant parade of men who came through the apartment. It wasn’t uncommon to head into the bathroom first thing in the morning and be greeted by a strange guy with wet hair and a towel around his waist. Or no towel at all.
Even that wouldn’t have been enough to make her move out. It was having someone steal $300 from her bag while she slept that did it. The bag had been on the floor right next to her mattress, so she’d thought it was safe for the night. Ha! Thinking about how long it took for her to make that money made her sick. So much time and effort for nothing.
She’d started seeing Evan about that time, and he said she could come and live with him and his friend. Evan was handsome, with dark curly hair and the kind of boyish grin she found hard to resist. He had a strong jaw and impressive biceps. Adding to the physical attraction was his magnetic personality and the way he spun tales of their life together. He was going to start a business, and they’d have plenty of money. He talked about trips they’d take and the presents he’d buy for her. Diamonds, cars, clothing. Anything her heart desired. She knew enough not to get her hopes up. She’d heard plenty of empty promises in her life.
It was easy to fall under his spell. He was charming in a twisted sort of way, throwing out compliments but then taking them back, always under the guise of a joke. One time he asked if she’d get in the trunk of his new car to check and see if the release lever worked. She agreed, but didn’t think it was funny when he held the trunk closed. Still, Niki took it in stride. She went quiet and waited until he got worried and opened it himself. Then she pretended to be having a seizure, which freaked him out in a big way. Served him right. She could give it right back to him, and he seemed to like that about her. He had a good job and didn’t smoke pot, being more of a beer drinker, which was really not a big deal most of the time, except he got mean when he drank too much, which was often enough. He started knocking her around, first grabbing her arm just a little too hard and giving her gentle but firm shoves. Weeks later when he started punching her, she packed her bags and found herself renting a room from a married couple she’d met through work.
That only lasted two weeks, because she woke up one night to find the husband leaning over her bed, one hand under the covers and sliding up her leg. Shocked, she sat up and asked, “What the hell’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing.” He took a step back and held up his hands in surrender. “Just checking to see if you were okay. You said you felt sick, and we were worried.” He scurried out of the room, gently closing the door shut behind him.
She’d never said she felt sick, but after he left the room she did feel nauseated, thinking about what might have happened if she hadn’t woken up in time.
Niki didn’t sleep the rest of the night. The next morning when she told his wife what had happened, she laughed dismissively and said, “He didn’t mean nothing by it. I’ll talk to him.” She went over to the junk drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a brown rubber door stopper. “Next time you go to bed, wedge this under the door and you should be good.”
Numbly, Niki walked away with the door stopper in her hand. Finding him in her room had been such a violation, and the fact that his wife downplayed it made her feel physically sick. She took the door stopper upstairs to her room and threw it under the bed, then packed up her things. One phone call to Amy, and within an hour Sharon was at the door to take her out of there. Niki knew that without Amy she’d have been without options. Reliable Amy. She couldn’t imagine having a better friend or advocate.
Staying with Sharon was so easy, she almost wished that she was paying rent so she’d have a locked-in arrangement, something she could count on long term. Sharon’s house was small, the smallest in the neighborhood, but it had three bedrooms and two bathrooms, which seemed a bit much for one old lady. In her younger idealistic days, she’d have imagined being adopted by Sharon and having the security of a permanent home. But she was beyond the age of adoption, and Sharon was too old to be her mother. Besides, Sharon already had a daughter.
After Niki had been living with Sharon about a week, her days began settling into a pattern. Sharon dropped her off in the morning and picked her up when her shift was over. When they arrived home, Sharon had dinner in the oven, always something hearty, with a vegetable or salad as a side dish. Over dinner, Niki told her about her day, spinning tales about customers and talking about Dawn and Max and the other employees, two high school girls whose work hours overlapped with hers only slightly. After they ate, Niki cleaned up the kitchen, something she’d insisted on from the first evening, and Sharon went into the living room to read. At that point, Niki usually excused herself to go upstairs, where she washed her work shirt out in the sink and hung it to dry above the bathtub. Dawn had promised another polo shirt was forthcoming when she was hired, but she hadn’t mentioned it since, so Niki had her doubts. In the meantime, she counted it lucky that the shirt was polyester and dried quickly. Once that chore was over with, she went to her room, where she did yoga next to the bed and spent time on her phone, ignoring texts from her ex, Evan. Baby, I miss you. I’m so sorry. It will never happen again. Please give me another chance. She thought of blocking him and knew it might someday come to that, but the texts were tapering off in frequency, and some part of her liked that he wanted her back. It was never going to happen, but knowing it was completely up to her was empowering.
One night she found herself talking back to the texts. Evan wasn’t known for being clever, so they were his usual.
I’m so sorry, Niki, it will never happen again.
“You got that right.”
You gotta believe me, my life is nothing without you.
“Good, that’s the way it should be.” Saying the words aloud made her happy.
Please give me another chance.
“Been there, done that. You’ve used up all your chances.”
Baby, I miss you.
“I’m not your baby.”
After this last one, she shut the phone off and plugged it into the charger. Mentally, she felt as if she’d turned off Evan. “You have no power here,” she said, setting the phone on the nightstand next to her bed.
When she heard a scrabbling at the door, she opened it to find the cat looking up at her with big green eyes. “Hey, Sarge. Come on in. What’s happening?” She’d noticed that Sharon was in the habit of talking to the cat, and she found herself doing the same. Sarge wasn’t a particularly cuddly cat, so when he came to visit her upst
airs she always felt honored. Niki sat on the bed, and he hopped up next to her and allowed her to scratch under his chin, his purrs rumbling like a reliable engine. When Niki paused after a few minutes, he did a full-body stretch and then jumped down and went to the door, wanting to be let out. “See you later, Sarge,” she said, closing the door behind him.
Glancing toward the window, she spotted movement in the Flemings’ backyard. Quickly, she grabbed the binoculars she’d appropriated from the junk room and turned off the light in her bedroom. Raising the binoculars to her eyes, she adjusted the focus.
Except for the light over the back door, the yard was dark. The figure walking about wore a dark-colored hoodie and was holding something that lit up as she watched, shining a beam toward the ground. A flashlight. This had to be the teenage son Sharon had mentioned. What is he doing? Her eyes followed the movement of the light as he meandered around the yard, bending occasionally to pick something up. From the glow of the beam it was clear he was picking up dog poop, but why do it when it was pitch-black outside?
Niki was only idly curious about the family itself—it was the idea of a child being mistreated that had initially roused her interest. She’d noticed that Sharon made a point to drive past the Flemings’ house after picking her up from her job, even though it wasn’t the most direct route. On two occasions they’d spotted Mrs. Fleming, once in her car backing down the driveway, another time getting a package off her porch. There wasn’t much that stood out, except for the woman’s glossy red hair arranged in chic layers framing her face. A wealthy-suburban-lady cut. Very styled, in a color not seen in nature. She looked like a real high-maintenance type.
The Moonlight Child Page 6
