Paper or Plastic

by Vivi Barnes

  I folded the paper and slid it into my pocket. I wasn’t sure whether to feel annoyed or relieved.

  Mr. Hanson rested his chin on steepled fingers. “You know, Alexis, there’s a lot of potential in this store for upward movement.”

  I kept my face politely interested as I inwardly gagged. He continued. “You probably think of this as just a summertime job, nothing more. But for so many of our employees, this is a stepping stone in their career. Especially for young adults like yourself. In fact, it’s never too early to ask yourself the question, ‘What do I want in life?’”

  What did I want in life? Easy.

  My summer back.

  To stop sticking my foot in my mouth.

  To not lose my pitching position.

  A manager who knew better than to ask me what I wanted in life.

  Obviously, all I could do was nod and smile. As nice as he was, the guy was delusional if he thought I considered SmartMart a stepping stone in my career.

  “Do you know why I offered this opportunity to you?” he asked.

  Don’t you mean offered to my mother? But all I said was, “No, sir.”

  He lifted a small wooden frame off his desk and stared at it. “My son wasn’t much older than you when he got into trouble a couple years ago. He and some friends thought they’d see if they could get away with shoplifting from a store. But the manager where they were caught called the police. Now every time he fills out a job application, he’ll have to check ‘yes’ that he’s been arrested. This will follow him around for the rest of his life. All for a pair of headphones he didn’t even need.”

  Mr. Hanson turned the frame around to show me a picture of his family—wife, daughter, and son. Considering pudgy and balding Mr. Hanson, his son was a lot more handsome than I would’ve guessed—thick, wavy dark hair and broad shoulders with kind of a sly grin. I nodded politely as he turned the frame back around.

  “You know,” he said, placing the picture on his desk, “Vincent is a great kid, but he’s had a very difficult time staying out of trouble since that incident. I thought if you could have the chance to avoid what Vincent had to go through, why not give you that chance? SmartMart may not seem like the shining star on your résumé, but it will give you a good start in life. A good, honest start, because I know you’re a good, honest kid. You just need to make better choices. I hope you’ll gain something from your experience here.”

  As I left his office, I felt a mixture of pity and relief. From the sound of it, Mr. Hanson had a lot of trouble with his son. But that wasn’t my problem. I wasn’t headed toward trouble—the lipstick was just a stupid mistake. And Court only got a slap on the wrist for it, thanks to her lawyer father. The idea that kind Mr. Hanson would have had me arrested was doubtful, and I wished for the hundredth time that I had figured another way out of this deal.

  My mother showed up when the end of my shift finally came. I was surprised it took her this long to pay a visit. I was sure she wanted to see for herself how I was working out. Her smile was warm as she walked toward me holding Rory’s hand.

  “Hey, Lexie!” Rory’s soprano voice rang out. She skirted by one of Ruthie’s flying carts and ran up to me, blond pigtails flying, my mother trailing behind her. One of my mother’s eyebrows shot up as Ruthie shouted her greeting.

  “Hey, Ruthie,” I said quickly, “this is my mom and my little sister, Rory.”

  “Hi, Rory! You look like a princess,” Ruthie said. Rory giggled and curtsied.

  I pulled on one of Rory’s pigtails. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to come with Momma to pick you up. She’s buying me some of that cotton candy nail polish that Katie Carducci had at the last pageant,” Rory said, her voice chirpy. She could be so cute when she was happy, and nothing outside of pageants made her happier than shopping. My mother, incarnate.

  Mom touched my ponytail, shaking her head slightly. She hated when I pulled my hair back. “Your sister and I thought we’d take you to dinner tonight to celebrate your first week at your new job. Dad’s working late and Grandma is having dinner with a friend.”

  “Sounds good. I still have another fifteen minutes, though.”

  “That’s fine. There are some things we need anyway. Come, Aurora.”

  Rory was giggling at Ruthie, who was making silly faces at her. “Go on, Rory,” I said, pushing her away.

  “She’s so pretty!” Ruthie said. “She really is like a little princess.”

  “You’ve no idea,” I mumbled.

  As the minute hand slowly swept the short hand to the five o’clock hour, I turned to Ruthie.

  “That’s it for me. I’ll see you Monday.”

  “Okay, bye Lexus!” she said as she pushed a cart into an unsuspecting woman entering the store.

  I hurried away.

  In the employee hall, I punched my code into the time clock, noting that it marked the time at 5:03. I was staring at the numbers, wondering if the extra minutes would add up to overtime, when Noah appeared. He punched in his code.

  “You’re done, too?” I asked.

  His raised eyebrow shouted, Duh, considering he’d just clocked out. But he only nodded and turned away. I followed him. “Wait, Noah.”

  He turned, stepping closer to the wall as a girl with platinum blond hair breezed past us toward the time clock. “What?” His voice was short, but his expression wasn’t angry. It was indifferent, and somehow that was even worse.

  “I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to imply that, well, you know. I mean, I know this is a great job for you.”

  Wow. Someone should just cut off my foot before I could shove it further into my mouth.

  “For me?” Noah’s expression switched from passive to irritated. “I get it. You think you’re too good for SmartMart. Fine.”

  The girl at the time clock snorted. I ignored her. “No, that’s not what I—”

  Noah turned toward the lockers before I could finish, opening one of the little square doors. I clamped my mouth shut and followed, taking my bag out of my own locker. His hand dipped behind the door, reappearing with a black T-shirt and jeans that he slung over his arm.

  He slammed the metal door and turned to me, scowling. “The truth is that I like working here. My mother didn’t make me. Mr. Hanson promotes people who get the job done. And I know I get paid a hell of a lot more than you. So cut out the ‘I feel sorry for you losers’ bullshit. You aren’t above us, ’kay?”

  He went toward the men’s room, leaving me to stare after him with my mouth hanging open. Quiet Noah Grayson—angry. It was weird.

  And, I hated to admit, kind of hot.

  I seriously needed to get antibacterial gel for my brain.

  The blond girl was still at the time clock, staring at me with a smirk on her lips. Ignoring her, I went into the ladies’ room. I changed out of my nasty SmartMart clothes into jeans and a T-shirt, noticing as I did the smell of cigarette smoke. Was someone smoking in here? As I walked out of the stall, the platinum-haired girl stood there, smoking a cigarette and watching me. “Everything okay, honey?” she asked as I washed my hands. She didn’t look more than a couple years older than me, but the way she said “honey” wasn’t exactly endearing.

  I ignored her.

  She rested her cigarette-holding hand on the sink and blew smoke toward me. “So, Mommy couldn’t get you a job at Abercrombie?”

  I stared at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Must be hard for a princess like you to work with people like Noah and me. You know, people who don’t get money from Daddy and actually need a job.”

  She went to the toilet to flush what was left of her cigarette, then walked past me without another word. Great. Who else could I offend today?

  I walked back out, almost colliding with Noah coming out of the men’s room. He was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt that had “Cooper’s” printed on it, and his hair was damp and slightly spiked up.

  “Um, have a good night,” I tol
d him, not liking how my voice shook. Damn it, Noah should not look this good. He nodded and turned away. “A Bitchin’ Good Time” was printed on the back of the shirt in bold white letters. He seemed so different in those clothes—maybe because he looked like a regular guy instead of a manager.

  But he was no regular guy. Hot or not, Noah Grayson was a pain in the ass in the truest sense. But then, so was I, so where did that leave us?

  7

  I dreaded going to work on Monday. The entire weekend I slept, hung out at the pool with my friends, read books I’d already read, and slept more. Everyone kept asking about my week, but I was too mentally exhausted to even talk about it, even to my grandma. I did curl up on her queen bed with her on Sunday night and watch episode after episode of Bonanza. She loved game shows and old western TV series—both of which I knew I’d love for the rest of my life just because she did. When I awoke the next morning, I was tucked under the covers in her bed. She was already awake but had left me to sleep.

  I dressed and went downstairs. I could hear Mom’s and Dad’s voices in the kitchen. Grandma was in her flowery satin bathrobe in her usual chair in the living room, watching TV. Except she didn’t watch TV in the mornings, and she always changed out of her bathrobe before going downstairs.

  “Still in your robe?” I asked. “Isn’t it kind of late?”

  She looked up at me, her eyebrows furrowed slightly as if she was trying to figure out if I had spoken. “My robe?”

  I pointed at it. She glanced down, running her hand over the smooth satin.

  “Oh. Oh, yes. I just felt like wearing it.” Something about her flat, faraway words made my stomach flip. She looked up at me again. “Are you going to school today?”

  My chest felt like someone was squeezing it as hard as possible. “It’s summer, Grandma. No school in summer.” The words cracked as I barely managed to get them out.

  “Oh. Sorry. Summer. Right.” She turned her gaze back to the television. I knelt next to her, covering her cool, slender hand with mine.

  “Grandma?” I said sternly, swallowing as tears threatened to slide around my eyeballs. “Grandma, don’t you dare mess with me like this. It’s summer, and I’m working at SmartMart today, remember?”

  “Of course I remember, silly.” But her voice was still far away.

  I stood up and walked to the kitchen. Grandma had seemed fine since she moved in. She’d forget small things, like where she put her glasses, or leave the milk out after using it, but she always knew what day it was. And she never, ever got confused when it came to me.

  I headed straight to my dad. “Grandma doesn’t remember…” I couldn’t finish my sentence over the lump in my throat. I didn’t have to. Just one look at my face was enough to make him reach out to pull me into a hug.

  “Honey, we talked about this when Grandma moved in.”

  “But she’s been fine,” I wailed. “And now she thinks I’m in school.”

  He patted my hair. “I know. But this is why she’s here, so we can take care of her.”

  “She’ll get better, right?”

  “Better?” My mother, of course, had to have her say. “Oh, sweetheart, there is no getting better.”

  “Hush, Meredith,” my dad said.

  “She’s on medicine, right?” I asked.

  Dad hesitated. “Well, the doctor has her on a clinical trial, but—”

  “Okay, cool,” I said, pushing away from him and walking out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Anytime someone said “but” it meant “walk away fast.” Dad needed to stop listening to my pessimistic mother. Clinical trial or not, the medicine was supposed to help. It would help.

  It had to.

  Grandma was still in her chair when I left with Dad for work. My heart ached to see her staring at the TV like that. Please let her be okay when I get home, I prayed silently over and over on the way to work. I kissed my dad on the cheek and got out of the car when we arrived, staring at the brightly lit SmartMart sign affixed to the tan stucco. Week two, here we go. I shoved all worries about Grandma to the back of my mind, pasted a smile on my face, and set my shoulders.

  My second week of work started with training in bagging groceries. It wasn’t quite as boring as greeter, and at least I could use half a brain to sort out frozen items from pantry items. Noah asked Ruthie to train me, and he never so much as looked at me. I guess he was still mad. I couldn’t blame him.

  Ruthie cackled loudly every time I mixed items that weren’t supposed to be mixed. It made me learn a whole lot faster, since I couldn’t stand the constant tee-heeing when I’d get something wrong. And unfortunately, I seemed to get a lot wrong in the beginning. Sometimes she’d take over and I’d watch her. One thing was for sure—Ruthie could organize items into bags faster than anyone I’d ever seen. All the frozen food together, boxes together—never a mistake like putting a can on top of a loaf of bread like I did. But even the fact that Ruthie laughed every time I’d screw up wasn’t the worst part.

  No. The biggest pain in the ass about this position was that I had to ask every single customer if he or she wanted paper or plastic.

  “Most places don’t ask anymore,” Bessie had told me on my first day. “But at SmartMart, we want to offer our customers every possible convenience.”

  Convenience? Some of the customers looked annoyed at even having an option. They’d sling their environmentally friendly reusable bags at me, scowling as if the offer of evil plastic or foul paper was offensive. I even stopped for a while, until Mr. Hanson passed by once and said quietly, “Don’t forget to ask about paper or plastic, Alexis.”

  Bessie stopped by at one point while I was placing a guy’s frozen pizza and ice cream in a paper bag. “You’re doing great, Lex!” I smiled at her, glad that she finally started calling me Lex instead of Alexis.

  Ruthie, though, still felt the need to start each shift by telling me that her daddy drove a Lexus. If I ever met her daddy, I’d probably throw a can of beans at his stupid Lexus.

  I was surprised how sore my feet were by the time I was relieved for break. I wasn’t used to standing in one place for so long—not even when I was pitching. How long would it take to get used to this? Bessie told me she could “rustle up a fatigue mat” for me to stand on if I needed, but it was a little too late—invisible knives were already slicing into my arches. The platinum-blond girl walked by as Bessie offered that, snorting. Yeah, yeah, okay. Poor little pampered girl and her precious tired feet. “Bessie, who is that?” I asked, nodding toward the girl who had stopped several registers down to talk to a customer.

  Bessie looked over her shoulder. “That’s Roxanne. Why?”

  “I had a conversation with her last week, so was just wondering.”

  “Oh, fabulous! You’re making friends already.”

  Friends? Yeah, no. Roxanne hated me—it was obvious I just needed to stay out of her way.

  Ruthie followed me to the break room with a never-ending stream of chatter.

  “So, do you like it, Lexus? You’re doing a great job. Really great.”

  “Thanks, Ruthie,” I said wearily. I had checked my phone, and there was no text from Grandma like I’d hoped. Or even from Dad telling me not to worry, that she was fine. I almost texted him, then changed my mind. If things hadn’t changed, I didn’t want to hear about it at work.

  “Do you like it here?” she asked hopefully.

  “Sure,” I said dully, my mind still on Grandma.

  We watched the Twix bar churn through the circles and drop to the slot below. Ruthie got on her knees and stuck her arm through the slot, emerging with my candy. She proudly offered it to me with two hands.

  “Thanks.”

  The break room was completely empty, but she sat across from me at a small table, watching me eat my Twix and sip Diet Coke. Her eyes followed every bite. My eating seemed to fascinate her. And it made me lose my appetite. I offered her the second bar in the package, and she took it excitedly, thanking me over and over.r />
  “Forget about it,” I told her, giving her a little smile. Ruthie could make the smallest thing exciting. I just wished she’d take a breather every once in a while.

  “Hi!” Ruthie shouted at someone behind me, crumbs falling from her lips.

  “Hey, Ruthie.”

  I went stiff at the voice. Noah walked over to us but didn’t sit down, even when Ruthie pointed to a chair. “How are you doing?” he asked her, completely ignoring me.

  “Good! Lexus gave me her candy bar, so I’m eating it. She’s nice.”

  Nice? Getting Noah to believe I was nice was like trying to convince a fish it could breathe out of water. He finally looked my way, frowning.

  “What?” I asked, irritated. I hated the way he made me feel, like he was ten years older than me instead of one.

  “Nothing. That was nice of you,” he said. He had the nerve to sound surprised.

  I stood and picked up my half-empty soda can and the Twix wrapper. “Yeah, well, maybe you should buy next time. You get paid a hell of a lot more than me, remember?”

  I marched past his gaping expression and threw the trash in the container before leaving the break room. I had to admit, it felt good to give a little crap back to Noah. I felt like high-fiving Ruthie for putting me in a position where I could say that.

  I joined Bessie at the register again and cheerfully helped bag the items until she turned off her register light and told me she was going to show me how to work the floor in the grocery section. I remembered seeing other people on the floor my first day following Bessie around. It didn’t seem like a bad job at all, because at least I wasn’t right in the customer’s face like at the register and I didn’t have to see Roxanne glaring at me. By the time Bessie walked away, I figured I pretty much had a handle on everything.

  Wrong.

  “Hey, miss! Where’s the toilet paper?” one old lady asked as I was arranging paper towel rolls right next to the toilet paper.

  “Excuse me, do you sell extra-large condoms?”