Paper or Plastic

by Vivi Barnes

  My momentary elation at their pride in me faded as the curves of her mouth slipped into a straight line across her face. “Honey, I’m glad you’re taking your job seriously, really I am. But I’m afraid I don’t have any choice. I need you at the pageant. Remember your promise to support your sister when I allowed you to continue with softball. Find someone to cover your shift.”

  I glanced at my dad—the guy who always preached the importance of a strong work ethic should have my back, right? But my mother also turned to him, her face tense with expectation. Come on, Dad, don’t give in.

  Dad shook his head. “Lexie, go with your mother and sister to the pageant. And Meredith,” he said, turning to my mother, “hire another coach or get your sister to help or something, but next pageant leave Lexie out of it if she doesn’t want to go.”

  “But my job—” I started, until he held up his hand.

  “You have plenty of notice to give your shift away. You need to be there to support Rory. Do it for your sister.”

  I dug my fingernails into my fists so hard that I was sure the skin would break. “First you guys stick me at SmartMart where I didn’t want to be in the first place, then you try to keep me from working my shift. Talk about setting me up for success.”

  I turned and stomped out the door. My mother I understood—she was always like that—but now Dad? And how was I supposed to get out of work? I never even asked for my softball practices. I didn’t know what the protocol was for getting someone to cover a shift. It’s not like I’d been there long enough to ask.

  The next day, I dutifully asked a couple of my coworkers if they were off that next Saturday, but they were working already. I happily called my mother with the news that I couldn’t get out of my shift.

  I tried.

  I couldn’t.

  End of story.

  Except…

  I knew my mother really wanted me to join her at the pageant, but I didn’t realize to what extent she’d go to arrange it. I never thought she’d go that far. Not even her.

  14

  I wasn’t the first person to find out what my mother had done. Or even the second. By the time the scheduling manager, Damon, called me into the office after lunch, I was noticing smirks and hearing snickers from other employees. Most of them hid their grins behind their hands, but their eyes were fixed on me. I stopped by the mirror in the hall, but everything seemed okay—hair pulled back into a ponytail as usual, no lip gloss on my teeth, nothing weird. I went into the office and sat down as Damon pulled out the schedule.

  “So we’ve covered your shift on Saturday,” he said, showing me the spreadsheet where my name was marked through with a red X. “Roxanne agreed to pick it up. I suggest you thank her.”

  “Covered my shift?” I asked, the words coming out slowly. “But I didn’t ask Roxanne.” Or Damon. Truthfully, I had only asked about three or four people, and I never would’ve asked Roxanne even if there was a game I was dying to go to and she was the last person at SmartMart. “Cold day in hell” didn’t even begin to cover it.

  “I asked her for you,” he said. “When your mom called Mr. Hanson, he asked me to find someone to cover your shift.” He ran his hands over his bald head, his face growing stern as my mind tried to process what he just said. “Listen, Alexis, I know you’re new here and you’re still in high school, but in the future, if you need to change your schedule, please handle it by finding someone yourself or asking me. I’m the scheduling manager and that’s my job, okay?”

  Damon stood, but I didn’t move. My mother called Mr. Hanson? Of all the things she could’ve done…

  “Are you okay?” he asked as I stared at his desk, unmoving.

  Okay? No, I was mortified. I stood slowly and walked out of the office. Judging by people’s reactions to me this morning, Damon hadn’t exactly kept it a secret.

  I zombie-walked toward my register, barely nodding at Carmen as I relieved her. I did notice the sympathetic look she threw me. Another tally mark in my head for someone else who was in on it.

  I was going to let my mother have it when I got home.

  Ruthie was bagging for me today. She didn’t laugh behind her hand or even give me a compassionate smile. She wasn’t that subtle. But she knew about what happened—oh yes, she did.

  “Your mom called Mr. Hanson,” she told me matter-of-factly. Loudly, too, causing another associate to giggle as she walked by.

  I wanted to crawl into one of Ruthie’s bags. “Yeah, I know. I wish Damon hadn’t told everyone.”

  “Damon didn’t tell everybody,” she said. “Roxanne did.”

  I stared at her. This shouldn’t surprise me at all, as much as Roxanne seemed to hate me. “What exactly did she say, Ruthie?”

  Ruthie straightened. “She said it like this: ‘Lexus’s mommy called Mr. Hanson because Lexus wanted to get out of her shift. Lexus couldn’t do it herself because she’s a stinking spoiled brat.’” She grinned, proud of her perfect imitation of Roxanne’s whiny voice.

  “Stinking spoiled brat, huh?” I set my jaw.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her smile fading. “That wasn’t very nice of her to say, was it?”

  I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t, but it’s not your fault.” I smiled at her, and she appeared relieved, but inside I was seething. Leave it to Roxanne to tell everyone. I didn’t know what she had against me, but I was going to find out.

  Ten minutes later, I saw Roxanne heading toward the employee door. I flicked off my register light. Thankfully there was nobody in line right now.

  “I’ll be back, Ruthie,” I told her. “Go bag for Bessie or someone.”

  I walked through the break room and into the bathroom after Roxanne had gone inside. I leaned against the sink to wait, but at the last minute grabbed some paper towels and shoved them into the sink’s faucet. A childish thing I wouldn’t have even done as a child, but it seemed to fit the situation here. Take that, Roxanne. Soon, I heard the toilet flush and Roxanne appeared, her eyes narrowing when she saw me. “What do you want?” she asked harshly, sidestepping me to wash her hands.

  As soon as she turned on the water, it sputtered and sprayed sideways, right into her shirt. She jumped, cursing, as the paper towels fell into the sink. Shaking her arms out, she glared daggers at me. “You dumb bitch!” It was a total overreaction—she wasn’t even that wet.

  I shrugged. “You think I’m a stinking spoiled brat, so I may as well act like one.”

  She grabbed the wet paper towels and threw them at my head, which I easily ducked to avoid. “Your aim sucks,” I said calmly. Probably better if I’d have yelled back at her, because my coolness seemed to anger her more. She picked up the bathroom soap dispenser and threw it at me, grazing my shoulder hard. It clattered against the tile.

  “What is your problem, anyway?” I asked, kicking the soap dispenser back at her. The bottle hit her in the shin.

  Her lips flattened. I was sure steam was going to roll out of her ears. “You’re my problem. You and people like you.” She looked at me with her face pinched. “Thinking you’re so much better than everyone else because you have Daddy’s money. Just another dumb blond cheerleader. I had enough of your type in high school. I don’t need your shit at work.”

  Nothing against cheerleaders, but I was really getting sick of her calling me that. “I’m not a cheerleader. And just because you were bullied in high school or whatever doesn’t mean you can bully me here.”

  She shook her head. “You are just like the rest of them. You and your precious golden locks and your precious BMWs.” I opened my mouth to say I didn’t own a BMW, until I remembered that my dad did.

  “Jealousy doesn’t look good on you,” was all I could think of to say.

  She snorted. “Jealous? Yeah, bitches like you would—”

  A sound at the door made us both turn. Carolyn, the manager, was staring at us, her eyes shocked. “What the…” Carolyn’s eyes traveled over the wet paper towels and soap dispenser leaking
pink fluid on the tile. Her face screwed up in anger. “Clean up this mess. Now!” she barked as she rotated on a heel and left us.

  I picked up the wet paper towels and tossed them in the trash, then turned and walked out, letting her deal with the soap on the floor. No way was I staying in the bathroom with Batshit Cheerleader-Hater from Hell.

  I went back to my register, but it wasn’t long before Mr. Hanson appeared, beckoning to me. Roxanne was behind him, her face sour. We followed him to his office, past Noah, who had a mixture of confusion and amusement on his face. I rolled my eyes at him as we went into Hanson’s office.

  15

  The good news: I wasn’t fired.

  The absolutely-horrible-almost-rather-be-fired news: Mr. Hanson felt that since Roxanne and I trashed the employee bathroom and used “potty words,” as Carolyn told him, and because we obviously needed to “hone our teamwork skills,” our punishment should fit the crime. It was just a couple of paper towels and some soap, but the way Carolyn described it, we were in the middle of a war zone.

  So, for the next three weeks, we were put on employee bathroom duty together. Mr. Hanson gave us a list of our chores, making me feel ten years old again, and put Linda Munson, the Cleanliness Queen of SmartMart, in charge of showing us what to do. From the sign she had posted on the bulletin board about washing our hands before working to the time she freaked out over someone in the break room using the same knife in both the peanut butter and jelly jars, Linda seemed like such a germaphobe that I had a feeling HAZMAT suits would be needed as part of our uniform.

  I hated cleaning bathrooms. Rory was a pig, and my mother gave me the honor of cleaning both of our bathrooms, since I was older and supposedly able to use chemicals that she was not. So those bathrooms were bad enough, but the employee restrooms—I wondered if anyone ever cleaned them.

  And Roxanne—oh, Roxanne was pissed off, to say the least.

  “I hate bathrooms,” she muttered under her breath as we followed Linda to the break room. Of course, her single statement was punctuated with the F-bomb and other “potty” words, as Mr. Hanson called them. “This is your fault.”

  I ignored her.

  Linda opened the little closet in the bathroom. “Put these on,” she said, tossing each of us a pair of latex gloves. She took out a pair of cotton ones, slipped them on her own hands, and pointed to the toilet paper dispenser. “Replace the toilet paper when low, keeping a spare just above it. Soap dispenser refill is in the closet—it always must be full. Use the sponge on the top shelf for the sink. Scrub the tile every day with the sponge on the bottom shelf. Use the bowl brush for the toilet. I want to see my face in the reflection of the bowl.”

  I started snickering at that, and I could see Roxanne biting her lip to prevent a grin, though her look turned evil when she caught my eye. So much for “we’re in this together” camaraderie.

  The nasty bathroom duty made me dread going to work every day. As soon as I got home each night, I stripped my clothes off and took the hottest shower I could stand. And since Mr. Hanson made sure we had shifts together, which were labeled Bathroom Duty on the posted schedule, that meant having to listen to Roxanne’s constant bitching and snide comments. In my mind, I pictured a big red IGNORE button that I’d push every time she’d say something.

  “Your hair is so thick and coarse, you must have to use a lot of grease on it.”

  IGNORE

  “I never realized how big your nose is. I could drive a car up that thing.”

  IGNORE

  “Here, you do the floor.” She tossed the scrub sponge at me. “You don’t have to worry about breaking your nails, since they’re so short and scraggly in the first place.”

  IGNORE

  “I bet you have a hard time finding a two-piece bathing suit, seeing as how your top half is twice the size of your bottom.”

  “At least I have a top half.” The words slipped out before I could pull them back. Roxanne’s eyes narrowed, and she kicked the bucket of water toward me, smirking as it sloshed all over my uniform. My shift was almost over anyway, so I didn’t care.

  By the time Friday got here, I couldn’t wait to go hang out with my friends and not give SmartMart a second thought. Syd and I managed to pry Court away from Bryce for the evening so we could go walk around the city of Tampa for a girls’ night. Tampa wasn’t big like Miami-big, but it was huge for those of us from a neighboring town with a population under fifteen thousand. We piled into Court’s convertible, put the top down, and cranked the music up.

  We ate pizza, strolled around the district of Ybor City for a bit and got some ice cream, but it was late so most of the shops were closed. Court then drove us downtown where most of the nightclubs were located, but considering we weren’t old enough to get in, it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. We were about to give up and go home when I saw a black sign hanging over a doorway across the street with “Cooper’s” printed on it in familiar white block letters. It looked like a bar.

  “Hang on, guys.” I threaded my way through the cars to the other side. The smaller print under the name on the sign announced, “A Bitchin’ Good Time.”

  I stepped up to the doorway and peered into the smoke-filled, crowded room, then stepped all the way in. Leather-clad men and women were crowded around small tables, drinking their beers and laughing. I could hear Court and Syd calling me, but I ignored them.

  “Hey, honey, you lost?” A woman wearing a short leather skirt and black Cooper’s shirt with tattoos snaking down her arms walked over to me. She had a nametag that said “Yvette.”

  “Sorry, I’m leaving.” I started to head back out into the fresh air when I noticed the tall dark-haired bartender with the friendly grin. He was talking to another bartender and pouring something amber-colored into shot glasses.

  What the hell?

  Keeping my eyes fixed on him, I pushed my way forward, past Yvette and the customers, until I squeezed into an open spot at the bar. Noah’s face froze when he saw me. For a moment we stared at each other, then his eyes dropped to the glass in front of him. His hands seemed to shake as he poured something from a blue bottle into the glass and mixed it with something from a soda gun.

  He handed the drink to a customer, then turned to me, his face stone-cold.

  “Well?” I asked, refusing to be intimidated. This was Noah Grayson, a seventeen-year-old boy, who was definitely not old enough to be doing this job. Syd told me the only work she could get at Chili’s was hostess because she was too young to serve alcohol.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked in a hard voice.

  “What am I doing here? Are you serious? What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be twen—”

  He held up his hand to stop me, scowling. “Go outside.”

  “No.”

  His mouth dropped open. “No?”

  “Not until you talk.”

  He closed his eyes. “Fine. Outside, though. I’ll be there in five.”

  I nodded and turned to see Court and Syd staring at me. Court waved toward me as if to call me outside, and Syd’s eyes were roving around the bar, her face almost frightened. It was then that I noticed that all the people looked…well, scary, honestly. All tattoos and beards and leather—and many of them had stopped to look at me. Not one of us was written clearly on their faces.

  “Can I help you?” a woman with a spiky collar asked me. I realized I was staring at her.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, backing away.

  “A little young, aren’t you?” a man’s voice behind me thundered. I kept my eyes glued to the floor and pushed my way back through the smoke out to the street. Immediately, hands pulled me aside.

  “Are you crazy? What were you doing in there?” Syd shouted in my ear. Court yelled pretty much the same thing. They were giving me a headache. I pushed away from them when I saw Noah appear from the alley around the corner. Court would see him now, bu
t how long was I going to keep this up, anyway?

  “Give me a second, please, guys,” I said over my shoulder as I walked to meet him. “Hey,” I said, as if I were just checking in for a shift at SmartMart. He looked so different in his jeans and black shirt, his arms crossed, wearing a scowl instead of his usual pleasant expression. His hair was gelled slightly to give the front an interesting lift. Not bad, just…different. Which made me wonder which was the real Noah—this badass-looking bartender or the sweet manager at SmartMart.

  “Hey.” His eyes were focused on Syd and Court. I turned to see them staring at us, Syd shaking her head and Court with her mouth wide open. I knew they thought I’d lost my mind, but I didn’t care.

  “They won’t say anything,” I told him. His eyes moved back to meet mine. He looked so worried that I felt myself soften. “I won’t say anything, either.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Just walking around. We were about to leave, actually, and I saw the sign. It matched your shirt from the other day, so I figured something was up.”

  “Detective Lex. Nice.” His face relaxed into the usual shy smile, but he didn’t say anything else.

  “Don’t you have to be twenty-one to bartend?” I prompted him.

  “Eighteen,” he corrected. “And I turn eighteen in November.”

  “Yeah, but how…”

  He rubbed at his arm, looking around nervously. “They think I’m eighteen already. I might’ve put the wrong year on the application by accident.”

  The idea of smart, straight-acting Noah Grayson lying on his job application was shocking to me. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You don’t seem like the lying type.”

  “What type am I?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I waved my arm toward the wall behind me. “Not the work-in-a-bar-full-of-motorcycle-guys-and-tattooed-people type. Do you have one? A tattoo, I mean?”