Black Bird
Page 26
David spent a few minutes setting up the store and getting it ready for opening, putting on a Rush CD, but most of the hour before 11 a.m. he spent shopping. He picked out eight CD’s and a Pack-It CD holder. Choosing the Pack-it CD case had made him think about his volcano and coming in second nationwide in that sales contest, bringing a smile to his face. He had done a few good things in his life, a few things he could be proud of. And that volcano had been pretty damn impressive. And that look on Mel’s face when he’d come in that first day had been worth all the work of building and transporting it.
Behind the front counter, where they sold the tapes and CD’s and concert tickets, there was a CD and cassette system that played music through speakers in the store. There was also a button for switching over to the video player audio output, the video player behind the video rental and sales counter on the opposite side of the store, back by the backroom door. There were speakers and video monitors on all four walls of the store, but most times the video playing on the screens had nothing to do with the music playing from the sound system. Every once in a while, though, they would pick out a good movie that everyone liked, and didn’t contain too much language or any sex scenes, and they would switch over to the audio feed from the VCR and play movies in the store.
But the CD player was much more popular with the employees, and there were always the nightly discussions and arguments about which CD or tape would play next, or who would get next pick from the play list, the drawer full of tapes and CD’s above the stereo system. Mel ran the play list and only he could add things to it, but there were still the inevitable requests by the employees to open new things and listen to them. Not a few employees had been canned for opening too many pieces of product just so they could hear them on the store’s system. David thought that Mel should just make them buy the CD’s and tapes they opened or, better yet, make them buy something really bad that never sold. Maybe the employee would learn a valuable lesson, and they could generate an extra sale.
David would bend the rules a little today, but he didn’t think anyone would mind. The blank tapes he was buying was to record songs off of the play list - he was going to play DJ today and tape some of the songs he wanted. There was some good stuff on the play list that he didn’t like well enough to buy but wouldn’t mind having a copy. David was sure Mel would hear about it, but he didn’t really care. And it wasn’t like he was stealing or something. He could make up a couple good mix tapes for the road and no one would care.
Just before 11, two more employees came in, and one of the employees was Lisa Stevens, Bethany‘s best friend, but she didn’t say anything to him or even acknowledge him when he held the door open for her. Oh well, David wasn’t going to worry about it. She and the other employee came in and hurriedly counted in their cash drawers as David prepared to open the store. The employees needed to verify that there was a hundred dollars worth of currency and change in the drawers that David had counted out earlier, and each of them had to sign off on it. If the drawers came up short at the end of their shifts, they would be responsible.
It always amazed David that there was always a small group of people waiting outside when he opened the store. What did they want? Was buying music or renting videos that important, so important that people would stand around outside a closed store on a beautiful Saturday morning, waiting for it to open? As far as David could remember, he had never stood outside of a store waiting for it to open, unless he was waiting in line for tickets.
It turned out a few of the people waiting to get in were there to buy tickets for the Capitals, the hockey team up in DC, and he had them line up against the wall outside the doors. He’d checked the Ticket Master menu when he’d booted up the system at 10:30, and the tickets wouldn’t go on sale through the computer until 11:30, and he informed them of the standard ticket procedures: know exactly how many you want, have your money out, and when David punched up the number of seats they requested, YES they were automatically the best available. Did anyone in line want tickets in a specific section? No? Good, because they would have to wait until all the other customers who wanted ‘best available’ had bought theirs. David found out how many the first two customers wanted each and headed back inside. Today’s ticket sale did not involve all of the game dates for the entire season - the Capitals sold their tickets in two-month blocks of dates, and today’s tickets would be for January and February of next year, 1997.
The ticket sale would be an easy one and one he could handle by himself. Sometimes the sales were huge and required that they bring in extra employees just to control the crowd. Once they had even had so many people line up that Mel had kept the store closed for an extra hour, only allowing ticket buyers in and they were quickly escorted out after they purchased their tickets. They had brought in something like $30,000 dollars in ticket sales that day, and David remembered seeing it all in the backroom, never having seen that much money all at once before. And when he’d glanced at Mel looking at the money, David had wondered what was going through his mind - it almost looked like the big guy wanted to throw all of it in a paper bag, toss the keys to David, and bail.
The other customers were wandering around the store, and David saw that the other employees were set up and ready to help them, so he went to the play list and started his first mix tape. The CD player was a 5-CD carousel, so he put in 5 CD’s, programmed the songs he wanted, and started it taping.
By 11:30 there were close to twenty people in line for Caps tickets, so David got Lisa to take the money while he printed out the tickets. He could’ve done it all himself but the extra time it would’ve taken would have made his customer’s seats worse, so he found out how many each person wanted, punched in the codes to get the best available, printed them out and handed them to Lisa. She directed the customer further around the counter and took the person’s money, confirmed the ticket dates and locations, and sent them on their way. Never once during the twenty minutes it took to run through the line did she say anything to David other than answer his direct questions, never a thank you or anything. David thought it was a little petty, but decided to forget about it. This whole thing would be behind him soon, and it didn’t really matter if Bethany‘s best friend hated him or not - he just didn’t care.
The next few hours he spent making his tapes and finishing up a few projects around the store that he had started but never gotten around to finishing. He also had Lisa ring up all of his purchases and took them out to his car. He played his favorite movies, popping in “Die Hard”, “Silence of the Lambs”, and “Back to the Future”, careful to run it up past the bad parts. He didn’t bother with the sound - he knew all of these movies so well he didn’t need to hear them broadcast over the store’s speakers.
All in all, it was a dream day at work. Last day, got to buy a bunch of stuff he’d always wanted, watching the flicks he loved. None of the employees gave him any hassles, as if sensing his laid-back attitude, and Lisa stayed away from him. No, it was pretty much the perfect day.
Until she came in.
He wasn’t even sure it was her at first - she looked so tired and run down that for a moment he thought it was someone else. But it was her, and she came in and walked past Lisa, nodding to her, and walked right over to him, and he knew what was happening. This was her last try.
“Hi, David.”
He wanted to pretend he had just noticed her, or hadn’t even seen her come in, but it was useless. He’d seen her come in a few minutes before, and she’d stayed up by the front counter and talked to Lisa. He’d been looking at her, and she’d seen him looking at her. “Hi Bethany.” He had no idea what to say, and looking back on it, he should have told her last week, when he’d decided to leave. But if she didn’t know already, he had to tell her now - he owed her that much, at least. But this was going to be very messy.
She nodded, and already her eyes were glistening up. Was she going to cry right here in front of everyone? “Can we go in the backroom?”
“Yeah, let’s go in the back.”
They walked back together but not together, walking toward the same place but very far apart in their thoughts. He followed her in and closed the door. The other employees might be suspicious, and Lisa might break up their conversation in some kind of protectiveness for Bethany, but at least they could have a little privacy. He walked over to where she was seated at the countertop, sitting up on one of those tall barstools in the break area, and she was crying again.
David didn’t know what to say. He had put off telling her that he was leaving, and now she was crying, so she must’ve found out. Maybe Lisa had called her, or something. This wasn’t how he had planned it, but now she knew. Everyone at work except her had found out from Mel - David was conspicuously absent for next week's schedule - and on some level, David had probably planned on chickening out and letting her find out from Lisa.
But the crying was worse now, even worse than when they had broken up for good out in the parking lot last week. Why was she crying more now?
Because she’s tired of you screwing her over, his mind answered mockingly. She’s tried and tried to get back together with him ever since he’d broken up with her, and now she must’ve realized that their relationship was finally, totally over. In her mind, he guessed, she never really broke up with him, not until this very moment. And he didn’t see it coming at all until right now.
And you better be sure about this, boy, because now you can’t change your mind. Things were different now, for good, and one way or another, he would have to accept what he had done.
The sobs slowed after a few minutes as Bethany dabbed at her eyes with a wad of Kleenex from the box on the countertop in front of them.
“Does Brian even know that you’re coming?” She probably remembered Brian Church from high school, but only vaguely; he had moved long before she had begun to show any interest in David Beaumont or his friends.
“Yeah, I called him a few days ago. He wasn’t there, but I talked to his girlfriend. She told me that he would be thrilled to see me, and that he would call me tomorrow night, if he could.” He had no idea how she knew about Brian, unless she’d talked to his Aunt - or maybe he’d mentioned Brian to Mel when he had put in his notice, and Mel had told people here.
She looked at him for a long, painful second, and just when David thought that he would burst out in tears from the pained expression on her face, she looked away.
“Don’t you think you should’ve talked to him before you quit, before you left...”, she started to ask, but stopped. He didn’t know what she was thinking, but it was clear she disapproved of this plan of his to just bail on everything and everyone he knew and head for California. She probably couldn’t even fathom the idea of quitting your job and breaking your lease and not having even talked to this supposed-friend that he would be living within a matter of weeks. He hadn’t actually spoken to Brian for years - for all he knew, Brian might not want David to come, but had only been polite in his letters.
David started to answer her unspoken question, but then stopped. He didn’t need to justify his actions to her or to anybody. Sure, the fact that he hadn’t spoken to Brian yet had bothered him, but his mind was made up. He would go to California and visit Brian, whether Brian really meant it or not. He could tell what she was thinking - that he had suddenly become impulsive, selfish, maybe even irrational. He had started doing crazy things, just for himself and not taking anybody else’s feelings into consideration.
He could live with that.
David stood up. “I’m sorry you found out this way. I was going to call you tonight and tell you I was leaving. I thought it would be the best way to do things.”
He didn’t say that putting off telling her to the last minute was the easiest thing on him, and getting all packed and ready to go before telling her minimized the chances that she could talk him out of it. He was sure it was what he wanted to do, but sometimes she had a way of talking that made him want to do or say anything just to agree with her and remove that disapproving expression from her face.
He smiled at her, trying to make her understand that he wanted her to tell him, to beg him to stay. He wanted her to ask - of course it wouldn’t change his mind, but he still wanted to hear it. It felt like just the act of telling her ‘no’ would strengthen his resolve.
Because suddenly he wasn’t sure.
He had counted on her to be angry with him, to yell at him, to call him names; he hadn’t counted on this endless, useless weeping.
Maybe you don’t really want to go. Maybe now that you see how she really feels about you, maybe you’re on the brink of calling up Mel and begging for your job back, if he’ll have you.
All the feelings and emotions that he had felt over the past few weeks towards Bethany, David had managed to contain, to keep them from breaking free and running riot over the rest of his mind. It was as if he had made up some type of box, sectioning off a portion of his mind, and David had placed everything he felt about her into that mental box, closing the thick flaps over in an attempt to keep the deep emotions from driving him crazy. So far it had been okay, but seeing her in the backroom where they had both worked so closely together, watching her cry her eyes out over his sudden decision, he felt as if that box was full, so full that it had tipped up onto one cardboard edge, flaps straining to hold it all in, precariously close to falling over and spilling its contents all over the floor of his mind.
He had to get out, and fast. “I just wanted you to know...”, he started, wanting desperately to lean over and hug her once more, a goodbye hug, but he didn’t think he could handle it. Everything was already so mixed up in his mind as it was, the last thing he needed now was to hold her close, smelling her hair and feeling the warm, mysterious rise of her breast against his chest...
She looked up and held his gaze for a moment and looked as if she really wanted to say something. She was struggling, starting and then stopping again before even getting half a word out, and David knew that she had something she wanted to say, something she felt was very important, and he knew that she was striving to find just the right words. Should he tell her the words didn’t matter?
“David...oh, god...I, I guess I just wanted to tell you to take care of yourself, okay? I guess...I guess I’ll always love you, and I always thought that if we ever got a chance to really talk about it, we’d get back together...” she wasn’t looking up at him - she was far too busy methodically tearing apart a Kleenex, shredding it into long, fuzzy strips that drifted down to the brown countertop. “I guess that’s...that’s never going to happen now.”
David didn’t want to be mean, not really, but he knew that the slightest backslide on his part and he might not go through with it.
So he was mean.
“No, Bethany. That’s not going to happen - not now, not ever. We’re just not right for each other, and someday, you’ll see that.” The lie was so practical, so over-used, both on himself and to everyone else that dared to ask, and it came so easily, with only the slightest churn in his stomach to signal his truer emotions.
Did she believe him
? At this point, he didn’t really care - he just wanted this nightmare to be over. Sitting up there on the mountain, leaving had seemed like such a good idea. Now, he wasn’t sure, not by a long shot.
He turned and left the backroom and wandered around the sales floor for a few minutes before she came out, crying. The others would see, but he didn’t care. He stood in the Horror section, straightening video boxes, and she came out of the backroom and headed right out the door, not even stopping to say anything to Lisa. But when she got to the doors she stopped and turned around and looked at him, and the hurt on her face broke his heart. She turned and left, and the last sounds he heard from Bethany were the hitched sobbing of her tears.
Hurricane Mandy reversed her deadly course and headed back over the peninsula of Florida late on Saturday night. Beaches were closed and seaside towns were evacuated, and the inland flight of the citizens was hampered by washed out roads and bridges. Mandy continued on her deadly path, making second landfall just after 6 a.m. on Sunday, September 18.
Randy Kovacs and the other Trackers were nervously watching the satellite pictures and the incoming flight data from the high-altitude Maverick planes flying through the storm. The eye itself was over a hundred miles wide, easily the biggest on record, and the day and a half the storm had spent spinning in the Gulf had only strengthened it. Now she was a Category 3 and verging on a 4, and whole new computer programs were being hastily written to try and estimate her track, strength and speed. And so far, they weren’t having much luck.
The latest estimates put Mandy over Florida on Sunday and turning north on Monday, moving up the coast. But her speed was so slow, so achingly slow, that no one could be sure where she would go. If she continued at this same speed it would take her a week to get to New York, a lifetime for a Hurricane. Would she last that long, or would she sputter out over the Carolinas? Or would she head straight across Florida and back out into the Atlantic, dying out over the open water?