Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
“You watched eight hours of footage of me?” I ask.
Ricky shifts in his chair and the faux-leather squeaks under him like a fart. He tries to do it again and fails. With his face red, he clarifies, “On fast-forward.”
I know how old those security cameras are. Fast-forward is, at best, double speed. “So, you’re saying you only watched four hours of footage of me at work?”
Flushing, he waves this off. “The time I spent isn’t the point.”
I swallow down the response I know won’t get me anywhere: Four hours of your wasted time seems like a bigger theft of resources than a single two-dollar pack of gum in three years’ employment, as does you being here working the graveyard shift with me when we average zero-point-five customers every hour.
Instead, I say, “I just forgot. I didn’t have any cash and I didn’t want to pay a five-dollar debit fee for a transaction under ten dollars.”
“You should have put an IOU in the cash drawer yesterday.”
“An IOU? Like… on paper?”
He nods. “Feed out the receipt paper and use that.”
“How would Kelly have accounted for that when she came in at seven?”
“She could have told me you took a pack of gum and would pay for it later.”
“But you knew I took a pack of gum. You watched the entire video.”
His nostrils flare. “The point is we can’t trust you.”
“Ricky, I’ll pay for the gum now. God, I’ve worked here for three years, and this is the first time you’ve ever had an issue with me.”
The face he makes tells me that I don’t have this quite right.
I sit back in my little chair. “Oh. I see. This is about the date.”
Ricky leans forward on his forearms, clasping his hands the way his dad does when he’s in Mentor Paul mode. But Paul could give me a two-hour sermon about how to be successful in business and I’d eat it all up because he’s charismatic and caring and worked his ass off to get a chain of four stores in downtown Los Angeles. Ricky got an Audi for his sixteenth birthday, a store for his eighteenth, and apparently spends his managerial time watching security footage of me on the days I wear skirts to work. So, I don’t believe a word he’s saying when he says, “It isn’t about the date.”
“Really?”
“It isn’t about that,” he insists.
“This is so dumb, Ricky!”
“It’s Derrick.”
“This is so dumb, Derrick.”
He flushes. “This is a business owner handling an employee issue. I’m sorry, Anna. We have to let you go.”
My ears ring. A panicky flush blankets my skin. “You’re firing me today over a pack of gum?”
“Yes.”
“Do Barb and Paul know?”
“My parents are aware, yes.” This lands like a punch to the gut. Barb and Paul know that Ricky is firing me over a pack of watermelon Trident? And they’re okay with that? Ouch.
Ricky leans in to catch my attention. “Anna? Did you hear what I said? You can turn in your set of keys, and I’ll mail out your final paycheck.”
I blink back into focus, pushing to stand. “Make sure to deduct the cost of the gum.”
“I already have.”
* * *
THE MOMENT I STEP out onto Manning and don’t see my beat-up Jetta where I usually park it, I realize that I am at the beginning of a domino train of terrible shit. My memory reels back to six hours ago when Manning was temporarily closed off to clean up a fender-bender. I’d had to park on Pico, where I’d made a mental note to move to Manning when it opened or feed the meter by eight… and I hadn’t done either.
That stupid two-dollar pack of gum has turned into a forty-five-dollar parking ticket.
But not only is there the expected white envelope under my windshield wiper, there’s also a giant black scrape down the driver’s-side door where someone apparently sideswiped me and kept going on their merry way. The dent has bent the frame, and now when I climb in, the door won’t shut all the way.
Fuck.
It never rains in April in LA, but it begins the second I get on the freeway. Big fat raindrops falling in a bratty, torrential downpour that leaves the streets slick with oil and the left side of my body soaking wet. When I pull into my apartment complex, my roommate’s boyfriend is parked in my spot, and I can’t even be mad, since they didn’t expect me home for another three hours. I block him in, turning off the ignition and resting my head against the steering wheel for a few deep breaths.
One thing at a time, Dad’s voice says in my head, deep and low. Get the car sorted, then talk to Vivi tomorrow about picking up more shifts at the café.
“It’s going to be okay,” I say to a sky that has miraculously cleared of any evidence of rain. I repeat these words to myself as I climb out of the car, as I stare at the door that won’t close and then lean back in, digging out anything that’s of any value inside, as I realize that the AirPods Dad gave me for Christmas and which I’d left in the center console have already been taken. As has the emergency ten dollars I leave there for late-night fast-food emergencies.