Archives: June 4-June 10, 2006

June 4, 2006

“Right there,” Grandma says. “That's perfect.”

I smile and set to work, hammering the nail into the wall overhead. Up until now my grandmother has been hesitant about doing anything that might damage her apartment. More recently, she has said, “To hell with it. When I move out here, odds are it'll be in hearse. Let the landlord bill me then.”

With the nail through the wall, Grandma hands me a photo frame. It's got an 8” x 12” photo of me, maybe 5 years old, sitting on my grandmother's lap, Ray sitting at her side. We're in a department store portrait studio—I can't remember which one.

“How many more have we got?”

“What, you getting tired?”

“Na, I just want to know how many more times I get to bang the hammer.”

“That's my boy. Two more photo frames then the painting.”

“Ships at sea?”

“You know of any other paintings I've had hanging around?”

“I never know when you're gonna run out and grab some crazy new age art.”

Grandma doesn't bother responding, lifting the next picture and gesturing to her right. “Let's put this one over here.”

It makes me happy to help Grandma hang her things in here. It means she's starting to feel at home in the apartment, and the apartment, in turn, is starting to look more like her home.

“You know tomorrow I start my new job,” I say, hammering the next nail in.

“What?”

I smile and wait until I have the nail in so she'll be able to hear me. “I start my new job tomorrow. After that, I'm going to have to start charging you for my labor.”

“You'll have to work on your handy man skills if you're gonna try to run a racket off that.”

“Guess I could settle for a slice of pie.”

Grandma glances at her watch. “It'll be ready in 15 minutes,” she says, handing me the next frame. “Get hanging.”

June 5, 2006

“You're early. Good to see it,” Lois says, hanging a shirt as I step inside.

“Yeah,” I say, adding a nervous chuckle, not sure what else I can say.

I follow Lois, the manager of Stephon's, as she breezes through the store, hanging items from a stack slung over her arm, and adding to the pile as she spots shirts that don't belong. “It's men clothes in the left corner closest to the entrance,” she says, not looking back at me. “The rest is women's, besides the accessories up front—there's a mix and a lot of unisex stuff up there. The dressing rooms are in the back, and so's the office, where I interviewed you the other day.”

“Right.”

“That's also where the clock is. Make sure you punch in at the start of every shift. You don't punch in, you don't get paid for the time, got it?”

“Makes sense.”

“Good.” She leads me straight through the office door. “We keep the time cards here,” she goes on, gesturing toward a little plastic tray, mounted to the wall next to the clock. “You just put it in like this, and it prints the time there for you,” she says as a mechanism in the clock clicks, stamping the time and date. “Don't punch in early or punch out later than you finish up.”

Lois leads me back out, her short brown hair whipping from side to side with every turn she takes. “This is Jermaine,” she says, swinging her arm a tall black man, probably a couple years older than me, unpacking a box of t-shirts. He stretches out his hand to me. He's the one I turned in my application to the other day. I'm fairly certain he doesn't remember me.

“ Preston ,” I say, shaking his hand.

“Good to meet you, man,” he says and smiles, tilting his head. “You better keep up.

I turn to see Lois is already halfway to the registers and follow after her in a half jog. “This is Anastasia, and this is Julie,” she goes on when we get up there, climbing up on the podium behind which they stand at the registers. I'm surprised to see that I know each of them already—Matt's ex-girlfriend Julie Stephens and Anastasia, the girl who gave me my application when I first came in.

“Hey Preston ,” Julie says, “I didn't know you got a job here.”

“Yeah, I didn't know you worked here either.”

“Cool deal,” Lois says. “ Preston , I want you to watch these guys work the register for a while. Help them bag up what people buy and work on whatever they ask you to. I'll check in on you in a couple hours and see if you're ready to fly solo.”

The moment Lois is gone, Anastasia turns to me. She nudgess a cardboard box toward me with her foot, full of little bead bracelets. “Start sorting these by color,” she says, turning back to the register.

“Right,” I say, giving a little chuckle again, not sure if she's kidding or at least being facetious with the way she ordered me to do it. She doesn't show any signs of it, though. Julie smiles and kneels down to help me through the box while Anastasia takes the next customer.

June 6, 2006

“So Julie was cool with you?” Matt asks, seated on the opposite end from the couch as me as we watch TV, munching on chips.

“Cool as she's ever been,” I say. “I've never really had a problem with her—just her asshole boyfriend. But speaking of assholes, you should meet this girl Anastasia at the store.”

“Bitch?”

“Understatement. Only times she would speak to me she was giving me some sort of order. And I assumed she was an assistant manager or something—turns out she doesn't have any rank there at all—just a sales associate like me.”

“You shouldn't have done what she said then. Just gives her control over you.”

“Well I'm not gonna listen to her anymore. Not more than I have to anyway. I mean I'm still learning the job.”

“What's to learn? Scan the little bar code, tell the customer the number that pops up on your screen. Fold some jeans.”

“Yeah, but there's a specific way of doing everything—it's like any job. I'll have it down in a week or so.”

“Well, until then, just ask Julie when you have questions.”

“I just hope she's working when I am. Or that Anastasia's not, at least.”

“What kind of name is Anastasia, anyway?”

“Russian?”

He slings a chip at me. “Who names their kid that? And if you're named that, why wouldn't you just go by Anne or Annie?”

I shake my head. “Beyond me.”

June 7, 2006

“So what does it mean that you're a news editor?” Jermaine asks, folding long sleeve tee shirts at one corner of a display table, while I work on the opposite end.

“I write a lot of articles and assign the articles for my section. Then I do all the layout.”

“Gotcha. So you a comm major or something?”

“English actually. Just kind of got into the newspaper thing because a friend of mine drew me into it, and it seemed like fun.”

“All right, I dig that,” he says, lobbing me an errant shirt, meant for my side. “I'm actually a comm major, but I'm on the broadcast side of it. Want to end up on ESPN or something.”

“Good deal.”

“Yeah, figure if I can't be making the play of the day, figure I'd might as well be calling it.” He tosses the next shirt to me overhead, like he's shooting a basketball. “Heading into senior year now, though. Gotta start getting my portfolio together.”

“So you work on the college TV station or something?”

“Been there, done that. Might help out on the sports desk, but I'm working on getting an internship at one of the local networks. Should have got on it this summer, but I had to rock up some dollars, and this was the sure thing.”

“ Preston !” I turn to see Anastasia at the register. “Got a line here, could use some help.”

“Right,” I say.

Jermaine smirks. “Don't let her get to you, man—that only encourages her.”

I fold my last shirt and head up front to man the second register.

June 8, 2006

“Hey guys,” Lois says, setting a large cardboard box down on the ground in front of the counter. “What's going on?”

“Nothing much,” Julie says, we stand behind the registers, each sorting through and reorganizing baskets of hair ties and scrunchies.

“Just wanted to let you guys know that the company is running a sales promotion right now. It's a contest.” She stoops down and picks out a little black t-shirt with a koala bear on the front. “The associate who can sell the most baby tees over the next week gets a $50 gift card to the store. I'll be setting out a jars behind the register. Each time you sell one, just rip off this part of the tag,” she points to a perforated part of the sales tag, “And put it in your container. “Associate with the most tags gets the prize.”

As Lois walks away, I hear Anastasia. “Doesn't sound like much of a contest.” I had almost forgotten she was there, but turn to find her crouched on the other side of the counter, lining up purses. “Julie and I are the only ones who have a chance.”

“What makes you say that?” Julie asks.

“There's a difference between punching the buttons on the register and making a sale. “First of all, the men here never bother trying to make a sale—they just let the customers pick things out for themselves. Secondly, girls don't trust guys' opinions—they want to hear it from another woman.”

“Well don't get me wrong, because I am going to win,” Julie says with the flicker of a smile. “But it's not like we work on commission, so why would guys try to make sales most of the time?”

“Because that's the job,” Anastasia says. “God forbid they go above and beyond the bare minimum.”

“Well hey, I'm still new to this job—” I start.

“Right, because you're going to be such a terrific salesman once you get going.”

There's a certain competitive edge that I've got, just beneath the skin. Most of the time, it only comes out is when people tell me I can't do something, and I want to prove them wrong. Anastasia is flirting very closely with that edge. “So you think you're going to beat me in this contest?”

Anastasia stands up straight. “Are you joking? If you're lucky, I won't triple your sales. I mean just look at you. That stupid t-shirt, K-Mart jeans—you think girls are going to listen to you for fashion advice?”

I smile holding back everything I want to say. That's something I learned from my father a long time ago—that it's better not to let people see your anger, that it's better to do something about it instead.

In that instant, it's decided. I'm going to win this contest.

June 9, 2006

“How you girls doing?” I ask, joining a group of three girls as they peruse the racks of Stephon's.

“All right,” one of them answers with the hint of a smile. That's my cue.

“Can I help you guys find anything?”

“Na, we're just looking,” she says, moving her hair behind her ear.

“If you don't mind my asking, which high school did you guys graduate from?” I ask, casting my line into the water.

Another one of the girls giggles, but the same one responds. “We're actually all still at Shermantown High.”

“Oh, really?” I run a hand through my hair. “Man, I could have sworn you were all in college. Because I was going to say, a lot of the college girls have been buying the baby tees lately.”

“Is that so?”

I lift one from the table behind me. “I think it's the koala. It's different, but it's subtle. Got sort of a kid thing to it, but it's mature at the same time.”

The girl turns to her friends. “What do you guys think?” One shrugs. Other nods slowly.

“I'm planning to get a couple for my girlfriend,” I say. “See, I got to college a couple hours away at this real small school, and I don't think these things will have caught on there yet, so she'll look cool with it.”

The girl gives me this look that says she knows it's all a sales pitch, but that she's buying it nonetheless. “What color are you getting for your girlfriend?”

“I'm going with black—but that just works with her complexion,” I say, acting as though I know a thing about what colors look good on any given person.”

She gives me a slow nod of her own, turning her full attention to the table. One of her friends follows suit, while the other veers off, heading toward the discount rack.

“Take your time and look around. I'll be over by the registers when you're ready.” Heading back up front, I can spy Anastasia glaring at me, watching my every move.

June 10, 2006

“So you're pushing stupid looking shirts on poor, unsuspecting little girls?”

“They're not really little girls,” I say, the phone hot, pinned between my shoulder and the side of my face as I wash pots and pans in the kitchen sink. “Just younger—still in high school.”

“And you're doing so in my name—saying your girlfriend likes the shirts?” Veronica asks.

“Only for some of them. For others, I imply that I'm fashionable and am picking them out for you.”

“Quite the actor.”

“You saw my theatrical debut in that play for Jones. Guess I've got acting in my blood now.”

“I'm so proud.”

“The best thing is that at the end of the day yesterday, I had definitely sold more shirts than that bitch Anastasia.”

“Ah right, Anastasia,” Veronica says. “And how is the ice queen doing?”

“She's holding her own at second place—and she's working today, so she might pull ahead. But I'll make it up tomorrow. I'm not letting her win this thing.”

“Funny how much attention you're giving his girl.”

I set a saucepan into the drying rack at my side, before going to work on a larger pot. “She's my arch-nemesis at the store. I'm telling you, everybody hates her.”

“Is she pretty?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“A simple one.”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“I'm just curious.”

I sigh. “She's not a bad looking girl. But her personality—she's just so mean. She's the kind of person you just want to punch in the face after everything she says to you.”

“Okay.”

She thinks something's up. It's the first time I've heard any sort of jealousy from her, but I recognize it well from my time with Emma. It's a little annoying, but nice that she cares. “So how are things going at the internship.”

“It's good. They let me sit in on a meeting today with this guy who's trying to set up an LLC.”

“An LLC?”

“Limited liability company. He and some associates want to start an online company selling matted photographs of different landmarks and towns around upstate New York . Apparently, he's got a lot of money and has been doing projects like this for years, but this is his first time using the web.”

“Sounds like things are getting more interesting over there.”

“No competing over t-shirt sales, but it's all right.” She giggles.

“So tell me, if I were to buy you a baby tee with a koala on it, what color shirt would you want?”