Retail Hell

Lucy had been organizing the return rack of clothes when a child squealed at a frequency only dogs should have been able to hear. Working in retail, she knew that it usually meant one of two things. The first was that they had somehow managed to find a way to tear open one of the toy packages in the back of the store and were currently having the time of their life bashing Barbie’s brain into the linoleum floor. But the scream was coming from the front door, so perhaps this was one of the few times that she should go investigate. She reluctantly put a horrible green dress on her cart. Whenever she got distracted, Lucy would inevitably forget whatever task she was working on. That wouldn’t be such a problem in the summer months, but December always brought out the worst in customers, and the store she worked so hard to fix would always end up destroyed by closing time.

The kid screamed with even more enthusiasm this time. He didn’t sound like he was being kidnapped, but Lucy should probably run up there before her manager got annoyed.

Lucy jogged to the front door, her radio bouncing against her thigh. Other customers were also wandering toward the doors, wondering what the commotion was about. It was night on a Saturday; every buggy that could be used was already on the floor, and Lucy had to duck through a few people who couldn’t be bothered to realize they were hogging the entire aisle. By the time Lucy got to the door, the kid was already being led away by his parent, his excited yells growing quieter the farther he got. Lucy would have gotten back to work—no yelling kid meant no excuse to not get back to sorting clothes—if not for the gentle white substance falling to the ground. Lucy put her hands on the window, her breath fogging up the glass as she watched the puffy snowflakes dance in the yellow parking lot lights.

“Look at that,” she said quietly. “First snow of the year.” The first snow in a couple of years, actually. It had been too warm for snow; anything that made it out of the troposphere melted when it hit the ground. But tonight had been uncharacteristically cold. Lucy wasn’t technically supposed to have her phone on her when she was on the floor, but she worked at a clothing store. She doubted anyone would care, other than her manager. Lucy pulled out her phone and opened the weather app. A little snowflake hovered over the current time, and if the app was to be trusted, it would continue snowing for the next few hours. Lucy turned her back to the window, looking at the lone cashier. The man looked as tired as Lucy, his choppy bangs nearly covering his baggy eyes. He probably had it worse than her, to be honest. At least Lucy could get out of a conversation with an angry customer. The cashier just had to sit there and take it with a pained smile.

“Hey, uh…man.” Lucy bit her tongue. The cashier wasn’t a new hire, but for some reason, she had never bothered to learn his name. Maybe I can just work around it. She pointed to the window. “Did you see it was snowing?”

“Huh?” The man blinked as if he had been daydreaming. His eyes widened a little as he took in the ever-increasing snowfall. “Well, would you look at that. It has been ages since I’ve seen that much snow. We might actually get a white Christmas this year.”

“Hey, that would be nice.” Lucy wiped her handprints from the window, trying to stay out of the way as more people began to leave the store. They had the right idea. The snow was already covering the ground in a thin layer of white. Even if the roads were salted, the ice would make things much more dangerous when driving home. Northerners were right about one thing: people in the South really didn’t know what to do when snow hit the ground. Maybe they could even close early. Now that would be an early Christmas gift. She looked back to her coworker. “Do you think Janet will let us leave after all the customers are out? It's not like anyone is going to go shopping with weather like this.”

“Hey, that’s a good idea. Hang on, let me page her.” The man walked over to the intercom system and pushed one of the many buttons. “Janet to the register, please. Janet to the register.” The speakers screeched as he spoke, interrupting the incredibly cheery Christmas music. Customers gathered near the register, eager to purchase their goods and leave the store. She saw her coworker’s face pale at the sheer number of people he would have to check out. For once, Lucy was grateful that the store manager had never trained her on the register. She would not want to deal with that giant line right now.

Leaving her coworker to his fate, she walked past the registers and began to put back any stray grocery carts. She was going slow, and she could admit that. She just couldn’t bring herself to walk away from the window or look away from the serene sight outside. She heard the jangling keys behind her, meaning Janet probably wasn’t far away. The manager pushed her way through the crowd, sporting a giant smile. As soon as she got through the line, that smile dropped, and she approached Lucy with narrowed eyes and a barely contained frown.

“Lucy, the toy section is a mess again. I’m going to need you to get on that.”

“Right, of course.” Lucy leaned against the cart she was pushing, pointing to the door. “It’s snowing, by the way.” Janet looked over Lucy’s shoulder. She raised a single eyebrow.

“Well, that’s interesting.”

“Yeah, I was hoping we could close early. The weather app says it's supposed to keep snowing for a couple of hours without letting up. I live on a rural road, so snowplows don’t clear our road until the main ones are done—"

“Absolutely not.” Janet’s denial cut through Lucy worse than the cold ever could. Lucy stopped midsentence, mouth hanging open at the blatant interruption. Janet barely even spared her a glance. “The store is a mess. It needs to be cleaned up before closing. Bad weather doesn’t give us the excuse to be lazy.”

It’s not being lazy. It’s being safe. But honestly, Lucy should have known better. Janet had never cared about employee safety. It was more important to get the store in perfect condition than to honor employee breaks. It was more important to yell at said employees for not doing a perfect job while she sat back in the office eating chips and watching Facebook videos.

Lucy bit her tongue and simply nodded. Her body moved on its own toward the back of the store, anger burning in her with every step. When she got to the toy section, the damage only stoked her anger more. Toy guns were torn from the packaging, with fake darts littering the floor. Dolls lay facedown, their hair tangled or ripped out in some places. The tables that held the toys were a disordered mess, and Lucy knew that if they weren’t perfectly stacked and organized, Janet would write her up. So she began slamming the toys back into their proper places, not caring if she damaged some of them. It wasn’t as if there were any customers to stop her. Everyone had already left, and Janet wouldn’t be caught dead doing actual work in the store she ran.

Her phone vibrated every few minutes. Her boyfriend was trying to alert her to the adverse weather through text or phone calls. What would be the point of answering? She would just have to tell him that she wasn’t allowed to leave, and that would do nothing but make her even more upset. Lucy grabbed her phone and turned the device off. He would just have to deal with her silence.

Minutes ticked by, and Janet’s list of never-ending chores seemed to grow with the piles of snow outside. Lucy would pass by the front door now and then, her stomach sinking as the white blanket grew thicker. She could see her car from the front door, its windshield already covered. Her heart began to race. She’d never driven on this much snow before. Would driving slowly help? Should she wait and get behind another vehicle, following in its tire tracks to try and maximize her traction? Had the roads around her house even been properly prepared for the weather? The silent questions only made her anxiety grow.

She still had to fix the purse and makeup section (which was already fine in her opinion, but of course, Janet could never be satisfied with ‘fine’), so she crossed the front door one last time, looking for her coworker to ask for help. It wasn’t as if he had any customers to check out. But he was just…gone. Lucy frowned and checked around the nearby area, wondering if he had tried fixing some other section. When she still didn’t find him, she unclipped the radio from her waist.

“Janet? Do you know where the cashier guy went? I was going to get his help fixing a section.”

Janet’s nasally voice came through the walkie-talkie. “Oh, I sent him home.”

“You sent him home?”

“There weren’t any more customers, so I told him he wasn’t needed anymore. He was overtime anyway. If he had stayed much longer he would have gone over his hours for this week.”

Lucy tugged on her short black hair, reminding herself that she needed this job, and cussing out the manager was not something she could afford right now. “I needed to leave more than him, Jan. I’m going to get into an accident on the road at this rate.”

“As long as you drive slow, you’ll be fine. I don’t understand what the problem is, Lucy. Just get things done. I might let you go early if you can get the store looking good again.”

That wasn’t going to be possible. There was no way Lucy could make the floor perfect in the short time she had. The lights flickered overhead, and for the first time that night, Lucy felt hope spark in her chest. That hope only grew when she heard Janet curse from the back of the store.

Lucy stuffed her radio into her back pocket and put her hands together in prayer. It didn’t matter which deity she talked to. She just needed a miracle from one of them.

Please cut the power please cut the power please cut the power. With every repeated plea, the lights flickered more. Lucy knew on some level that what was happening was just a coincidence. The power lines and buildings in the area weren’t built to withstand heavy snow. Maybe a car had crashed into a pole and messed something up. Maybe a tree had fallen on a line. It didn’t matter. All Lucy cared about was the sudden darkness that enveloped the floor. Usually, this sort of situation would cause some level of unease. But not for Lucy. Not this time. Janet’s complaints were the only noise in the store, and Lucy did a little dance when she heard her manager come to the front, talking to someone on her phone.

“Yeah, we just lost power. Can you arm the alarm for us? I’ll get everything locked up and we’ll close down.” As soon as the words were out of Janet’s mouth, Lucy turned her phone back on and booted up the flashlight. She sprinted down the disorganized aisles and bounded into the break room, grabbing her wallet and keys. She threw her radio into the office, not bothering to listen to Janet’s orders. Nothing her manager said would get Lucy to pick up one more article of clothing. She wouldn’t even have to clock out of the system with the power out. She passed by Janet as she made her way to the front door, managing to say a hasty goodbye. She pushed the automatic doors open, relishing in the cold air that immediately assaulted her face. Her flimsy company coat did nothing to protect her from the chill, and she relished in the goosebumps on her arms. Even freezing was better than the terrible monotony of that store.

Lucy began to push the worst of the snow off her windows, her fingers turning red in seconds. She could see Janet leaving the store and locking it up, foul word after foul word flowing from her lips. Lucy looked at the overcast sky, watching the puffy white snowflakes tumble through the air. She stuck out her tongue, laughing at the absurdity of her behavior. Maybe there is a little bit of December magic after all. She ducked into her car before Janet could ambush her with any last-minute request. Janet was the manager, after all. The store, in the end, was her responsibility, not Lucy’s. She put the key into the ignition and cranked the car. She’d have to come back to the store eventually. But for now, she would enjoy the reprieve from the screaming adults and crying children, the broken merchandise and the lazy managers.

She would enjoy the snowy roads, just this once.