Wrongful Termination

Yesterday, Marvin was the Supervisor over our store’s cart retrieval team. Today, however, Marvin was dead.

            It was about 2pm Thanksgiving, or if you live in the retail world, like me, Black Friday. (The goons at the GO, high up on the corporate ladder had yet to realize that Thanksgiving was still Thursday.) The store was still closed for a few more hours, but most of the team was here prepping for the big rush that would happen when the doors opened at six. A wet heavy snow was accumulating quickly outside, burying our cars and piling up on the roof, but the storm didn’t bother us.

            We all were scrambling around the store, making sure everything, and everyone, was ready. Some were setting ad. Others, making sure everything pictured in the catalogue was represented on the sales floor. Still others were hastily moving things from this backroom to that backroom, or from this register to that register.

Curtis was overheard saying into a telephone, “Howdy!” Pause. “No. Did you forget it’s Black Friday, Melissa?” Pause. “Yes, I’m aware it’s still Thursday.” Pause. “I’m not transferring it tonight! I’m not your pack mule!”

            I was following Claudia around, crossing items off a list as she made sure each item was right where it needed to be, listening to her complaining that this or that shelf wasn’t clean. I too was complaining, about that this rug or that towel was over stocked. That’s when poor Doralee had found him, Marvin, in the furniture flat, propped up in a display recliner, a plastic sack over his head. A red substance, blood, I guess, was leaking from under the bag, behind his ear, pooling on the collar of his olive green polo.

            Marvin would not be missed. Moreover, as terrible as that sounded, Marvin would not be mourned.

            At least, that’s what I thought before I heard the wailing coming from the direction of the electronics department. I wandered away from the crowd of teammates who had gathered around the body at the sound of Doralee screaming. I found Courtney, our LP, in a heap behind the register.

            She was hugging an armful of spider wraps and security cases to her chest as tears streaked her normally perfect mascara down her cheeks. She rocked back and forth gently.

            I didn’t know quite what to do. I had had no idea that she had felt this deeply for Marvin. In fact, all her words and actions toward the man seemed to point in the opposite direction. Just yesterday, she’d read him the riot act for bringing in a Deseret Industries cart with the rest.

            “Do you know what kinds of germs are probably lurking all over that thing?! It’s a liability! Plus, taking another store’s cart is stealing!” She was heard shouting.

            “It looked lonely out there. . .” Marvin had started.

            “Then you take it back to DI! You don’t bring it inside like some stray! Next thing you know we’ll have Smith’s and Kent’s carts lying around. Or even,” she shuddered, “Walmart carts! Now take this back before they notice it’s gone! Or I’ll . . .” she left the threat hanging in the air.

            Courtney was always on Marvin’s case because his work ethics were completely absent, and by not doing his job—retrieving, storing, and repairing the shopping carts—he was sure to cause some sort of accident that would end up costing the store money. It was only a matter of time. Thinking back, I was actually kind of amazed that Marvin hadn’t caused more accidents.

            I went back in the recesses of my mind. When was the last time we’d had an accident? It seemed we’d been accident free close to . . .

            “Eleven months, twenty-three days, seven hours!” Courtney wailed, taking me by surprise. “ We were almost accident free for a year! And then Marvin the Martian”  her voice was dripping with disdain, “had to go and get himself killed!”

            So that’s why she was crying. It made more sense now.

            We all called Marvin “the Martian” because he seemed to have learned his people (and hygiene) skills from another planet. He thought it was a compliment, that we were saying he was “out of this world.” That’s one of the things that annoyed everyone the most, Marvin’s giant ego. He thought that he was beautiful, but it was Mary who pointed out that he looked like a 40 year-old Miley Cyrus. He thought he was smart, but thought that the carts had feelings and could talk to him. He thought he was God’s gift to women, but he smelled like body-odor masked in about a thousand drops of essential oils. Even the customers hated him.

The managers couldn’t fire him, because HR probably wouldn’t accept “being repulsive” as a valid reason for termination. So, it looked like someone else had taken matters in their own hands and terminated Marvin themselves.

“Now we’ll never have enough money for the safety party! I was so sure we had it in the bag,” Courtney took her safety parties very seriously, and each outdid the last. “I had everything planned! I was going to hire a band!”

She dissolved into a fresh fit of sobbing.

“It’s ok, Courtney.” Bobby’s baritone voice made both of us jump about a foot. He had a habit of sneaking up on people. “Just look at him.”

He pointed at the still-warm corpse that was soiling our display furniture. Courtney slowly stood and looked. Then Bobby continued, “This obviously wasn’t an accident.”

Courtney’s tears seemed to suck back into the sockets from whence they’d fallen, and with a swipe of two fingers under each eye, her makeup was looking flawless once again.

“Ok, people!” She shouted as the three of us headed back to furniture, “We have three hours and seventeen minutes before we open the doors. Are we going to let Marvin ruin yet another Black Friday?”

No one answered. Most still were white with shock, eyes bugging out of their heads.

“No,” she continued, “We will not! Whoever killed him will come forward, and will stay locked in the detention room until the doorbusters end in the morning. Then we’ll call the police and forget about this whole mess.”

Nobody could argue with that. Even Josh, who should’ve been taking charge, was silent at the hurricane force that was Courtney with a plan. And really, there was no need to hurt our sales. But still—the thought came before I could push it away and I shivered—one of us was a killer.

I looked at the faces before me, people I’d worked with for years. More than co-workers, more than friends, some even were family. Could one of us really be capable of such a heinous crime? I knew it wasn’t me. And after the breakdown Courtney had just had, I thought it was safe to rule her out as well. But who did that leave? My eyes skittered around the circle, stopping to meet the eyes of each suspect. Could one of them really be a cold-blooded murderer?

“Shouldn’t we call the police first?” Jen asked.

“Think of the repercussions! If we call them now they’ll have to close the store until the investigation is over. Which means no Black Friday!” Courtney said.

To most of us that didn’t sound like it was necessarily a bad thing. Many of us hadn’t had a day off since the previous week, and likely would not get another until after Christmas. But still she had a point, there were sales figures to think about.

“Just until the doorbusters end,” She repeated for the still doubtful faces. Slowly, everyone began to come around to Courtney’s way of thinking. Our bottom-line was bound to be hurting. A lot of things had gone missing lately without a trace. It was likely driving Courtney mad, but every time something turned up stolen, her cameras somehow had missed it. We had to make up for all that loss. I was starting to suspect that the thief was someone within the store, though my main suspect was now apparently deceased.

Then Josh took charge, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Ok, everyone! We still have ad to set, and now we have to figure out what to do with Marvin. We can’t just leave him here, obviously,” he said. He began delegating, “Mitch, go get a flatbed. We’ll put him on the flatbed, that will make him more portable. So, who’s gonna help move him?”

A chorus of “not-it” rang out.

“C’mon, team!” Curtis said.

“I wouldn’t touch him if he were alive,” I told him, “I refuse to touch him while he’s dead.”

There were nods and murmurs of agreement all around. By the time Mitch returned with the flatbed, no one had volunteered.

“Ok, new plan.” This voice was from Sara. “What if we pick up the whole recliner? That way no one has to get Martian germs.”

“I like that idea!” Mike said.

“Good, then you get to be one of the one’s to lift him,” Sara said.

Curtis jumped on the delegation train, “Ok, Bobby, Mikey, Manda and I will lift him onto the flatbed.”

“Me?” I asked, “Why me? What about Dirk?”

“Fine. Dirk, come grab an end.”

The four men lifted the recliner, cadaver and all, and set it on Mitch’s waiting flatbed.

“Ok,” Josh said, “Now we’ll just keep him in the back.”

“Hmm-mmm. Not in my backroom, you won’t.” Kim.

“It’s not your backroom.”

Kim wheeled around, “Who said that?”

No one moved. She glared at us all. “If you put him in the backroom, he’ll just be in the way.”

It seemed that, living or dead, “in the way” was Marvin’s natural state. Kim had a point. We’d be wheeling him around every time someone wanted to buy furniture, and he’d be using up a flatbed we could be using elsewhere. After all, we only had five flatbeds for the whole store: Short Round, Orange Wheels, Shakes, Grease Spot, and Shin Biter. Marvin was currently atop Shin Biter, figured.

Someone, I think it could have been Abby, suggested that we put him out in the compound. With the previous night’s snowfall, he’d be kept nice and cold until the cops could come and collect him in the morning. So, the “pallbearers” followed as Dirk wheeled the Marvin-laden flatbed down the mall aisle. Dirk sang loudly as he steered around pallets of appliances toward the backroom doors.

“How much is that body in the rocker? The one with the really bad smell? How much is that body in the rocker? I sure hope that he’s not for sale.”

They were not in the back too long before Curtis’s voice was heard over the PA system.

“The compound is frozen shut. I don’t think we should leave him out here where he could be found by just anyone. I’m open to suggestions.”

We all looked to Kim once again, the backroom, after all, made the most logical sense.

“No, no, no!” She said, forcing most of us to take a step back at her intensity, “What happens to most things you guys put in my backroom? They just sit there, for weeks! Until I take care of it. And that’s not my job. I don’t want Marvin sitting around, literally, waiting for someone to call the police and let them know we have a corpse rotting in our store. So, no! Find somewhere else to put him, because I am not dealing with it!”

We started rattling off options that got shot down almost as soon as they were suggested. We immediately ruled out the break room and any of the offices upstairs, because we wanted to keep the murder—was that really what we were dealing with?! Man, working here could get weird—between the teammates that were currently here. Also out were optical, which we were using to store “hot” electronic items; Pharmacy, because no one wanted to suffer the wrath of Andy; the maintenance closet, because Agustin was coming in later; the cash office, the electronic backroom, the receiving office, the restrooms, all out. It seemed there was a reason to not hide Marvin in just about every corner of the store.

“Maybe we should just call the police, then,” Sam said, wisely.

“No!” Courtney shouted, “Do you want to spend the rest of the night being interrogated in some detention room—”

“The detention room!” Sandy’s shout caused most of us to jump, and it earned her a fresh glare from Courtney’s direction. But, our LP didn’t protest. “It’s the only place that makes sense.”

“Fine,” Courtney conceded, “But when I find out who killed him, and I will find out, I’m locking them in there with him!”

The guys wheeled Marvin back through the store, escorted by Courtney. And she locked him inside the detention room. She looked at each one of us in turn, “We’re in this together. No one goes to the police. I’ll disconnect the phones if I have to.”

There were nods all around.

So, now that that matter was settled, we all went back to our Black Friday preparations with a little hop to our steps. We’d all been sworn to secrecy, and I knew that no one would blab. We all hated Marvin equally, and just as sure as the cops could find the real murderer, they could also wrongly accuse any one of us, for we all had some motive or another. It was best to leave the situation in Courtney’s capable hands, she knew us better than the cops. So, as we worked, Courtney investigated. Starting with the video feed in her office.

***

Again, we found ourselves rushing to a distress call. This time it led us away from furniture, coming from the Loss Prevention office. Courtney was clearly freaking out. And she was wet.

“One minute—and then—gone! Hector. Had to be! Gone!” She repeated.

“What’s gone?” Nubia asked.

“Video, all of it. Cotton candy. Hector!” She hiccupped, a droplet of liquid dripped off the edge of her nose.

“Hector?” Josh asked.

“Cotton candy?” Claudia said at the same time.

“The cotton candy is gone!” Courtney fell into Claudia’s out-stretched arms.

“It’s ok, Courtney. We’ll get some more,” Claudia patted her friend’s usually-curled-but-now-wet head.

“If you solve this,” I had to put in my two cents, it’s what I do, “I will get you a whole garbage bag full of cotton candy.”

That seemed to calm her down enough to tell us what had happened. And it did sound like the work of Hector.

Who was Hector? One might ask. He was the resident ghost. The team was in three different minds over his existence. Some believed in him with all their hearts, and even claimed to have seen him—a lonely old man in a short-brimmed hat—while others stoically refused his existence. Most of us, however, fell in the third camp of “don’t know, don’t care.” But the rumors of Hector had been around longer than most of us had worked here, and weren’t likely to stop anytime soon.

Marvin had claimed to be a medium, that he could talk to ghosts. He said he liked to talk to Hector. We used to make jokes that the only person that would voluntarily talk to Marvin had already been put out of his misery.

We were all standing in a circle in front of the jewelry department; Courtney’s scream had been as good as saying “All available teammates to jewelry for a huddle.” Courtney told us how she’d been getting her monitors up and running, casually munching on a bag of cotton candy, when the lights started flashing, and she could hear someone scratching at her door. She had stood up to face the door, when out of nowhere her coffee mug had exploded on her from her desk, soaking her while simultaneously dissolving her sugary confection.

Josh rubbed at his temple in thought. “But Hector’s not actually real?”

His voice trailed at the end of his question when a chorus of female voices, led by Doralee, Sandy, and Beth shouted, “He’s real!”

And then everyone was talking at once about their encounters with the ghost, or lack thereof. With all the commotion, not one soul heard the soft click that was the door of the detention center unlocking from the inside.

***

            The next cry that rang through the store was my own. I’d been triple checking that all the domestics items in the ad were out on the floor when I noticed a bin conspicuously missing. It was the $29.99 comforter sets. And the dreadful domestics debacle of 2013 started playing out in my mind. This was not happening, not again!

“Claudia,” I said over the PA system, cutting over a pop song about wanting a boyfriend for Christmas, “Didn’t we put out the comforters?”

“Yes,” was her response.

I dialed 5-0, once again and said into the phone, “That’s what I was afraid of. They’re gone.” And I had less than two hours to find them.

Then, not too far from where I was in domestics, I heard someone curse from the front of the store.

“Hannah Montana!” Only one person would use such foul language. Mary. So, hers was the next voice that cut the music out to ring loudly throughout the store, “None of the registers have EPP pamphlets, and I can’t find any up here, either.”

The music turned back on, then immediately cut out again. Sandy. “Yes, they’re up there. I put them there myself. I’m headed that way.”

Sandy made her way to the front, and I figured, what the heck, I was this close already, and another set of eyes couldn’t hurt. I followed the blue arrows, taped by the crew that had left early in the afternoon, showing the way the customers should go to get to the checkouts. I was just being silly, burned-out from the nights events, knowing I still had a good eight hours ahead of me. So, it took me a few moments to realize I’d circled one gondola twice. I hadn’t been paying proper attention to the arrows, apparently. I went around once again. No, I wasn’t crazy, the arrows went in a circle around the post-it note and notebook aisles. This didn’t bode well. But it wasn’t my problem, so I announced the issue over the loud system, and went to help Sandy and Mary in their search. I gave up after a few minutes, remembering that I had my own search to conduct—I had to find those comforters or some old lady would likely try to sic a purse-dog on me.

I was deep in thought as I wound my way around the bins and bins of blankets blocking off my department from Infants and Girls. I almost ran straight into Sara, who was looking at something on the ground.

“What’s this?” She asked, picking up a lone HZZ sign, Bed-in-a-bag $29.99.

“Jinkies! A clue!” I said in my best Velma voice. Sara didn’t laugh. I guess my joke was funnier in my head. “What I mean to say,” I started over, “Is that sign proves that my comforters were out here earlier!”

That’s when the lights flickered off.

“Is the power out?” Sara asked.

“No,” I said, “The music’s still on, unfortunately.”

They were playing Michael Bublé’s Santa Baby, which probably shouldn’t exist.

The Christmas trees were still lit as well. Blinking on and off in time with the music like some sort of supernatural lights show. The light drew us all to it, like moths to a flame, and the team was once again holding an impromptu huddle.

Courtney, looking remarkably dry (was she wearing different clothes?), told us of her newest plan. “Ok, so the video can’t help us find the culprit. But I thought we could dust for prints. I don’t have any dusting powder, but,” she pulled several small tubes from her cardigan pocket, “I have glitter.”

“Get that stuff away from me!” Mike shouted, a tremor in his voice. Claudia and the rest of the GM teammates were nodding along with him. Glitter, especially at Christmas time, was the bane of those setting new planograms.

“We don’t have anyone’s prints on file,” Josh began, before Courtney interrupted.

“Ok, well fine! I don’t see any of you coming up with anything.”

“I think,” Angie ventured to say, “That we are focusing on the wrong thing. Instead of capturing the,” her voice hitched before she went on. No one like the word murderer. “I think we should be focusing on getting ready for the rush. Doors open in one hour,” she reminded us.

“And already we’ve got a dead body, missing EPPS, missing comforters,” Barb started rattling things off on her fingers.

“No lights,” Shanna continued.

“Ad’s not completely set in Apparel,” Amy said.

“The arrows at the registers go in circles,” I added.

“And the roof’s leaking in seasonal,” Liz added.

“Again?!” All three managers looked just about at their rope’s end.

A thousand more little problems came to our minds as we stood, watching the trees blinking ominously. Which fiasco should we give our attention to?

Someone finally broke the silence, “I think Hector is mad that we killed Marvin.”

Voices began to overlap in protest.

“Excuse me? We? I’m not admitting to that.”

“Hector doesn’t exist!”

“It’s not like we’d all have helped—“

“Yes he does!”

“I would have!”

“Someone’s dead! Don’t you think we’re being callous?”

“There’s that we again!”

“Shut up!”

I don’t know who yelled it, but it was effective. The silence fell upon us once more as we waited for someone to take charge. Josh sighed, knowing that he would have to be that person.

“Ok, everyone worry about their own problems. Amanda, find those comforters. Mary and Angie, you’ve got the EPPS. Courtney, see about getting the video back on line, we shouldn’t go into Black Friday blindly. Jamie, make sure everyone else is setting ad. Sandy and I will figure out how to get the lights back on. Curtis will re-tape the arrows—”

“I will?”

Josh ignored him and continued, “Everyone else will get back to what they were doing before we found Marvin. And whoever is trying to sabotage our Black Friday . . .”

“Hector!” someone coughed.

“. . . Please stop,” Josh said, “Oh, and if any of you is the murderer, if you could just admit it so we can get on with our night.”

No one spoke. No one moved.

“Go. Fight. Win,” Curtis said with little of his normal enthusiasm.

Then, as if that were our cue, we all began moving as one away from the circle. Well, except Beth, who took one step forward and then fell flat on her face.

Upon closer examination, I realized her shoelaces had been tied together. How had that happened?

“Dang, you! Hector!” She yelled as she untangled herself. Josephina helped her to her feet. And again we disbanded.

***

Courtney’s voice was once again heard over the loud speaker.

“Um . . . guys, Marvin is gone.”

A thought came to me, but someone beat me to asking it. Another voice followed Courtney, uttering the very question that had just crossed my mind.

“Did anyone check to see if he was actually dead?”

The music clicked back on. And it didn’t click off again. There was no response. No one had checked. And why would we. He looked dead, there was a red stain dripping down his neck, he smelled dead. If it looked like a duck and swam like a duck . . . Common sense said one of us should have pressed our fingers to his grimy throat, but hypochondria, fear of Martian germs, had prevented it.

Now we knew who was behind the sabotage. A great relief lifted in the atmosphere of the store, we no longer had a murderer on the loose, just Marvin, a maniac on a mission and possibly a peeved off poltergeist.

***

The next shift arrived thirty minutes later, the lights were on, the EPPS had been found inside the bin of comforters that someone, presumably Marvin, had hidden in the fixture area upstairs. The wrong arrows had been righted, and Courtney’s cameras were operational. A neon green tote had been placed under the leaky tiles. All was right with the world. The next shift consisted of mostly seasonal help and cashiers. Those that didn’t know enough about the store’s inner workings to be much help before the store opened. And then there was Matt.

“Hey, Manda, guess what?” Matt had his biggest grin on.

“What?” I asked.

“Marvin, that troublemaker one, forgot his name tag.”

“Wait?” The significance of his words sunk in, “You’ve seen Marvin?”

“Ya, and he didn’t have his nametag on.”

“Where?”

Matt pointed to a spot behind me. I swiveled and came face to face with the Martian. His collar was stained red, and I caught the unmistakable whiff of barbecue sauce. We were truly idiots.

In one smooth motion he had me in a rank embrace. My back against his chest, an armpit dangerously close to my face, and a tagging gun held to my neck.

I wasn’t sure how much damage such a weapon could actually inflict, but it looked painful enough to keep me from resisting. A mental picture flickered in my mind, me with a plastic price tag fastener sticking out of my neck like a TY beanie baby. Weren’t there some significant arteries in your neck, too? I wasn’t going to take my chances that Marvin had skipped high school biology.

“Is this the part where you launch into a monologue about why you’re trying to wreck our Black Friday?” I asked through clenched teeth, worried if I opened my mouth any wider I’d be able to taste his essence.

“Well,” Marvin said, “I’d normally enjoy that, but I’d prefer a bigger audience for that. And my plan isn’t quite complete. I’m afraid you’ve found me too soon.”

I didn’t like the implications of that statement. I opened my mouth to scream when a tag-gun wielding hand collided with the back of my neck.

Oh, I thought, I’ve never passed out before. This will make a good story.

***

I was awakened to the sound of customers cheering somewhere below me. The clambering of hundreds of pairs of feet signaled the start of the Black Friday doorbusters. I lifted my heavy head and took in my surroundings. I was locked in the electronics cage, I realized.

I turned to find Matt was here too. Still conscious, but tied up, several clearance bibs were slapped to his mouth as a make-shift gag.

I was neither gagged nor tied. Marvin must have expected me to be out a little longer.

I crawled to my fellow hostage and pulled the labels from his mouth.

“I told you Marvin was a troublemaker! I told you he was always causing trouble!” Matt said.

I hastily untied him.

“Looks like you were right.”

I looked for a way out. I didn’t know what Marvin was planning, but it couldn’t be good.

“I seen him causing trouble, Manda. He’s always stealing stuff. Hiding. I seen him go into Courtney’s office when she’s not even working that day. He didn’t think anyone saw him, but I did! I told everyone he was a troublemaker one, and no one believed me!”

“They’ll believe you now, Matt,” I reassured him, “If we ever get out of here, that is.”

My eyes scanned once more before I made the only decision that was left to me.

“We’re going to have to go up and over. Can you do that?”

Matt was nodding before I even finished asking the question. Good. I placed my hands through the links and cautiously pulled myself upward. Matt scaled the fencing with ease, and soon we were free.

I dashed down the stairs and blew through the double doors of the backroom onto the sales floor. I sprinted past the Christmas trees, Matt in toe. I had only one goal in mind.

I had to warn everyone.

I stopped before I got Toys, my body was out-racing my mind, and I wasn’t sure exactly what I needed to do. But then I saw Marvin. And he saw me.

Marvin’s face paled and he started to take off in the opposite direction.

“Stop him!” I yelled. Several customers gave me disinterested looks, as I sighed and then ran after him. I nearly slipped on a wet spot, and remembered that someone had said the roof was leaking.

Fortunately, for me I didn’t have to run very far. A distracted Marvin had clothes-lined himself on a wire bin. He bent in half and then fell into the bin, burying himself amidst dozens of rolled up throw blankets. I looked past the Martian to see what had distracted him. Josh, Courtney and a uniformed police officer were coming this way.

I must have had a curious look on my face because Courtney explained before I even had a chance to ask: “We figured if he wasn’t dead, we could call the cops now.”

Good point.

The officer pulled Marvin upright by his barbecue-sauce-stained collar.

            Matt caught up to us around this time. (He’d been stopped by a customer, and had to find someone to help him help them.)

            “Are you going to arrest him for stealing?” He asked the officer.

            “Stealing?” Courtney asked.

            “Marvin’s always sneaking around causing trouble. I seen him on the roof once. He’s been taking stuff. And he didn’t even pay for it!”

            Marvin’s mouth stood open before he composed himself enough to say, “You have no proof!”

            And that was the moment the ceiling tiles that had been leaking collapsed under the weight of the snow and . . . merchandise?

            A wet mound of clothes, electronics, Keurigs, appliances, rugs, even a Christmas tree, was now displayed in front of us. It was everything that had disappeared when Courtney’s cameras were on the blink. And Marvin was looking mighty guilty.

           

***

            We all stood at the front of the store and watched as Marvin was loaded into the back of a patrol car.

            “Does this mean we can fire him now?” Curtis asked.

            “I don’t think we have another option at this point,” Josh said.

            “Cool beans.”

***

            We ended up having the best Black Friday sales district wide. Brigham City was a small town and news had traveled fast. Even though the drama was over, people wanted to see the aftermath. Mainly the gaping hole we now had in the ceiling in front of seasonal. Our very own “water feature,” as we came to call it.

            The store seemed to brighten up after Marvin’s official termination. And Hector, if he was in fact real, had quieted down. Everything was back to normal.

            Well, almost everything.

            “I can’t take it anymore,” I overheard a voice in Josh’s office say a few days later. I knew I shouldn’t be listening in, but found I couldn’t stop myself. “Things are just to . . . crazy here. It was never like this at Walmart.”

            “Isn’t that good?” Josh’s voice.

            “Yes,” said the voice I now recognized to be Courtney, “I love it here, but this isn’t my dream.”

            “What is your dream? Not Walmart?”

            “Gosh, no! I want to move somewhere warm, where the roof doesn’t cave in every time it snows. Because it won’t snow! I’ll find and train my replacement, but I’m moving to Florida this summer.”

            Oh, no!

I made my presence known.“You can’t leave, Courtney!”

            Courtney looked determined though. And once that woman made up her mind, there was no changing it. “I don’t want to be the bad guy anymore. I don’t want to try and catch my coworkers, even the ones I can’t stand, stealing. I don’t want this anymore.”

            “You’re not the bad guy. You’re the best LP we’ve ever had!”

            She considered me before continuing, “I want to be surrounded by cotton candy and cupcakes. I want my own pink and blue candy shop, with entire walls where everything is bubblegum or watermelon flavored. And I want to be closer to family.”

            If this were a soap opera I would have said something sappy and meaningful, like that Shopko had become Courtney’s family. I would have pointed out that we all practically live together for all the hours we spend here. But I knew that it wouldn’t change her mind. So, I just nodded, and left.

           

***

            Six months later, it was time for our safety party. Since Marvin’s death was fake, and therefore was not an accident, we were now eighteen months accident free. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and use this as an excuse to celebrate Courtney’s big move.

            Jen was busying herself with decorations, while Sandy laid out the food on a long table in the break room. I was sitting on my butt, not helping, because I’d been working since nine. This was my break, darn-it! I wasn’t lifting a finger.

            Courtney walked in carrying a tray of cupcakes, wearing a pink apron.

            “You’re not supposed to be here yet!” Jen scolded, “It’s a surprise!”

            Courtney rolled her eyes. She had effectively planned her own party, nothing would surprise her.

            Well, almost nothing. The lights flickered for a few moments and then turned back on.

            “That was weird,” I said. I had a knack for pointing out the obvious.

            Courtney was just staring at her cupcakes, shock written across her face. I had to see what she was looking at.

            A letter had appeared in the frosting of each cupcake, spelling out:

I’ll miss you!

-Hector.

 The End