Bentley Little - The Store

Ahead, she saw Sam. Her daughter was facing another direction, talking to a woman who was looking at kiddie pajamas, and Ginny quickly maneuvered her shopping cart into a side aisle, intending to sneak around behind Sam and watch her surreptitiously. She reached the end of the aisle, turned left, and stopped in back of a series of tall shelves containing various strollers.

"Are these pajamas _fireproof_ or _fire-resistant_?" she heard the woman ask.

"I don't know," Sam responded.

"Does it say anywhere on the label?"

"I don't know."

"Could you help me look?"

"No."

Ginny stood behind the shelf, shocked. Sam's attitude toward the customer was not only abrupt but rude, and it seemed totally out of character for her.

Ordinarily, she was friendly, cheerful, happy. Especially around strangers. Of the two girls, she was the more even-tempered and easygoing. Shannon was the more abrasive.

"It's not my responsibility to fulfill your duties as a parent," Sam said.

"I just work here. I'm a sales clerk."

Ginny frowned. What was going on here? What was wrong with Sam? She couldn't have been _told_ to act this way, could she? Was that what they'd been teaching her in those nightly training classes she'd been attending the past week?

Possibly.

Now that Ginny thought about it, she had been treated rudely herself by several Store employees over the past few weeks. In fact, she'd never been treated normally here. Either the clerks had been unctuous and toadying, or rude and dismissive. They had never been simply polite or professional.

"I don't like your attitude, young lady." The woman was obviously a fighter, and she was not about to be treated this way. "I'm going to speak to your supervisor."

Ginny could almost hear the shrug in Sam's voice. "Go ahead."

The woman moved off with a rattling of her cart, and Ginny moved as well, backward, away from the Toddlers' section, troubled.

3

"So, dude, did you win, place, or show?"

"Took the Triple Crown, motherfucker!"

"Bullshit." Denny looked from Chuck to A. B. "You know he didn't even get to touch her hand, let alone anything else."

"Big words, cherry boy. Big words."

Denny shook his head. The three of them were sitting at a plastic table in The Store's snack bar, scarfing junk food, talking trash, and checking out the babes as they passed by. Chuck had gone out with Audra McKinley last night, and while half of him hoped that his friend had gone all the way with her so they could hear the intimate details, half of him hoped that she'd slapped his face if he so much as tried to touch her. He liked Audra himself, would give his left nut to go out with her, and the thought that she'd gone out with his friend instead of him made him feel more than a little jealous.

But Chuck was the brave one. He was the one who'd asked.

A. B. looked disgustedly at Chuck as he wolfed down the last bite of his snack bar hot dog. "You know, dude, you are what you eat."

Chuck grinned. "That can't be true. Otherwise, I'd be a pussy."

Denny laughed. "You are."

"No, he's not. He's a wienie."

Around them, other customers were eating sushi and quiche and that other trendy crap The Store was trying to force down everyone's throat. But the three of them had made a stand, saying that the snack bar had better start serving the same type of food as George's if it wanted _their_ business, and The Store had caved in to their culinary demands, putting burgers and fries, hot dogs and shakes on the menu.

Now they hung out here all the time. In fact, the snack bar chow was so good that he couldn't even remember the last time they'd actually been to George's. Not that he cared. Downtown was dead, anyway. The Store was where all the action was.

And it was air-conditioned, besides.

Denny finished off his fries, dumped the last of the ice from his empty Coke cup into his mouth.

"Let's check out the games," A. B. said. "Maybe they have the new _Doom_."

Chuck nodded. "Or the new _Mortal Kombat_."

"Something."

Denny was still chewing his ice. He tried to say "Sure," but the word came out garbled, mushed.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Chuck said. "Didn't your mama ever tell you that?"

Denny swallowed the ice. "Your mama did. But I couldn't understand her because I was filling up _her_ mouth at the time."

"Dick."

"Exactly."

The three of them stood, moved away from the table, walked out of the snack bar area.

"May I direct you to the proper aisle?"

All of them jumped at the sound of the voice. Denny turned to see a tall, somewhat intimidating man in a Store uniform standing directly behind them. The man smiled, and Denny had to clear his suddenly clogged throat in order to speak. "We're looking for video games --"

"New games," A. B. said.

"Cool ones," Chuck added.

The man's smile broadened. "This way." He moved easily through the crowd of customers, past the checkout registers, past the displays of sale items. They hurried after him, up one row, down another, until they were in the electronics department.

Only . . .

Only Denny could not remember ever being in this aisle before.

He had spent a lot of time in this department -- they all had -- looking at games and videos, CDs and stereos and televisions, but he'd never seen the stuff they had here. He scanned the titles on the shelf in front of him: _White Power, White Rule_; _Sally's Three-Hole Fun Zone_; _Niggerkill_.

"Here you are, boys." The man gestured toward the shelves on either side of the aisle. "Hope you find what you're looking for." He nodded at them, strode away. "Wow," A. B. said, looking at the titles.

Chuck grinned. "This is cool!"

Denny picked up a game box: _Raped and Snuffed_. He nodded, smiled.

"Yeah," he said. "It is."

4

Frieda Lindsborg sat down in the center chair in Women's Shoes while the clerk went back into the stockroom to see if they had the sandals she wanted in black. She unlaced and took off her tennis shoes, then leaned back, closed her eyes. She was tired. She'd been shopping nonstop, running around town since she'd gotten off work, and she'd been on her feet since three o'clock his morning, when her shift at the bakery started. After she bought these shoes, she was going to rent a couple videos, go home, stretch out on the couch, and just watch movies for the rest of the afternoon.

A hand touched her ankle, began pulling down her sock, and she instantly opened her eyes, jerking her foot back.

"I found the sandals in black," the clerk said. "I was just going to help you try them on."

He was seated on a stool in front of her, an open shoe box containing the sandals on the floor next to him, and she immediately felt guilty for her little panic attack. She stretched her right foot out again, let him pull off the sock.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's been a long day."

"Nothing to be sorry about." The clerk dropped the sock on the floor, lifted her foot, examined it. He turned it gently to the left, then to the right. One hand held on to the calf, while the other began to caress her sole.

"Very nice," he said. "Very nice."

He still hadn't taken off her other sock, had not even taken one of the sandals out of the box. The attention he was paying to her foot seemed obsessive, and she felt more than a little uneasy as his finger lightly traced the outline of her toes, but . . . but there was something exciting about it, exciting and, well, sensual.

He placed the foot on his left knee, then picked up her other foot, carefully pulling off the sock, again rubbing and massaging the foot itself.

He looked up at her. "Can I smell your feet?" he whispered.

She grimaced in disgust and tried to pull her feet back, but he held tight to her left calf and continued to stroke it lightly, delicately. He stood, still holding her foot, and pushed aside the stool.