Bentley Little: The Store

And it didn't seem right to approach it this way.

He picked up the contract. This was the biggest job he'd ever had, maybe the biggest job he ever would have, and it just didn't sit well with him to be communicating through paperwork. He wanted to see a face, to feel a handshake, to hear a voice.

Well, he'd heard a voice. Several voices, actually. All talking to him over the phone. Official-sounding corporate voices that talked at him, not to him, and didn't seem to give a damn what he had to say.

The past few days, there hadn't even been that. There'd been only the forms and the lists and the specifications and the requirements.

It was especially annoying that so much of the paperwork was faxed to him overnight. It was bad enough not being able to do business with an honest-to-God human being, but doing it when he wasn't even there? Having to find out in the morning, after the fact, what was going on? That really bugged the shit out of him.

He was used to being able to show a client around a site, to explain what was being done and why, to walk him through the various stages and steps, to answer questions and allay fears.

He wasn't used to filing reports.

And having his reports critiqued.

That was what bothered him the most. The loss of control. On all projects before this one, he had been the one in charge. He had been the one to call the shots. Sure, he had built to suit, he had carried out the client's will, but within that broad framework, he had been the one making the decisions. Now, though, he was just another worker, following orders, not allowed to think.

He didn't like that.

And they were just in the planning stages now. God knew what it would be like when actual construction started.

Better, he told himself. It had to be better.

There was a knock on the doorframe behind him, and Greg turned around. Tad Buckman stood on the porch of the office, grinding his cigarette into the cement slab with his work boot. "Ready to roll, boss? We're going to start surveying."

Greg sighed, nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I'll be right with you. Just let me get my spec sheets." He dropped the contract back on the desk and walked over to the file cabinet for the specs, stopping by the fax machine to pick up this morning's modifications.

2

Her period was late.

Shannon closed her locker and twirled the combination lock, shifting the textbooks from her left hand to her right. She was never late. Some girls, she knew, varied all the time. But she was as regular as clockwork. Her menstrual cycle had never been so much as a day off in her life.

Now her period was three days overdue.

She held the books in front of her as she headed down the hall toward Algebra, her first class. It was stupid, and she knew it was impossible, but she felt unbearably conspicuous, as though she were already showing, and she tried to cover her belly as she walked.

Maybe her mom was right. Maybe she should be eating more. That way she could attribute her expanding abdomen to weight gain rather than pregnancy.

Maybe she wasn't pregnant.

She sighed. With her luck?

No, she was almost certainly pregnant.

Probably with twins.

In movies, in books, in magazines, girls always shared this stuff with their sisters, but there was no way she could do that with Sam. She'd like to be able to have one of those after-hours bedroom conversations while their parents were asleep, to be able to explain her problem to her sister and get some sympathy and advice, but there was no way that was going to happen. Sam was just too perfect. She was pretty, she was popular, her grades were always good, she never got in trouble. Although boys had been chasing after her since she was fifteen, Shannon doubted that her sister had had sex yet. She'd probably wait until she was married.

If anything, Sam would be even more disapproving of her than her parents.

No, she couldn't talk about it to her sister.

She couldn't talk to Diane about it, either. Diane was her best friend, but she was still a blabbermouth, and Shannon knew that if she even hinted about her fears to Diane, the news would be all over school by the next day. And greatly exaggerated.

She didn't want that.

The only one she could tell was Jake. And she knew he wouldn't be happy to hear it. She didn't know exactly what his reaction would be, but she had a pretty good idea, and just the thought of the ensuing conversation made her stomach knot up with tension.

She wished she knew for sure. That would make it easier. It was the not knowing that was the worst part of it. If she knew that she was definitely pregnant, at least she could make plans, plot a course of action. As it was, she could only worry and wonder, her mind vacillating back and forth between scenarios.

She'd buy one of those home pregnancy tests and perform the test here in the bathroom at school, but she knew that no matter where she bought it, word of the purchase would eventually get back to her parents.

One of the many disadvantages of living in a small town.

That was one good thing The Store would bring, she thought. Anonymity.

The Store.

It was pathetic how excited everyone here was about The Store. You'd think Neiman Marcus was coming to Juniper, the way everyone was talking, not just some chain discount retailer. It was like Her left foot slid backward beneath her.

She hadn't been paying attention to where she was walking, and she realized instantly that someone had spilled something on the floor and that she'd slipped in it. Scrambling to maintain purchase, trying not to fall, she clutched her books hard and stumbled backward, accidentally bumping into Mindy Hargrove.

"Hey!" Mindy said, pushing her away. "Watch it, Davis."

Shannon regained her footing. "Sorry. I slipped."

"I'll bet."

"It was an accident."

"Right."

Shannon frowned, moving way. "Oh, eat me, Mindy."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

There was a chorus of whoops from the smattering of kids still in the hall. Shannon held up her middle finger and continued walking toward Algebra.

Seconds later, Diane came running up next to her, laughing. "That was great."

"You saw that, huh?"

"You smacked right into her. Practically knocked her over."

"There was water on the floor or something. I was spacing and I slipped on it." "Serves that stuck-up bitch right."

Shannon looked mock-offended. "Stuck-up? Mindy?"

Diane laughed, and the two of them walked into class just as the bell rang. She didn't see Jake until History. She'd been half hoping that her period would come sometime during the morning, during one of her classes, but it hadn't. She desperately wanted to talk to him, wanted to tell him, but though they sat together in class, there were too many people around and it was not a good place to bring it up.

She decided to wait for lunch, but when the time came, she couldn't think of a way to broach the subject. The two of them sat alone together, on a wall near the Junior Circle, eating in silence, and Shannon started to tell him several times, but then she thought of the way he'd probably react to the news, and she couldn't decide how to begin.

Her distress must have been obvious, because halfway through lunch he took her hands in his and asked, "Is something wrong?"

She almost told him.

Almost.

But then she thought that her period might come at any minute, might come before the end of lunch, might come during her next class, and she shook her head and forced herself to smile and said, "No. Nothing's wrong. Why?"

3

Ginny sat in the staff lounge, eating her lunch as she watched the kids on the playground. The blinds were half-closed, but she could still see the tetherball and hopscotch courts as well as the bottom portions of the slide and monkey bars. Amidst the chaos of activity, she saw Larry Douglas chase Shaun Gilbert across the asphalt and through a hopscotch game, causing the girls involved in the game to scream for one of the lunch monitors.