“I’m supposed to start work today. They told me to come up here for the paperwork.”
“Sure. Sure,” Judy said, opening a metal file drawer behind her desk. “What’s your name?”
“Chaz McConnell.”
She rifled through the files like a squirrel after a nut. “And which department will you be in?”
“Security.”
“Sure. Sure,” she said, pulling a manila folder from the cabinet. “Do you have any children?” she asked, sorting the papers. “We love children around here.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Morning, Chaz.” Marshall Wilson stepped down from the office behind Judy’s, wearing jeans and a denim shirt. “How are you, son?” No one had called Chaz son in years and the word sounded odd to him.
“Fine. How are you?”
“Better than I deserve to be at my age, I’m certain of that,” Marshall said. “Did you get settled into a place?” Chaz nodded. “We’re ramping up for a busy Christmas season, so we’re glad you’re here.”
“You must be Chaz.” Chaz turned to see a black man dressed in dark pants and a gray shirt with a badge attached to the left side of his chest pushing his way into the cramped office. The man stretched out his hand and Chaz wiped his off on his jeans before shaking. “I’m Ray Burroughs. I’ll be training you.” Chaz summed him up: He was about his size, maybe a little heavier, but he knew he was going to look as dorky as Ray did in that uniform. “Come on down to the office. You can fill out the papers there and get something dry to put on.”
Chaz followed as Ray ran down two flights of stairs to the break room. He pointed to the time clock on the wall. “Clock in here when your shift starts.” He took the card with Chaz’s name on it and handed it to him so he could punch in, then led him down the hall. He glanced down at Chaz’s soggy shoes. “Did you walk here?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you have a car?”
“I did. It was stolen a couple of months ago.” The truth was, Chaz had owed some small gambling debts to a guy a few towns ago and the man had taken the car as payment. Chaz didn’t care; he thought it was a piece of junk anyway.
“Are you going to walk to work every day?” Ray asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then you’d better invest in an umbrella.” The top of the office door was etched glass. The word SECURITY was written in black block letters in the middle of the window. They stepped inside. The walls were brick, but someone had painted them off-white. Four video monitors sat on the large desk in the center of the room with images from select departments in the store. Ray pointed to a black vinyl sofa against the wall. “You can sit there if you want, or here at the desk. It doesn’t matter.” Chaz looked at the desk covered with papers, files, and cups of old coffee, and opted for the couch. Ray sat on the wooden swivel chair at the desk and leaned back. The thick spring whined beneath him. “So, word is that Mr. Wilson hired you away from another store?”
“That’s right,” Chaz said, filling out the first line.
“How long did you work security there?”
“I didn’t,” Chaz said. “I stocked shelves.”
“Then how’d you get hired for security?”
Chaz had been living in a town an hour away when he met Marshall Wilson. For the first time in his life he was working in a retail store rather than in a restaurant as a waiter or cook. Chaz was stacking men’s jeans in cubbies that stretched to the ceiling when Marshall needed assistance, but Chaz wasn’t paying attention—his eye was on a young woman pushing a baby stroller. The baby was asleep and the woman was discreet as she first put a pair of pants and then a sweater into the bottom of the stroller, covering the items with the baby’s blanket and diaper bag. “You forgot a belt to go with that outfit,” Chaz whispered as he moved past her toward his cart filled with denim. Her back stiffened as she flung the goods onto the clothing table in front of her and fled the store. The baby never wakened. Chaz laughed as he watched her and climbed back onto the ladder to replenish the top row of jeans.
“You handled that well,” Marshall said.
“Thanks,” Chaz said without looking down.
“Would you be interested in changing jobs?”
Chaz stacked four pair of jeans into the top cubby. “Nope.”
“I need another security guard at the store. I’m sure it pays better than what you make here.”
Chaz looked down and saw an elderly man with white hair wearing jeans and a red plaid flannel shirt. Probably owns a hardware store, Chaz thought. “I’m listening,” he said, shoving the pair of jeans he had wedged under his arm on top of the stack.