Page 3 of Bling

Chapter Two

Isabelle watched her uncle from her station on the Colorado Logistics fulfillment center floor. He appeared to be heading for the exit. Was he leaving work early? That wasn’t like him. She glanced at her watch, something she wore since phones weren’t allowed and she couldn’t afford a smart watch. Nearly time for her to leave. It would be easy enough to ask him when she got home.

Since it was Friday, she was leaving work early to start her weekend at Solitaire. The past three months there had been an exciting respite from the drudgery of her everyday life, and tonight, things were going to get even more interesting.

The screen next to her station flashed an alert, telling her to finish her current box and stop working. A glance around the warehouse floor told her several others had received the same alert. Was there a hang-up somewhere in item picking? A voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Employees with a pause alert, please make your way off the floor and to the conference room on the second floor.”

Isabelle frowned. What was going on? She tapped the appropriate buttons on her screen to suspend her work and walked toward the stairs, pausing at a hand sanitizer station as she did.

“What’s going on, Izzy?” a lanky, almost childish looking young man asked as he joined her on the trip up the stairs. Isabelle fought the urge to glare. She hated being called Izzy, but she should really be used to it by now. “I have no idea, but I just saw Uncle Henry leave the conference room. It looked like he was going home.”

When they arrived in the conference room, Darren, her supervisor, was at the head of the table. As he waited for the group, about a dozen, to file into the room, Isabelle watched him shifting his weight from side to side.

The door closed, and he cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming so quickly. Unfortunately, I have some unpleasant news. Because of circumstances beyond our control, Colorado Logistics is being forced to cut labor costs.”

Isabelle felt a rock land in her stomach, and she clutched at her abdomen. She knew exactly what was coming next.

“We are going to have to let you all go effective immediately. You will be able to collect your last paychecks on your way out and you’ll also receive any unused vacation time. Your health benefits will remain in place for sixty days or until you can find another job with benefits.”

Her face felt hot and the room seemed to spin as she looked around the room. Three of her family members were standing in here with her. Had they fired her uncle too? He was a floor supervisor. Maybe they would have talked to him separately.

The door opened and three security guards stepped in.

“These gentlemen will escort you to your lockers and to payroll to get your checks. We appreciate your service to the company and are sorry it had to end this way.”

That’s it? What a shitty way to lay off such a sizeable group of people.

It was as if she were on autopilot as she followed a guard to the lockers and pulled her few belongings out. Her phone showed a text from Garrett, but she couldn’t focus on that right now. As she pulled down the pictures of her nieces, her heart constricted. How were they going to survive this? The list of things she needed to do grew in her mind as she put her belongings in a canvas bag she’d stashed in her locker.

There would be job applications to fill out, unemployment to file for, and she would need to figure out which bills they could put off until they had a steady income again. It was overwhelming. Maybe she could talk to Eli at Solitaire about paying her to put in extra hours beyond her house sub duties.

Her mind was working a mile a minute as she crossed the threshold to the payroll office.

“Name,” a stern looking woman said when she approached the counter.

“Isabelle Alvarado.” Her voice shook as she answered. The woman flipped through a box of envelopes and pulled one out.

When she tore it open, she felt a slight amount of relief. She had used none of her vacation time yet this year, so the check contained three extra weeks of pay. That would be enough time to secure another job. With the check stashed in her pocket, she made her way to the exit with the security guards hovering as if she might try to stay. No chance of that. She had no desire to be here any longer than necessary. She’d worked at the warehouse as a teenager and had returned three years ago when she’d quit school to focus on helping her family.

Someone brushed against her, a hand grazing her ass, and she whirled to find Jason Briggs, a member of upper management standing too close.

“So sorry it had to end like this, beautiful. Maybe now you’ll have that dinner with me.”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Jason had been a thorn in her side since she came back to work here. She definitely wouldn’t miss him. “No thanks, Jason. My one regret is never reporting your sleazy ass to HR.”

His mouth dropped open and she turned on her heel to leave the building.

Alan approached as she crossed into the parking lot with a worried look on his face.

“What am I going to do, Izzy?”

She looked up at her young cousin and smiled. ‘It will be OK. You’re about to go off to college. You don’t need this job anyway.”

He shook his head. “These last few paychecks were going to cover the final costs that my scholarships haven’t covered.”

Isabelle patted his arm. “We’ll figure it out. You know we’ll help if we can.”

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