Page 2 of Semi Sweet
Instead of becoming an author, I’d worked at Cash Value Market since I was sixteen. I’d been a bag girl and then a cashier before winding up at the service desk. It had been good for a long time, but at twenty-four I was ready for something else. I longed for a career in a field that actually excited me, which is why I was in graduate school. After I graduated in the spring, the world would be my oyster. Or at least that was what I hoped.
As I leaned on the counter, I wondered if I would miss anything about Cash Value Market. I decided I would miss the way I felt when I first got the job, the newness. I'd even miss the crazy customers who got upset when things scanned five cents higher than they thought. The way the last few years had been, those were the only happy memories. Things had changed and people treated me differently now. I would understand if I had been personally responsible for what made people annoyed and mad, but I was really just a victim of circumstance. It was a moot point and I wouldn't miss the bullshit.
As if on cue, a girl named Meg came to the door of the courtesy booth with her arms crossed over her chest and an irritated look on her face. Most people that covered my break only looked mildly inconvenienced and it was nowhere near time for that. Russel must have decided what he wanted to do to punish me for being late.
"Russ wants to talk to you," Meg sneered.
Great."Alright." I handed her the keys, knowing that what awaited me was probably more awkward than this. I slammed the door behind me without another word.
Russel had been my boss for years. He hadn't always been this way. Everyone had turned on me three years ago and I’d given up trying to explain myself long ago.
You know I have nothing to do with the decisions made at corporate, right?I had said it to so many people so many times that their faces blurred together after a while. The glimmer of a new job kept me going when not much else could these days.
Russel looked a cross between disgruntled and evilly delighted as I approached the podium where he watched his charges.
"You wanted to see me?" I asked.
"I'm ready to give you today's obnoxious task," he replied. "The bakery department has a new manager. He didn't have a department register in his store. I want you to go show him what to do." He all but shooed me away. "Take as long as you need. Take tomorrow if he needs it."
I knew that he was leaving outso we can talk about you.For a man in middle management, he was very catty. When things had gone down the tubes three years ago, I learned that he hadn't been the one that had started the rumors about me, but he certainly enjoyed fueling the fire. I mustered a small nod and smiled before I turned away. I knew the minute I was out of sight, Russel and my coworkers would start gossiping.
The farther I got from the front end, the less hostile things were. People weren't mean in the direct sense, but more joking at my expense. A full-timer in grocery named Bruce was the worst. As I passed him, he got on one knee and pretended to grovel before me. I scoffed at him as I continued towards the bakery.
I wondered what happened to the previous bakery manager as I made my way to the service area of the store. He had been kind of a pervy guy, asking girls way too much about their personal lives—and measurements—for comfort. Still, I imagined I would have heard through the grapevine if he'd been let go, so I wondered if something else happened.
Each department showcased a photo of their manager in a large frame for customers to be able to recognize who was in charge. Sometimes Russel made me polish his when he was mad at me. Sure enough, a photo was missing from the frame that was mounted to the wall as I rounded the display case.
I waited at the counter as bakery clerks in white coats and black hats bagged cookies, pulled trays from ovens, and decorated cakes. A heavy set redhead saw me waiting and called, "Are you here to train Sean?"
I nodded. "You guys all know how to use the register. You totally could have done it."
"This is true," the girl whose name tag said Beth admitted, "but your boss pretty much insisted." She gave me a look that made it seem like she understood the situation completely. "I'll go get him."
I wasn't sure who I was expecting to come out, but my jaw dropped when I saw it was the same guy I'd smacked into by the time clock, the one with the attractive brown eyes. I would have pegged him as another clerk if the name badge pinned to his hat didn't clearly say Sean with the word “Manager”etched beneath. His eyes went wide when he saw me standing there.
My face flushed. I had been too frantic to be embarrassed earlier. "Ready to be trained?" I wondered how long it would be before he learned why everyone else around here kept a wide berth. Sean gestured for me to come behind the counter and I quickly stepped over to the monitor.
It was common sense when it came to using the register. The bakery typically rang out sheet cakes or other fragile things with a scan gun unless someone was purchasing a coffee or prepaying for an order. Even those were just a few taps of the screen and done. I gave him every possible scenario I could think of and before long it seemed like he had the hang of it.
"So where is there a Cash Value Market so small that the service departments don't have registers?" I asked curiously as we began to wrap up. I'd been involved with the company far too long and much too deep to know the franchise owners liked things big and over the top. That was part of the reason people hated me around here—they thought I benefited from knowing the bigwigs.
"Aspen," Sean answered. "We were a satellite location." He rolled his eyes. "I'm pretty sure we were called a chalet store."
"Wow," I said, shaking my head. I knew they had wanted a location in the pricey resort town, but had no idea that they were being so campy about it. "I'm shocked and yet...I'm not."
"So, you've been a part of this delightful company for a while?" I got the vibe from his tone that he was being facetious.
I stared out at the sales floor. The theme of all Cash Value Markets was a northern Italian feel. When I first started working at the store it had seemed unique, but after all the difficulty that came with working here, it seemed over exaggerated and gaudy now. "Sadly, yes. How about yourself?"
The man attempted the codes I’d taught him while he explained, "Kind of. I think five years now? I've been a manager for almost two."
That was surprising. He didn't seem much older than me, but he also wasn't the youngest person I knew moving up the Cash Value Market career ladder. I had no interest in management, so I wasn't on it myself.
"Youngest manager in store history!" Charlie, the assistant manager, called behind him. "Gio told us all about it when Paul got the old heave-ho!"
I watched Sean's cheeks turn slightly pink as I processed the words. Giovanni Quittero was the manager of the entire store. And it appeared that the previous bakery manager was let go after all. I wondered if I'd be able to get the scoop on that later.
"No pressure or anything," Sean murmured.
