So when I walked past this little storefront just as Tim was leaning a handwritten “Help Wanted” sign in the front window, I practically pulled a muscle hauling myself through the front door.
It’s just a quaint little shop like you see in lots of small towns. Knickknacks. Some handmade jewelry consisting of semi-precious beads strung on twisted silver plate wire that the housewives around here like to put together. Crafts. Metal signs with ads or quotes on them. Local memorabilia. Even postcards, though I can not imagine why anybody would send a postcard through the mail anymore, much less one from St. Charles, Illinois.
Candles, baskets, a couple of weird-smelling antique things. It’s like this place wants to be an antique store, but hasn’t quite grown up yet. I guess if it hangs around long enough, everything here will inevitably age into “vintage” status, and then magically turn into something worth buying.
But I can’t complain, I guess. Or, I really shouldn’t. Tim schedules me for exactly thirty hours every week—so he doesn’t have to pay me benefits—and I never smell like grease.
All I have to do is keep the place clean, act pleasant to everybody who walks in, and help out however I am asked. Since we don’t get a whole lot of traffic, mostly I clean. When Tim isn’t looking, I check out Instagram and Tumblr, looking at people’s sketchbooks and recipes. I love recipes. I could watch those one-minute cooking videos all day long (and sometimes do).
When Tim is around, I mostly clean. I don’t want him to think I am screwing around and wasting his money. I have a giant fluffy duster thing, various glass sprays, and wood polish. I have a tray to carefully move the doodads to and fro as I polish in endless rounds.
That damn cuckoo clock, though. It ticks so loud. I can never escape it. I can try to trick myself into a happy little daydream world and make myself useful by dusting the endless glass curio shelves with the fluffy pink electrostatic duster, hoping that the hours will go by quickly. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. It just doesn’t want to let me forget.
Sometimes it feels like I might just die in this place. Of old age. Or slowly dessicate. Maybe I’ll age into antique status.
“Olivia?” Tim calls from the back room.
Startled, I wiggle the pink duster in between porcelain figurines of windmills and little boys and girls in painted overalls. I do want to appear busy so he doesn’t realize he probably doesn’t even need the help. As if I am not just counting the minutes.
Shortly, he rolls in from the back room, hiking his rumpled polyester trousers up over his skinny butt. His big belly is always battling with his pants, shoving them down dangerously over his nonexistent hips. I keep hoping he’s going to get suspenders, but he never does.
“Olivia,” he repeats, smoothing his fluffy gray hair back behind his giant ears. “I have to go out for a little bit. Gotta ask Jeannie at the library about those books they were going to send over.”
“Right, books,” I repeat, trying not to think of the musty stack of picture books from the 1960s and 1970s that is currently in one corner, ignored by every single person that walks into the shop.
“Yeah, she says she has some good ones,” Tim nods, telling me something he has told me many times.
“Cool,” I smile back. “Can’t wait to see them.”
“Yeah, so, just…” He points to the register, wiggling his chubby fingers. “Keep an eye on the phone. I’ll be back.”
“You bet,” I answer, moving to the next case with my comically large duster, wiggling it like I am really getting things done.
As soon as the door closes behind him, I feel myself relax. He’s a nice enough guy, but anytime your boss is within the same eight hundred square feet as you, there’s going to be tension. It’s nice to be alone. I could change the radio station that plays scratchily through the overhead speakers. I could rearrange the figurines.
Oh, what a devilish plan.
But I figure I won’t do any of that. Those high-schoolers should be showing up any minute. They don’t come to buy things. They do a kind of tour down the street after school, walking into the stores while giggling and talking, holding hands, generally making pests of themselves. They talk too loud. They shoplift. They move things around. They try to sneak off into the employee bathroom so they can smoke cigarettes or make out or whatever.
Leaning my head against the window, I already kind of see them at the far end of the sidewalk. Dressed in jeans and school jackets, they march right down the middle of Main Street, letting everybody know how entitled they are. This is their place. Their parents work here. One day, they might work here.