I’m so spaced I didn’t even realize she’s been holding a clipboard this whole time.
Cheryl goes over sales numbers by department over the past couple of days that I’ve been gone and makes some suggestions regarding how we might increase those sales in the departments that are still lagging.
She has some good ideas, I think, but I’m nowhere near paying attention. At the moment, I’m looking through the office doorway at Linda, trying to see if she’s showing yet.
“Jessica?” Cheryl asks.
“Yeah,” I answer, returning my focus on her.
“I was just saying that we’re starting to move enough product in the rest of the store that we might just have some leverage to renegotiate with Burbank and get a better deal so we can lower prices and get some more people in every part of the store,” she says.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “He seemed pretty full of himself when he left here last time.”
“That’s why I was thinking we might want to consider bringing in a negotiator to help us here, now I know that’s going to cost some money, but if we can talk Burbank out of throwing us the rest of the way off the ledge, I think we can really make a difference here,” she says.
“Did you have anyone in mind?” I ask.
“I was hoping you might know someone,” she says.
“Wish I did,” I answer. “I’ll keep my eyes out, though. If there’s any way we could even get him to sit back down with us before the term of that contract is up, I say it’s worth it.”
“Also,” Cheryl adds, “I think we’re going to need another full-time cashier, maybe two. I’ve been jumping in when I can, but even then we’re getting overloaded.”
“I’ll look into it,” I tell her.
“Great,” Cheryl says. She smiles and walks back out the door.
As she goes, I’m only just starting to realize exactly how busy we are.
I stand up and move to the doorway, my mouth dropping further as more of the store comes into view.
How did I miss that?
The store is full of people milling about, holding up clothes to themselves in mirrors, talking, laughing—what’s more, they’re buying.
The line in front of Linda’s register is six people deep, and by the time Cheryl opens up the next register over, that number just continues to grow.
Women of all shapes and sizes are moving about every department, so many of them with a smile on their face.
I walk out into the store and just listen to what people are saying as I go.
It’s positive. It’s all positive.
People aren’t just talking with each other; they’re talking about the store, about the clothes. I have no clue what Cheryl’s been up to in the few days that I’ve been gone, but whatever it is, it’s working.
The biggest draw, it seems, is the recessed area in plus sizes.
Where they exist, there are plus sizes among all of the other departments of the store, but this section, this little piece of the store where plus-sized women can get items that aren’t available anywhere else for anyone else, is thriving.
“Excuse me?” a woman asks, coming up to me.
“Yes? How can I help you today?” I ask.
“I was wondering if you happened to have this in black?” she asks, holding up a dress. “I know it’s probably a long shot, but I really think this dress in black would just be perfect for me.”
One of the upsides of spending most of my life in this store as a control freak is that I know every single item that’s in it.
“I know that we used to have it, but let’s see if it’s still in stock,” I tell her and we walk over to the next rack over from where she got the dress she’s holding.
I look through and, sure enough, it’s right there.
“Oh, thank you,” she says as I hand it to her. “You really have a wonderful thing going here. You know, I used to walk by here all the time, but one of my girlfriends showed me these shoes she got here and, well, I just had to come in and see it for myself.”
“Thank you,” I tell her and I’m actually smiling as she walks away.
I don’t know if this upswing alone is going to be enough to convince Burbank to sit back down with me, but whenever we do talk terms again, so long as this keeps up, I’m going to have a hell of a lot of leverage.
“Jessica!” Linda calls and I turn around.
Yeah, she’s starting to show. It’s subtle, but when you spend your days running a women’s clothing store, you start to notice things like that.
I walk over, but before I get to the register, I can already tell what Linda needs. Her line has only grown as has Cheryl’s.
This is going to be the first time that we’ve ever opened the third register.
To be honest, I don’t even know if the thing still works.
I’m up front for at least twenty minutes before the rush starts to die down. The flow of customers is still steady, but it finally thins enough that I’m able to close down register three and head back to my office.
If I could, I’d stay out on the floor all day. It’s about the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen, but Cheryl’s right. We’re going to need some more cashiers, and the sooner that happens, the better.
* * *
When the workday finally comes to a close, I’m not even sure I could handle looking at the total receipts, although that doesn’t stop me from going ahead and doing it anyway.
Just today, we’ve managed to make up about half of what I spent on Eric’s crew and from what Cheryl says, yesterday was almost as big.
We close down and, before Cheryl heads back to her car, I stop her and give her a hug.
“Thank you so much,” I tell her. “Let’s get together tomorrow before we open up. I really want to hear just what it is that you’ve been doing to get such a response from the neighborhood.”
“It’s easy,” Cheryl says. “I started a social media campaign, showing some of the things we’ve got that nobody else does, comparing prices to our competitors and spending all my time recruiting friends to tell their friends to tell their friends and so on and so on and so on,” she beams.
“I don’t know why I never thought of that,” I tell her, “but I’m just glad that you did.”
“Just doin’ my job, boss,” she says and, still grinning, she turns and walks away.
Just like that, though, it all starts coming back to me.
The adrenaline of the day and the wonder at how fast and how dramatic the change has been was enough to keep my mind off of Eric and that whole nightmare, but now with nothing left to occupy my every moment, my elation dissolves into that clusterfuck of emotions that I still don’t know what to do with.
I get to my car and I call my dad’s number.
My mom’s supposed to be home from the hospital today.
Oddly enough, she’s the one that answers.
“What happened with Eric?” my mom asks.
“Well hello to you, too,” I answer. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore, drugged up and otherwise incoherent,” she answers. “So what happened? The two of you seemed like you were doing so well when I saw you yesterday, or was that the medication?”
“It wasn’t the medication,” I start.
I go on to give her the whole, lurid story minus the part about Eric and me knocking boots just before the phone call. By the time I’m done venting, I’ve been sitting in my parked car for almost twenty minutes.
“I don’t understand,” she says when I come to the end of it.
“My boyfriend—or at least the guy I was calling that yesterday—got someone else pregnant,” I tell her. “It’s really that simple.”
“It doesn’t sound simple at all,” my mom laughs. “It sounds like an absolute quagmire.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I tell her. “As always, your advice just makes everything all better.”
“What I don’t understand,” she says, “is why you feel so betrayed? He didn’t cheat on you, unless I missed something there. You said this whole thing happened a couple of months ago?”
“Yeah,” I tell her, “but I don’t really see how that changes anything. I’m sure it would be worse if he had cheated on me, but right now, I can’t even imagine what worse would feel like.”