Vintage Veronica (21 page)

Yeah, donuts.

Just then I notice Rags peeking out at me from behind a pile of clothes.

“Hey, Rags,” I say. “Here, boy.” It occurs to me that I don’t even know if Rags is a boy. Is Rags a boy name or a girl name? If Rags is a girl, she doesn’t seem bothered by my calling her a boy. Rags saunters over and bounds onto my lap.

“Watch the claws,” I say. As if Rags understands me, he sits down carefully and doesn’t knead my legs like Spud used to do.

“Good kitty,” I concede grudgingly. I pet Rags and notice how incredibly soft his fur is. Like velvet or something. Only softer, sort of. I can’t stop petting him. He feels that good.

Oh, Rags
, I think, rubbing his ears,
how did I get myself into this mess? Do you know what I’m talking about? Were you just sitting there in a pile of clothes the whole time, watching this whole mess unfold? Why didn’t you warn me, Rags? Why didn’t you tell me I was screwing up the one thing that ever came along for me that was worth not screwing up?

Of course, Rags doesn’t answer. But he also doesn’t leave. He purrs like an engine, on and on and on. Like a train chugging on through the night.

I guess I doze off. Because the next thing I know, Bill is crouched down next to me, shaking my shoulder.

“Veronica, hey, wake up, man,” he says. “I told Shirley you were on break, but you might want to go find her before she finds you.”

“Whuh?” I say, disoriented. Rags is gone. My neck is stiff, my tongue feels thick, and my throat aches.

“Shirley,” he repeats. “She came by looking for you. Said it was important.”

Oh, okay
, I say in my head as I slowly surface to consciousness.
I get it
.

This
is the part where my day really goes from bad to worse.

our Pep-O-Mint Life Savers later (thank you, Bill), I stand outside of The Nutbuster’s door. I’ve already been through a round of thinking I really should just leave right now. Go home and never come back to the store ever again. And then realizing that whatever The Nutbuster does to me, it can’t be worse than the crap my mom will dole out. Plus, my address and phone number are totally on file in the store’s main office. If I suddenly disappeared and The Nutbuster wanted to find me, it would be absurdly easy.

Before I can work up the courage to knock, the door opens and I come face to face with The Nutbuster herself.

“Veronica!” she barks. “Thanks for coming by.”

“No problem,” I say. She kind of pulls me in and shuts the door behind me, confirming my worst suspicions. The closed door suggests I am about to get fired, or worse. Just then I notice Rags on one of the chairs facing her desk. I think I see him smile and—is it possible?—wink at me, but then I remember that I am probably still kind of wasted.

The Nutbuster reaches over and kind of shoves him off the chair, saying, “Go on, scat.” Rags dashes out the cat door, making me remember what Zoe said about eavesdropping. Next to the door are several neon-pink and black floor signs. PLEASE
ASK FOR HELP WITH HATS
! says one.
WIGS ARE NOT
TOYS! admonishes another. BRRR!
KNIT TIGHTS
! says a third. On this one, the letters are drawn extra wiggly. To suggest they are cold, I assume.

“Have a seat,” Shirley orders, so I do.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you in today.”

“Um,” I say. “Uh …”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’ve been having some problems here at the store.”

“Problems?” I echo.

“Fact is, we’ve had a very difficult time retaining
quality
help here at the store. You have no idea. Theft has always been a problem, especially for employees working the floor … but now management feels it would be a good time to deal with the situation
proactively
…”

As she continues, I sit there, watching her poke the air and wishing she would just come out and say it.
You’re fired
. There, how hard was that? Or:
We think you were helping Len steal
from the store, so clean out your desk and get out
. I am practically shaking in anticipation of her wrath. It is almost as bad as—no, actually, it’s worse than—the time my mom discovered I had found and eaten all the Halloween candy (one bag of candy corn, two of assorted miniature chocolate bars) she had planned to give out to trick-or-treaters.

“… so, what do you think?”

Oh, shit
. Can I say “About what?” without looking like a total idiot? There doesn’t seem to be another option, seeing as she’s staring right at me with her little squirrel arms folded, waiting. But of course, she’s clearly just fired me, so I don’t really need to ask her to repeat it.

“Um, okay,” I say.

She smiles crookedly. “I’ll need to work out the salary
details
, of course, but I think you’ll find the benefits package highly
competitive
.”

“Benefits?” I say.

“Health, dental, you know.” She sort of waves her little hands. “I’ll send up the paperwork. There’s no 401(k) or anything, but we do pay holidays, plus two
personal
days a year.”

It starts to dawn on me. “You’re not firing me?”

Shirley laughs and looks amused. “Heavens, no,” she says. “I wish we could clone you. You’ve had some
challenges
here, what with Claire gone and you having to do two people’s jobs at once. But you’ve handled it
admirably
well. You even created an accounting system of your own. That kind of initiative is needed here. So I hope you’ll take our offer seriously.” She sits down, puts on her glasses, and begins going through a file on her desk. Clearly, for her, this meeting is over.

But it isn’t over for me.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I hear myself saying.

“Sorry?” says Shirley, looking confused.

The pot must be making me bold or something, because suddenly I blurt out, “There’s tons of stuff upstairs that I should send down, but I don’t because I like it too much to let go of it. And some days I don’t get through half as much stuff as I should because I’m too busy drawing pictures of the clothes. And I take a lot of coffee breaks. And sometimes … sometimes I take stuff.”

The Nutbuster looks up at me over her glasses. She almost looks amused. “Stuff? Like what?” she says.

“Um, I dunno.” I’m not sure why I added the part about stealing; it’s just that she looked so unimpressed by my confession that at that point I kind of felt the need to up the ante. “I, uh, took a pair of pajamas once.” Well, half a pair, actually, and truth be told, I didn’t actually swipe them, because Len beat me to it, but that’s not really the point. “And a tuxedo jacket.”

“Pfft,”
she says dismissively. “Swag. You saved the store having to process those things. Do you have any idea how much junk this store processes?”

“What about the snake? I brought a snake to work.”

“Yes,” she admits. “But when I told you to get rid of it, you did. Following orders gets
noticed
around here.”

Where does she think we are, Nazi Germany?

Just then I get an inspired idea. Maybe I can use my newfound status with Shirley to help Len get his job back?

“I asked Len to hold my lizard for me,” I announce.

This gets her attention. “I beg your pardon?” she says, one eyebrow raised.

“The lizard, the one you caught Len—Lenny—with. It’s actually mine. He was just holding it for me. If anyone should be fired for that, it’s me.”

The Nutbuster closes her file and takes off her glasses, giving me a confused look. “Leonard was not fired, Veronica.”

“He doesn’t steal, you know,” I continue. “He … what?”

“What makes you think Leonard has lost his job?”

“You didn’t fire him?”

“No.” Shirley looks uncomfortable. “Leonard has some
personal
problems. He decided it would be best to take some
time off
.”

“He decided?”

“Yes. What made you think …”

Before she finishes her question, I interrupt with my own question. “What about Claire? Why did she get fired?”

“Claire wasn’t fired either. She quit.”

“Quit?” I repeat.

“Yes. Didn’t give us two weeks’ notice, either, which would have been nice. But at least she went ahead and hired her replacement first. Would have left us high and dry, frankly, if it hadn’t been for you.”

“I’m not her replacement.”

“Why not? You’re perfect.”

“But I’m … still in school,” I say stupidly.

“Yes, that’s all right. We can probably find some way to work around your class schedule this coming semester.”

“I’m in high school,” I tell her.

“Excuse me?”

“High school.”
Now I’m the one emphasizing. “I’m going to be a sophomore this year.”

“Really?” she says slowly. “I had no idea. You don’t look like you’re in high school. You’re so …” She pauses, looking me up and down. “Tall,” is the word she finally comes up with. “Did Claire know about this?”

“I think so. I mean, actually, I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Shirley says. “Well, I really had no idea. Although perhaps …”

“Yeah, thanks anyway,” I say, cutting her off. And then, because there’s nothing else to say and I’m feeling just sober enough to not start another round of saying stupid things, I get up and walk out of Shirley’s office.

My head is spinning with questions and confusion.
Did Len actually lie to me? Why did he say he was fired when he wasn’t? What are his “personal problems”? Do they have to do with me? Did he quit so he never has to see me again?

Is it because of something about the other night? How could that be? The other night it seemed like everything was good, really good in fact, between us. Was that all just an act or something?

Maybe his feelings about me changed after he had a chance to think about everything that happened with Dep. Or maybe he never really had any feelings for me at all. Maybe the whole thing was some weird joke to him. Maybe that’s his “personal problem.”

Out on The Real Deal, I follow the yellow brick road and head straight for the stairwell. My plan is to go straight up to Employees Only!, grab my stuff, and go over to Len’s to find out what the hell is going on.

But when I pull open the door to the stairs, I hear someone talking and I kind of freeze. Because the voice I hear is Ginger’s. I pause there for a second, at which point I hear her giggle. And then another voice.

Not Zoe’s voice.

Bill’s.

I can’t hear what they are saying, but my first reaction is to kind of freak out inside. I can’t believe Bill would actually go try to talk to her. I guess it’s sort of sweet that he wants to run to my defense. But it’s so stupid, too. Because now they’re going to persecute both of us. And it will all be my fault for telling him about it and letting him see how much it upset me, knowing that he would be unable to stand silent in the face of such injustice …
“man.”

But speaking of silence, all of a sudden it is silent down below. I squeeze into the stairwell and ease the door open a little more. Slowly, I lean forward to see if they are still talking on the landing below.

At which point I see Ginger standing on the bottom stair, her head turned to one side and her eyes closed …

Totally sucking face with Bill.

Oh. My. God.

I’m so completely blown away by the sight of them that I do just about the dumbest thing ever. I let go of the door and
it slams shut—BAM—like it always does, at which point Ginger and Bill both look up, and I don’t know if Bill sees me but I do know that Ginger does because her eyes kind of bug out and her mouth opens, at which point I bolt up the stairs to Employees Only! as fast as my two-toned creepers will take me.