Pirates of the Retail Wasteland (13 page)

After surviving a Mrs. Smollet encounter, my confidence went way up. I was fearless, ready to call any customer who came in any dirty name that popped into my head, and eager to force them at sword point to go to Sip and leave the new downtown forever, under penalty of walking the plank. We really should have brought a plank.

By eight o’clock, though, a weird thing had happened. The customers had stopped showing up. Troy and Andy said that after the first hour or so, Saturdays were usually sort of dead until the early afternoon, and, with the snow falling as hard as it was, it was a wonder that we’d had as many customers as we had. People tended to stay home at least until the snowplows came through.

So we’d had probably less than a dozen customers, and given the weather, there was a good chance we wouldn’t get many more. The snow looked like it was nearly ankle deep already. We knew our time was short, so we took advantage of the free time by filming shots of us acting like business-people. One person would hold a camera while the rest of us stood around by the watercooler or ran frantically around with the sheets of paper, shouting, “Don’t touch my stapler!” Anything to make the place seem more like a typical corporate office.

Of course, none of us really knew what went on in corporate offices, but this was how we imagined it.

Every now and then, I’d pretend to push a button on my desk, and say, “Helen, I need you to order me some more erasers and a package of gummed reinforcements, please.” Brian was into yelling, “Where the hell is my donut?” Anna found a rubber stamp that was used to stamp “Frequent Coffee Drinker” cards and started to stamp all the pieces of paper she could find. It was fun, in a sort-of kind-of way. More fun than actually working in an office probably is, anyway.

At one point I walked over to the watercooler, poured myself a cup of water, and stood there. The guy who had been first to use the place as an office came over to talk to me. He’d been in the corner the whole time, working on finance or whatever he was doing.

“So, what’s this all about, really?” he asked as he poured himself a cup, too. “Are you guys all working for Sip Coffee? I keep hearing you plug them.”

I decided that, if only because it was the easiest thing to remember, I should just tell the truth.

“It’s an experiment,” I said. “We’re seeing if anyone can tell the difference between Wackfords and an accounting office. Can you?”

He shrugged and chuckled a bit. “Not really. I don’t go to regular coffee shops. They’re full of weirdos all the time, not just when they get taken over by pirates.”

I laughed as he took a sip of water.

“I mean, I don’t come here for poetry readings, or to discuss politics or anything,” he continued. “I’m here to get my work done.”

“They don’t have poetry readings to start with,” I said.

He nodded. “Exactly.” He finished his water and said, “Is this some kind of science project, then?”

“Something like that,” I said. “It’s for school.”

He smiled. “I’ve been watching you guys,” he said, “I finished my work a while ago, but I don’t want to leave till the snow dies down. You sure the manager isn’t gonna call the cops on you?”

“Nope,” I said. “It’s the risk one runs as a pirate.”

“I’m taking the rap,” said Andy from behind the counter. “I’m getting fired. Moving on.”

“No kidding?” said the guy. “I always hear this is supposed to be a great place to work.”

Andy shrugged. “I’ve had worse. But benefits and open-door policies don’t mean a thing if the manager is a loser.”

“So Harold’s a loser?”

“Well, ya just said it,” said Andy with a smile, “and the customer is always right.”

“Yeah, he kinda seems like a loser, now than you mention it. The man acts like he has a stick up his butt the size of a goalpost.”

I took a seat next to Anna behind the table while Andy and the finance guy discussed Harold’s various shortcomings.

“Nice guy,” I said. “I think this is going well so far.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t think it would be this easy. We got rid of Smollet, and we’re still in control of the vessel. Nothing but smooth sailing!”

Just then, the door opened and Jenny Kurosawa walked in.

“Hey!” said Anna. “You made it!”

Jenny smiled, though she looked a bit exhausted and almost totally frozen. It was a long, long walk from Oak Meadow Mills. “How’s it going?” She looked like she was trying to smile but couldn’t move her lips.

“Piece of cake so far,” I said. “Andy, get the young lady some hot coffee, please. She’s walked clear out here in a snowstorm.”

“Right away, Cap’n,” said Andy, pouring her some.

Jenny took it and sipped it greedily; then, to my great surprise, and to Anna’s as well, from the look of things, she came around the table and sat on my lap.

“Um, Jenny,” I said, “you might wanna not do that. I mean, you’re holding hot coffee.”

“Oops,” she said cutely, and stood up in front of the desk.

It was too late, though. I could feel myself, you know, responding to having had her butt on my lap, and with it came that awful feeling of guilt I’d had ever since she’d first kissed me in the cab. I wasn’t supposed to feel that sort of stirring about girls other than Anna—I didn’t even want to!

“You walked all the way out here from Oak Meadow Mills?” Brian asked. “Are you insane?”

“Yeah,” she said, sipping her coffee and smiling. “I just had to see you guys in action. Especially since I knew Leon wanted me to be here.”

“Um, Anna,” I said, unable to keep my mouth shut any longer. “Let’s talk in the back for a second. Filming stuff.”

And she followed me to the back room, which was a tiny place featuring a little desk, a large walk-in cooler, a sink, an ice machine, and a whole bunch of crates full of coffee cakes and stuff.

“You know that letter you helped Jenny write?” I asked, summoning every nerve in my body. “The one that said ‘Have you ever seen a girl naked?’ at the bottom?”

“Yeah.” She grinned. “But you
know
I’m not about to get naked in the back room of a Wackfords in the middle of a piracy.”

“I know, I know. But, um…I think you should know that the letter was to me.”

Anna paused for a second, and I stood frozen, ready for her to slap me for not telling her right away, then go out to murder Jenny. Or, equally bad, she could say, “Oh! Well, you and I aren’t going anywhere—you should go out with her!” But then, after that horrible second, she laughed out loud.

“Oh, God!” she said in this half groan, half laugh thing. “I guess I should have known. It’s not like I haven’t noticed her putting her butt on your arm on the couch!”

“You knew about that?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, smirking but looking slightly bashful, possibly for the first time in her life. “She’s not the only one, you know. You can’t fool me with my own tricks!”

“So you aren’t mad or anything?”

She laughed again. “Leon,” she said, “I can’t blame her for liking you! I mean, what’s not to like?”

It’s weird how Anna could make me feel like a total dork, or a complete asshole, or the luckiest guy in the world, all in the same day, on many occasions. She never stopped surprising me. Something about her ability to laugh and groan with one sound made me wonder which she meant to do sometimes.

“But…she kissed me!” I said.

“Really?” asked Anna, suddenly raising an eyebrow. “Did you kiss her back?”

“No. She sort of surprised me,” I said.

She started giggling again. “Poor Jenny. You’re probably the first guy she ever liked, and she has no idea what to do.”

“Well, you know,” I said, “she was asking me what the deal with us is, and I couldn’t really say for sure. I mean, we’ve never said we’re, you know…”

Anna smiled and grabbed me by the hand. “Sorry,” she said. And she sort of half chuckled. “I thought it went without saying. But I forget how badly you suck at telepathy.”

And she kissed me on the nose again. I kissed her back, on the lips.

“Come on,” she said, chuckling again and bringing me back down to earth. “We have to go be pirates a while longer before the boss shows up.”

And we went back out, holding hands. Jenny looked a bit crestfallen when she noticed that, but Anna and I ignored it as well as we could. Or I did as well as I could, anyway. I have to admit that I sort of felt bad for her. But right about then, I was mostly feeling good for myself.

As we started straightening the bits of the “office” that had gotten messed up, Anna asked Jenny how her letter had gone over—without even hinting that she knew who it was for.

“Not very well,” said Jenny, looking sort of sad.

“That’s too bad,” said Anna.

“Well,” said Jenny. “I guess I’ll just have to keep trying.”

“If at first you don’t succeed,” said Anna.

I’d been worrying my head off about what Anna would say if she found out, and about what she really thought about me. And she’d handled it all like a regular pro.

Jenny sat down in one of the nice chairs near our watercooler and kept staring at me. Anna leaned over and whispered, “Looks like I have some competition!” in my ear.

“Nothing wrong with some friendly competition,” I said.

She chuckled again and whispered, “Yeah, and I won’t be easily beaten. But be nice to Jenny. You’re probably her first crush.”

“Not counting Jim Morrison,” I whispered back.

“True. But he’s dead, so he doesn’t really count.”

Anna walked over to the chair where Jenny was sitting and handed her my camera. “Here,” she said. “Hang on to this for a second.”

“Are you sure?” Jenny asked.

“Yeah,” said Anna. “Your parents won’t be able to see you if you stay behind a camera!”

“I don’t know,” said Jenny. “They might hear my voice, or wonder who was doing the filming if all four of you are in the shot.”

“Hey, you’re here already,” said Anna. “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”

Jenny sat still for a second, then slowly started to smile. “Break on through,” she said, holding the camera up to her eye.

Anna walked back behind the desk and said, “I need all crew members to report for a very important business meeting behind the counter.”

Brian, Edie, and I walked over to the counter, and Jenny walked over to film us. Anna walked over to ask the guy who was doing finance if he wanted to attend the meeting, but he smiled and politely waved her off.

“Aw, come on!” Andy said. “Join us!”

“Nah,” said the guy. “Any of you guys ever been to a business meeting? They’re usually really boring.”

“I’ll make sure this one is no exception,” said Anna.

Anna smoothed her dress, cleared her throat, and began to spout off some business nonsense.

“MaxEdgeCorp is laying off about five hundred employees, according to the rumors,” she said, with a totally straight face, “and their stock has just about doubled, probably because they finally fired Jack Preston as acting president and brought in Frank Zappa’s corpse; that ought to be a good sign, if you look at his track record with OmniEdge. Now, in regards to the drop-off in the holiday figures and the estimates, I’d say…”

The door opened, and a middle-aged woman wearing a green coat over a tacky green outfit came in. She looked like an evil version of my elementary school librarian. The wind slammed the door shut behind her.

“You guys better have coffee!” she shouted.

“Those first five hundred are just the beginning, you know,” I said, ignoring her and playing along with Anna. “It’ll push the stock up enough that you can take the wife and kids to dinner, but if you really want the windfall, wait until the third quarter, at least.”

The lady in the tacky suit was standing at the counter now, saying “Excuse me!” rather loudly. Clearly, she was not a fan of the “inside voice,” which my elementary school librarian never shut up about.

Andy turned toward her, glaring.

“
Excuse
me,” he said, “but we’re trying to hold an important business meeting right now. We can’t be disturbed.”

“Excuse
me,
” the woman barked, “but I’d like to order a triple mezzo nonfat caramel latte.”

“We don’t sell those,” said Anna. “We just do accounting and midlevel management strategies here. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re in the middle of a meeting!” She then went right back to talking, without missing a beat.

“The third quarter will indeed be very interesting,” she said, all business. “Once the merger goes through they’re gonna be swimming in money over there. So you’re right, you should wait to sell, but buy now before more of the layoffs go through. Now, on to the matter of borrowing against equities…”

The woman finally threw up her hands. “Will one of you hooligans just make me a drink?” she asked.

“Lady,” said Andy, “that sounded like age discrimination. Don’t make me send you to cultural sensitivity training!”

“Don’t make
me
call your boss,” said the woman to Andy. “I can have you fired. I know you’re not allowed to let kids behind the counter.”

“Call away,” said Andy. “I’m getting fired today anyway.”

“To conclude our meeting,” said Anna, interrupting, “business is good. Meeting adjourned.”