Retail Hell (25 page)

“I know she doesn’t have a receipt for this Fendi satchel,” Suzy Davis-Johnson once told Cammie, the blond girl Marguerite disliked immensely, “but we can’t afford to lose her as a customer. Mr. Michael’s philosophy behind this is proven. She often spends more in this store than she returns.”

I
wouldn’t
be so sure about that, Satan.

The Vampire Bavaro had purchased and returned so many hand-bags at so many different Big Fancy stores, I was convinced she didn’t keep anything and more than likely made quite a nice profit from her underhanded Nasty-Ass Thief ways.

Like most Bloodsuckers, Marguerite’s favorite time to come feeding was at night, right before the store closed. She rarely made an appearance during the day because those hours were reserved for hellacommunications, when she’d call and stir the shit up with mass confusion and unreasonable demands.

I also think the Vampire Bavaro swooped in at night so often because Suzy Davis-Johnson was off, and so were half the managers. This gave her full access to wield the maximum amount of terror on Big Fancy salespeople and get away with whatever she could.

Ten minutes before closing one night when I was working by myself, the Vampire Bavaro materialized at the counter.

Looking scarier than normal, her pulsating, bloodshot buggy eyes seared into me, and her face was an absolute horror show, a chemical peel gone wrong.

“JEFFERSON!” the Vampire Bavaro moaned, “thank God you are here! I require your assistance. Everything is a God-awful mess!”

Your
fuckin’
face is a God-awful mess. I think you better look into that
first, Marguerite.

I felt her fangs sinking into the back of my head as she dumped several tattered shopping bags on the counter. The contents were a closing Retail Slave’s worst nightmare. She had a DKNY backpack I’d never seen before that she wanted to return, with no receipts; a Coach cross-body bag she also wanted to return, with no tag and a torn receipt; a season-old Cole Haan hobo she wanted a price adjustment on, with no receipt and only a price tag; and a Kate Spade satchel she wanted another adjustment on, with an expired 25% off coupon from a competitor.

While I removed the handbags from the shopping bags, she blurted out:

“The foreign woman and Debbie are holding three identical Burberry bags for me. The chatty girl was supposed to order one from another store, but she never called me back. Typical. She talks too much, probably not doing her job.”

As usual, the Vampire Bavaro had dropped a bloodsucking bomb in my face. I wanted to fall to the floor and cry like a baby or run out of The Big Fancy screaming, but I knew none of that would happen.

I had to help the Bloodsucker.

Giving it my best shot, I charged in and tried to organize, in hopes of speeding up her messy transaction.

“Okay, let’s see what we got here,” I said, sounding like the deadline-driven host of a home-improvement show. “We’ll put all the bags you’re returning over here, the one you want a price adjustment on next, then the competitive coupon one.” As I moved them into an order I could cope with, the Vampire Bavaro’s craggy face turned to molten lava.

“NOT SO FAST!” she wailed, “You’re rushing. I don’t like it when people rush me. I get confused, and you make mistakes that cause me problems later on.”

“I’m only lining them up so I can see what’s what,” I said.

“I’ll tell you what’s what. We are going to take this slowly. My way. One handbag at a time. First I want you to go get the Burberry bags I have on hold.”

NOOOOO! GOD NO! WE WILL NEVER GET OUT OF
HERE!
I’LL
BE SPENDING THE NIGHT AT THE BIG FANCY! BAVARO WILL KILL ME!

Marguerite’s red marble eyes stared at me like she had just heard every word my mind had shrieked.

Then she opened her old Gucci satchel and pulled out a white plastic stick, which she began sucking on. I watched, trying to figure out why she was sucking on a plastic stick.

“Aren’t you missing the candy with the chewy center, Marguerite?” I said.

“It’s not candy, Jefferson, it’s medicine. This place is making my whole body ache.”

I wish I could make it disintegrate.

“We’re all just trying to help you Marguerite,” I said, glancing at my watch.

Ten minutes till closing.

“You can help me by paying attention to me instead of looking at your watch. Are you in a hurry to go somewhere Jefferson?”

“Umm . . . it’s just that . . . it’s almost closing time, that’s all.”

“To my understanding, The Big Fancy stays open until I’m finished shopping.”

“Yes, Marguerite, it does.”

“Before you get those Burberry bags I have on hold and I do any exchanging or buying, I want to look at the new Betsey Johnson collection,” bellowed the plastic-chewing Vampire Bavaro.

And the bloodletting began.

In the world of retail, having two days off in a row is unheard of. Three days is like a vacation. So when the General accidentally gave me a Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off because the schedule over-lapped into the next week and she wasn’t paying attention, I took it and ran like I’d been awarded a Get Out of Jail Free card.

The screenplay I wanted to finish was not the World War I monster movie. After becoming bored with explosions and dragon-barbecued soldiers, I decided to change course. A Million-Dollar Screenplay had to be provocative! My new script would be critically acclaimed and win me that Oscar.

It was titled
Love in a Fitting Room.
An intensely dark, romantic thriller, the story took place in an upscale department store where two Men’s Sportswear salesmen fall in love. At first they hate each other and fight over sales, but then all that rage turns to lust.

I saw studs Colin Farrell and Orlando Bloom as the salesmen.

Things become complicated for lovebirds Colin and Orlando when they both get cruised by a handsome executive customer, to be played by none other than Hugh Jackman.

In the wake of
Brokeback
’s success, my script would be a sure-fire hit. In
Love in a Fitting Room
, Colin, Orlando, and Hugh fight over each other, and everything ends up all stalker-like. Someone would die. It wouldn’t be Hugh, I could guarantee you that much. Maybe Orlando.

Before I could decide on who died, I had to start writing. . . .

My three-day weekend was all planned out. Ten pages a day. By the time it ended I would have half my script! If only.

If only I had been given three days off to prepare for my three days off. You see, in order for me to end up with three days off in a row, I had to work eight days in a row. During those eight days of opening, then closing, opening, then closing, and opening, then closing, without a day off, all the normal living shit that needed to be done didn’t get done. I’m talking about laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, haircut and color, tanning, and exercising. Oh and sex, lots of sex.

After taking care of all those things and then going to a movie, shopping, and drinks with Cammie, I had to have the brakes fixed on my car, which cost $700 (on my credit card, of course). Then it was e-mail, surfing the net, and returning phone calls to family and friends who were wondering why they hadn’t heard from me in eight days.

By the end of the second day, I was exhausted.

On the third day I slept in.

It was around 4:00, after brunch with some gay buddies, when I freaked.

Where did my weekend go? I
haven’t
done any writing! Shit! I still have
thirty pages to write!

I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

The best I could hope for was to keep the television off and park my ass in front of the computer.

Maybe I can do ten. Ten pages is better than no pages.

The first five pages were a snap.

I breezed through them so fast, by 6:00 p.m. I thought maybe I’d make my aggressive goal. Everything was going along just fine until I got to the dump scene.

No, I’m not talking about the action related to a bodily function.

In clothing departments with fitting rooms, “dump” is the term for tried-on clothes left behind by customers. Salespeople assigned “dump”duty have to gather up the piles of clothes, and refold, and rehang them. It’s a hideous retail task, loathed by all.

In my scene Colin and Orlando are assigned joint dump duty in Men’s Sportswear. But even though I’ve experienced massive amounts of dump, I just couldn’t seem to make the piles of clothes jump off the page. I wrote:

They . . . ? I don’t fucking know! Kiss? Rip each other’s clothes off? Do it in the handicapped stall? After all, this is LOVE in a fitting room. Maybe they get into a huge fight? Beat each other up with hangers? Maybe Orlando isn’t out of the closet and Colin is? Should Hugh walk in, needing to try on workout clothes? Maybe Colin and Orlando fight over who is going to wait on Hugh?

It needed a plot twist.

For the next five hours I rewrote the scene twenty times.

Before I knew it, my computer clock displayed 2:00 a.m.

I was more confused than ever.

And exhausted.

So many possibilities swirled around my head.

Then the mind wandering started.

I
don’t
think I like the way my haircut turned out, and the color reminds
me of Big Bird. I hope that sexy-hot guy from the gym calls me. I
can’t
believe
it cost seven hundred dollars to fix brakes on a car. And
what’s
going to happen
when I go back to work tomorrow? I probably had thousands returned.
FUCK!
It’s
the end of the pay period and there are only two days left. Cammie
told me it
wasn’t
busy today. Maybe all the sales will happen tomorrow.
I hope so. I sure could use the money. A new Linkin Park CD just came out
and
there’s
this cool Affliction tee I want, oh and my car brakes! How the fuck
am I going to pay that bill next month?

Too many thoughts. Too many words and images. All blurring together.

My eyelids became droopy.

Everything went black.

Then white.

A blank white page.

Black Courier font words magically typed across it.

A script!