“No, ‘we’ won’t,” Susan growled as she looped an arm through one of his and tugged on it. “Now come along before you embarrass yourself even more. Besides, you need to walk me home. There’s been a bunch of ruffians loitering outside the gate.”
“I will gladly be your knight,” Todd accepted as he bowed his head to her.
“I’ll take a shield if I have to,” she quipped as they walked through the doors.
“Take care of yourself, Grace!” Todd shouted over his shoulder.
I waved to him. “Bye, my dearest!”
“Don’t encourage him!”
Anything else was muffled by the closing of the sliding doors as they disappeared into the parking lot. I sighed and inspected the rest of the store. It was empty, and only the hum of the freezers disturbed the silence.
I rallied my spirits and lifted my chin. “Come on, Grace, you can do this. Just focus, and you can get through these last few hours.”
I felt like a child waiting on Christmas Eve for the clock to strike twelve. The clocks in the store finally struck eight, which was my hour of freedom. I counted my till and slipped into the break room. My purse lay tucked between the dirty microwave and a pile of upside-down plastic cups.
“Did you count your till, Grace?”
The voice made me gasp and spin around. Margaret stood there with her coat draped over one arm and a scowl on her face.
I clutched my hand over my beating heart and managed to catch my breath. “Of course I counted the till, and everything was fine just like the last thousand nights I’d done it.”
She lifted her sharp nose and looked down the bridge at me. “You don’t have to use that tongue with me, or I’ll tell Mr. Thompson about it. He doesn’t like the workers at his store to be impertinent.”
I snatched my purse and plastered a smile on my face as I looped the strap over my shoulder. “He doesn’t like his workers to earn overtime, either, so if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go home.”
I slipped past the fuming woman and down the aisle that met the front door. A woman about my age, but with a hundred pounds more weight, waddled through the sliding door.
“Hey, Grace!” the woman greeted me as she nodded in the direction I had come. “Is Aunt Margaret back there?”
“Yes, but she’s not happy,” I commented as I twisted around so I walked out the door backwards.
The woman’s face drooped. “Why’s that?”
“I’m still employed,” I quipped as I slipped outside.
The woman huffed and marched to the back room, where Margaret was getting her coat on. “Why haven’t you fired her yet, Aunt Margaret? You promised me that job months ago!”
“It’s not easy to fire someone when they don’t give you any reason,” Margaret retorted as she glared at where I’d gone. “But I’ll figure out some way to get her out.”
It turned out she didn’t need to lift a finger. I was the one with the fate-touched fingers, though I didn’t know it at the time as I hurried down the dark street. The small market was located on a street corner in a less fashionable part of town. Heavy, dull apartment buildings loomed on either side of the street, separated by litter-filled alleys and cracked roads. Every other streetlight worked, so that I felt like I was hopping from one star to another. Those twinkling majesties high overhead were blotted by the lights from the countless cloudy windows of those apartment buildings.
I lived in one of them, but a few blocks away. I had hardly gone half a block when my phone rang. A quick look at the screen made me smile, and I hugged the contraption to my ear. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“I was just wondering if you were going to come visit this weekend. Your father’s about to explode waiting to show off his latest carving.”
I snorted. “It’s another bear, isn’t it?”
A sigh came from the other line. “I’m afraid so, but I must admit this one is very cute.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to come see you guys for a little while,” I promised as I continued on my way.
“Come for dinner. I still make enough for three people.”
My stomach growled at the idea of Mom’s homemade apple pie. “I’ll definitely be there.”
“Then we’ll see you Saturday. Behave until then.”
