It was less than five minutes, but she could feel her eyes glazing over in a way that was not appropriate for the person tasked with handling customer service issues. She needed to be attentive, especially when it came to wily customers who were trying to get away with something. If Beryl let one expired coupon slip through—taking the money out of the supermarket’s till, since the supplier wouldn’t honor it—the next thing she knew, sneaky shoppers would be trying to cash in on their expired coupons left and right. It would be anarchy.
As if this woman cared a whit for Beryl’s problems. Barely five feet tall and possibly ninety pounds soaking wet, she launched once more into the lengthy explanation as to why she hadn’t been able to get to the grocery store the day before to use her precious coupon.
The long and winding tale involved a sick neighbor (“with shameless hypochondriac tendencies, the dear”), a husband with a broken ankle (“on the mend but helpless without me, that coot”) and a stray cat she fed each day that apparently had a sensitive stomach (“the poor little darling”).
Beryl thought it amusing that the woman sounded more worried about the cat with the sensitive stomach than she did about her ailing husband, even if he was recovering. And whatthis had to do with a coupon for a large box of cookies was never made clear. Whatever. People!
Beryl stifled the long, exasperated sigh that was trying to escape and did her best to focus, pay attention and look alert.
She had no interest in listening to the woman’s sad story a third time. Beryl would love to simply tell her she could slide by with an expired coupon “just this one time,” if she didn’t know for a fact that if she caved, a silent beacon would sound across the land.
Beryl had to hold the line unless she wanted every other citizen and their brother in the tri-city area formed by Alienn, Old Coot and Skeeter Bite to line up in front of the Supernova Supermarket, clutching coupons so old they’d be crumbling. She could see that line stretching to infinity, each and every person in it with a long, meandering sob-story to tell.
Beryl shuddered. No. Just no. She couldn’t allow that to happen.
She stared over the woman’s shoulder, hoping to see one of the staff or even one of her siblings to pawn the woman off on and let this be their problem to deal with. No such luck. She saw absolutely no one who could help. As if taunting her, her brain provided the unhelpful information that her brother, Mica, and the triplets, Jett, Jasper and Jade, were all out at the bauxite mine getting a big shipment of fuel ready for transport to Alpha-Prime.
She wouldn’t see them for the rest of the day, let alone the foreseeable future. And if they were in the deepest part of the mine, where the fuel shipments were being prepared to be sent off Earth, she likely wouldn’t even be able to contact them by cell phone until they returned to the surface. Beryl stifled another dispirited sigh.
The woman was about to open her mouth and start complainingagainwhen a miracle appeared.
A choir of angels couldn’t have sounded more beautiful to Beryl in that instant than the familiar voice that said firmly, “Elmira Coventon,” and the customer’s mouth snapped shut.
Beryl didn’t have to turn to identify the new arrival, an elderly woman of an age with the irate customer. The difference was thatthiselderly woman was about to save Beryl’s bacon before she had to make a difficult customer service-related decision.
“You know better than to try to foist off an expired coupon on my poor niece here at the Supernova Supermarket,” Aunt Dixie Lou Grey said. “No other grocery store in the tri-city area will take an expired coupon and you know it. Stop picking on Beryl because she’s new.”
Beryl could have kissed her. Instead, she gave Aunt Dixie a brilliant smile. Equally slight in stature as the longwinded Elmira Coventon, and every bit as vulnerable-seeming to a stray gust from a softly spinning ceiling fan, Aunt Dixie pushed a grocery cart of her own down the aisle to reach them.
“I’m not picking on her,” Mrs. Coventon said, clearly indignant. “I just couldn’t use the coupon yesterday because—”
Aunt Dixie rolled her eyes and held up one hand, palm out in the universal sign ofstop talking. “Save it, Elmira. I heard your sorry excuse from one aisle over before you repeated it…again. It’s twenty-five cents off a giant box of cookies, not half off your grocery bill. Move on, for pity’s sake.”
The woman pursed her lips as if considering whether to continue this battle. Finally, she heaved out a long breath and said haughtily, “Fine. I don’t need cookies anyway.”
Aunt Dixie rolled her eyes when Mrs. Coventon, thankfully, turned on her heel and shoved her cart in the direction of the checkouts.
Once the customer was out of earshot, Beryl dipped her head to plant a kiss on her aunt’s cheek. “Thank you so much,Aunt Dixie. I cannot express fully how thankful I am that you showed up when you did. I just couldn’t cave in to her demand to use an expired coupon, even if it was only one day late.”
“Oh, I know. If you did, then everyone in the country would show up and want to
use ancient expired coupons every single day,” Aunt Dixie said with an understanding nod. “I get it.”
“But she’s a customer and I didn’t want to alienate a regular shopper, either,” Beryl explained.
“Now, don’t you worry about her, honey. She’s been trying that tired old ruse on every new grocery store manager for years. She’ll be back—trust me. The Supernova Supermarket is the closest grocery store to her house. You haven’t lost a customer.”
“Well, thank you again, Aunt Dixie,” Beryl said. “I appreciate you stepping in.”
“I live to serve,” she said offhandedly, searching the shelf to her left as if looking for something.
“Can I help you with anything?” Beryl asked.
The older woman’s head whipped around so fast to stare Beryl down that she leaned away in surprise.
“I don’t suppose you have any special sway with Diesel, do you?” she asked in a pointed way that reminded Beryl that as helpful as Aunt Dixie was, she could also be very wily.
Diesel Grey, the Fearless Leader of the Big Bang Truck Stop, had given Beryl and her siblings a heads-up about Aunt Dixie when they arrived on Earth from Alpha-Prime to take over the running of the bauxite mine. The reason for their cousin’s warning became clear in short order. Aunt Dixie was a force to be reckoned with on most days. Diesel said she was the very definition of devious, and Beryl had seen that trait for herself several times since her arrival.
