Page 70 of Queen of Nothing

Like they do over the piano keys at home.

Home…

Home will never be these towns we stop in.

Home is Elcott Abbey.

A sprawling green estate of lush gardens and quaint cottages.

A surge of longing guts me.

Then the door groans open, and the manager’s thin face pops out from behind it. “Wrap it up. Shift’s over.”

I slide an unenthused glance to the white plastic clock on the wall.

A second should tick by, but it doesn’t.

Batteries have died.

I slice the final box, following the glued edges for a smoother cut.

I say, “I still have to take this out back and stock the shelves—”

“Well I’m not paying you overtime,” he snaps, and it’s like glass breaking, the hitch of his naturally whiny voice. “This ain’t a union town, darlin’.”

The sigh deflates my chest like a balloon.

It’s not that I’m chasing overtime.

It’s that I don’t want the second shift supervisor who works evenings to chew me out tomorrow for not finishing up.

This guy will fuck up somehow. He always does.

And I get shafted for it.

Shafted.

A word I picked up from our travels.

Krum slang used to be one of my biggest challenges. That, and learning monetary value. But slang especially.

Back in Regina, someone called Sal ‘the goat’, and I thought they were calling him a goat.

Serena’s better at communicating than I am.

My theory is that, because she had a smartphone back home and I didn’t, she understands the slang better.

She had access to the culture of the krums.

I didn’t.

“I’ll take this out to the bin first, then I’ll go.”

“No overtime.”

That’s all the manager says before his thin, pock-marked face disappears, and the door shuts.

No acknowledgement, no thanks, no nothing.