I was standing there behind the Customer Service counter at the front of the store talking with Victoria when I saw a tall husky guy who was half-bald heading towards us carrying a Mr. Coffee under one arm.

“When the company is gone for good,” I said, “I’m just gonna become a bartender.”

“Is that right?” asked Victoria. She was standing to my left. She’s black and one of the few good workers we’ve got at the store. I rarely have to tell her what to do. She just does it.

I glanced over at the checkout lanes in front of us. Since there were only a handful of customers, I thought right about then was as good a time as any to take a cigarette break. “I’m thinking about it. Bars are always popular. If one closes, you can go to another one. People gotta buy their drinks somewhere. I’m thinkin’ about the kind of money I can make at a yuppie bar in the city. I don’t want to be servin’ drinks at a dive like Carl’s there up the road.”

“Those customer service skills’ll come in handy.”

“Yeah. But people don’t try to return drinks. They order, you serve, and they pay. Simple.”

The guy came up and set the opened box with the coffee maker in it on top of the counter. What was left of his hair was buzz-cut. “Is that you Stacey?” he asked sounding all surprised.

I was wearing my name tag, so I wasn’t sure if he actually knew me or was a creepy customer. I said, “Yes, that’s my name. Who are you?”

“Kurt. Kurt Grabowski. Remember me?”

“Hey, oh my god, I didn’t recognize you.” He used to hang out with that whole crew that included Brian Miller and Frank Deblasio, and John, too.

“It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah, it sure has,” I said with a smile.

Victoria went to the other end of the counter and began collecting items from the Return bins that could be re-stocked and placing them into a cart.

He had a smile on his face that appeared to be a mixture of both joy and surprise. “Wow. Stacey Ferrara...Do you still live around here?”

“No. I live in the city,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Where at?”

“Just off Harlem there on the Northwest side. Near Norridge. What about you?”

“I’m still in Fairview.”

“Here in the old neighborhood. Good for you. What are you doing these days?”

“I’m working over at Doug’s Auto Parts there on Grand Avenue. I’m the Assistant Manager. So, you work here?”

“I’m the Customer Service Manager. Looks like we’re both in management.”

“Ha-ha. Yeah.”

Then his smile became more of a smirk and he got this look like Oh, isn’t that interesting. And I thought, it’s been how long since high school and still this is how people remember me? A reputation I only got because of a few lies told by two assholes and one of their girlfriends at the very end of my sophomore year, and in the Fall they were calling me “Mannheim.” I could’ve understood “Harlem,” since that’s where I went with my girlfriends cruising around looking for boys who were cruising around looking for girls. It’s amazing how powerful a thing that’s never happened can be. Once the thing is believed by nearly everybody, it’s like it’s as real and solid as the pavement you’re standing on. When I couldn’t convince anyone otherwise, I decided I might as well live up to it. For awhile it did have its advantages; with guys thinking I was easy, I could toy with them more. All that fun lasted until half-way through my senior year when along came John, who I didn’t want anything to do with in the first place. I told him no but his hands were strong and he said you don’t mean it, but I said I do mean it...Afterwards, I found out that just as no one believed me when I wasn’t a slut, no one believed me when I was.

I looked over at Victoria. She was placing a blue Rubbermaid dish drainer into the cart.

“How long have you been working here?” asked Kurt.

I turned back to Kurt and smiled. “Three days.”

“Whoa! You’re kidding me.”

I didn’t want to come here to this Venture store on Mannheim in the first place. But when the company gives you a transfer, and you don’t have anything else lined up yet, you really need to take it. Even if it’s a company that’s going under. I shook my head, keeping the smile. “No. I was working at the Venture store in Norridge. They transferred me here.”

“I see.” His eyes glanced down at my breasts.

I was wearing a blue blouse with my black slacks. My sleeves were rolled up because earlier in the day I’d been doing some cleaning in the back room behind the counter. The longer the conversation took, the longer I was going to have to put up with reminiscing about high school, and the longer it was going to be before I could have a cigarette. “So what’s with this Mr. Coffee?” I asked.

His eyes went up to my face then down to the box. He tapped it a few times with his index finger. “It’s not working right. My wife bought it a few weeks ago and it just stopped working the other day. I want to exchange it.”

“Not a problem. Do you have the receipt?”

“Yeah,” he said and handed it to me.

I examined the receipt, finding the Mr. Coffee in the list from among the toilet paper, Puffs tissue, dish soap, Huggies diapers, and a pregnancy test kit, and marking it there using a yellow highlighter. “I’ll get someone to bring you up a new one,” I said.

I paged the Housewares department. Luckily, Joe Schuler the guy who was covering the department for the night actually answered the page and said he’d bring up the Mr. Coffee right away. Sometimes with these high school kids who usually work the evening shifts you can’t get any of’em to do their jobs. It’s more like babysitting than managing. That said, I have to admit that I’ve managed a few adults who whined more than any of my infant nieces and nephews.

“It’ll be right up,” I told Kurt.

“Thanks.” He tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jean shorts.

“You’re welcome.” I took the old Mr. Coffee off the counter and set it in the Damaged bin on the shelf behind me.

“Hey, I wanted to ask you something: howcome I didn’t see you at the
10-year reunion last summer.”

“I didn’t go,” I said as I turned back to him.

“Then that would make sense why I didn’t see you.”

“Uh-huh.” I was leaning with one hand on the counter and the other resting on my hip. My purse was tucked near the back of the top shelf under the counter. Inside was a fresh pack of cigarettes. As soon as Kurt had left, I planned on taking the wrapper off that pack.

“Someone at the reunion told me you got divorced from Jim.”

I nodded. “Yeah. That was a few years ago. Well, more than a few, I guess. It’s been five years since the divorce was final.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

I was married at 21 and divorced at 24. Jim was what I had needed at the time, but not for life. He worshipped me and because of that, in some ways, he built me up. But I’m no idol. I’m not made of gold or stone or ivory or whatever idols are made of. I blinked slowly. “It was for the best for both of us. We were both too young.”

“I see...So I bet you didn’t have a problem finding someone else.”

“I haven’t remarried.”

“Really? You seeing anyone?”

I drummed my nails on the counter. “No. Not right now.”

“Wow.” He raised his eyebrows, nodded and turned, then glanced down at the floor.

“What’s so surprising?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I thought you’d never have a problem with a thing like that.”

“My family says I’m too picky.”

“I guess you can have your pick,” he said with a grin. Not one that seemed like a compliment, more like he couldn’t resist having something else on his mind.

“So, you said you got a wife?”

His grin disappeared. Nothing like a little dose of reality. “Oh yeah. You remember Carrie Wagner?”

“I think so,” I said, trying to put a face to the name, but I couldn’t.

“She graduated two years after we did. We got married about four years ago. Now we got two girls.”

“That sounds wonderful. I bet those girls of yours are adorable,” I said, wondering if number three might be on the way because of the pregnancy test kit. But if he we wasn’t saying anything, maybe he didn’t want to until a doctor said for sure, or maybe he hadn’t bothered to check the receipt himself and didn’t know his wife had bought the kit in the first place. I didn’t think it was my place to bring it up if he wasn’t going to.

“They are. We love’em to death...So howcome you didn’t go to the reunion?”

I sure as hell wasn’t going to pay 60 bucks for a banquet to hang out with people I no longer see or have any interest in seeing. Let alone having to deal with conversations like the one I was having right then. I began to wonder how long it was going to take Joe to bring that Mr. Coffee. I frowned and said, “You know, actually, I really wanted to. But one of my cousins was getting married, and I was standing up in the wedding. So I didn’t really have much choice.”

“Well, it’s a shame you missed it. It was a good time.” Kurt turned to his left, craning his neck around. He seemed to be looking over the near-empty checkout lanes. There were a few beeps and clicks from from the registers, and some clangs of shopping carts, occasionally poking through the numb Muzak. He took a hand out of his pocket and scratched his neck where his 5 o’clock shadow was darkest. Then he put his hand back in his pocket he said, “You know, John was there.”

“Good for him,” I said, keeping the corners of my mouth up. And I thought, Why are you bringing him up? You absolutely can not not know. And where is Joe with that Mr. Coffee?

“It was weird, you know, ‘cause I hadn’t really talked to him since right before I joined the Marines.”

“You guys were pretty tight.”

His eyebrows rose and fell as he took a long breath through his nose. “It doesn’t seem that way now. It was weird talkin’ to him because it was like talkin’ to him back in high school. Only this time I couldn’t stand him.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I don’t know why I had the friends I had.”

Working in discount retail has taught me how to smile through all kinds of ridiculous ranting and raving. But I couldn’t keep smiling. I didn’t know what to say to Kurt, wondering what he was trying to tell me. I wanted to tell him that maybe if he hadn’t been such a Goddamned follower like everyone else and had used his brain to think for himself, he’d have known John for what he was.

Thank God I saw Joe coming down the main aisle of the store. I nodded towards him and opened my mouth to speak, but I exhaled; not realizing I’d been holding my breath. I quickly caught it and said, “Your new Mr. Coffee is here.”

“Oh, cool.”

Joe was walking quickly. He came up, passing in front of the checkout lanes, and stopped next to Kurt.

“Here you go, Stacey,” said Joe as he put the Mr. Coffee on the counter in front of me.

“Thank you, Joe.”

“No problem. Sorry it took so long. We were out of’em on the floor. So I had to go into the stockroom and get it.”

“I appreciate it and this customer appreciates it.”

“Thank you,” said Kurt.

“You’re welcome, sir,” said Joe.

“Make sure you fill the shelf on the floor with what’s in back,” I said.

“I’m going to,” said Joe.

“Thank you, Joe.”

“No problem. Need anything else, Stacey?”

I gave him a smile. “No. That’s it.”

“Okay.” Joe turned and walked away as quickly as he came.

“I think he’s got a crush on you,” said Kurt.

“Oh, please. Gimme a break,” I said. I’ve never noticed anything in the way Joe deals with me that would lead me to think any such thing.

“I think he does. He looked giddy.”

“Hardly. Here, let me ring this up and print you a new receipt.”

I took the new Mr. Coffee and rung everything through the register. When I was done, I asked, “Do you need a bag for this?”

“Nah. I can take it as it is.”

“Okay. Here you go.” I stapled the new receipt to the old one and then handed them to him.

“Thanks.” He took them and shoved them into one of his pockets, and grabbed the Mr. Coffee off the counter. He gave me a single sharp nod. “It was really good talking to you, Stacey.”

I forced the corners of my mouth up. “It was good talking to you, too, Kurt.”

He waved. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah.”

Kurt walked towards the doors with the new Mr. Coffee under his arm. Over by the registers I counted five customers in the three open lanes. After Kurt passed through the doors, I went into my purse and grabbed my lighter and cigarettes. Then I told Victoria I was going to take a cigarette break outside. She asked if she could join me, and I said sure.

I told Lisa, one of the cashiers, to cover the Customer Service counter while Victoria and I took a break. There weren’t any customers in her aisle.

In the entryway, I peaked through the outer set of glass doors to make sure I didn’t see Kurt anywhere in the lot. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to him again. Why do people like Kurt ask such stupid questions like howcome I didn’t go to the reunion and then tell me John was there? Isn’t it obvious? Why would I want to go back willingly to see a whole bunch of people who were so confident about who I was when they didn’t really know me, and still don’t, if Kurt’s any measure. There’s always a They, and you’re either part of They or not. They say who is who and who did what. They always seem happy with how things are. They don’t understand how anyone could see anything different than them. Kurt, like so many people here in Fairview, is happy to be here. Totally untroubled. Hell, even my parents thought I should move back in with them since I’m working in town now. Said I could save on rent and gas and wouldn’t have to drive so far. No thanks.

“You comin’,” asked Victoria, pushing open one of the doors and letting in the warm air. The heat of the day was just about gone. Beyond the parking lot, there was a faint red-orange tinge at the tips of the dark trees and buildings on the other side of Mannheim.

“Yeah.” I pushed open a door and stepped out onto the wide concrete sidewalk. We walked over to the side of the entrance.

“So who was that Kurt-guy? an old friend of yours?” asked Victoria.

“Not so much a friend as an acquaintance. We knew some of the same people in high school.”

“Blast from the past, huh?” She lit her cigarette.

“Something like that.” I took out my fresh pack of Marlboro Lights and knocked them a few times against the heel of my hand. Then I took off the plastic wrapper and dropped it in the trash can by the doors. I took out a cigarette and lit it. The parking lot in front of the store was only a quarter full, if that. The rest of the block-long strip mall lot was as empty as the store fronts, though still lit up by the parking lot lights. I remember when the whole thing was filled with cars and people, totally overcrowded. I’d just finished high school and so many people I knew had gotten jobs at the stores like F&M, TJ Maxx, and Coconuts records, and food places like Paisano’s Pizza or Burger King. My friend Karen had gotten a job at this store and told me I should apply, either here or at the one in Norridge that she’d said was huge and was always hiring. So I applied at Norridge and got a job there working the cash registers. Then I worked my way up and around a few stores in different departments, and now I’m here.

“This lot is so empty,” I said. “When this last store closes, I wonder what they’re going to build on it.”

“Didn’t International Harvester used to be here?”

“Yeah, part of it. I had a couple of uncles who used to work there. Then most of it closed.”

“This land must be cursed,” said Victoria with a chuckle.

Bankruptcy is coming for the whole company. Which made me wonder as I took drag after drag why they even bothered sending me here. Are they trying to punish me? Are they thinking I can help turn things around? Or are they just hoping that by re-shuffling the deck some miracle will happen? And if I hadn’t gotten transferred to this Godforsaken store on this Godforsaken street, I wouldn’t have run into Kurt in the first place.

“It’s something with this street,” I said. “There’s nothing of worth on it between Lake Street and Irving Park Road.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” said Victoria with a flick of some ashes.

The cars on Mannheim continued to pass by. None turned into the lot. I read in the paper a few months back how the county police did some big raid on this street over the course of a few late nights and arrested a bunch of prostitutes and their customers. They even caught a few back behind the mall. The police said they weren’t going to tolerate it anymore. Right. They do a big sweep every few years and then it goes back to how it’s always been. Only now I see how the motels down the road advertise Siesta Rates instead of Hourly Rates. Same difference.

“I hate this place, Victoria. I especially hate this street.”

“So quit. I might.”

“I’d hate to see you go. You’re one of my best workers.”

“Thanks. But there’s no point waiting to be laid off. Might as well take things into your own hands if you can.”

“You’ve got a very good point.”

“I’m thinking maybe I’ll get a job at the Wal-Mart over there on North Avenue.”

I grinned. “Traitor.”

“Hey, if Venture don’t want me, I’m sure they will.”

“Venture wants you. But it’s the customers that’re the problem.”

“The lack of.”

“Yep. It’s too quiet tonight.”

“It’s like this every night.” She dropped her cigarette butt on the pavement and stamped it out with the toe of her black shoe.

“That’s not a good thing,” I said.

“Ain’t much we can do about it. I’m going back in.”

“I’ll be back in just as soon as I finish this cigarette.”

Victoria went through the glass doors. I took a look at my cigarette: there was barely a puff’s-worth left. I finished it off and flicked the stub over to the asphalt of the lot. The tiny orange ashes glowed for a bit, then dimmed to nothing, and I thought that when it’s all over for the store, and I’m gone from here (because nothing’s going to keep me here), they should just turn the whole strip mall into a red-light district. Be honest: it’s what really belongs here along with the dive bars and dive motels. Build a fence around it with some gates and put a huge neon sign above that says “Screw Here.” Maybe then, once everything is finally put the way it should be, the street can please let me go.