Morgan's I.D. badge whisked through the time clock, but of course the machine took a solid forty-five seconds to actually record her punch-in time. She spent those brief seconds brushing her fingers through her short, harvest moon-blonde hair, and tugging her theoretically-casual top into place over her short, angular frame. The time clock "dinged" her in a full two minutes past her scheduled punch time, because it always rounded up to the end of the minute. Two minutes wasn't much, but then again, it was two minutes. Morgan tried not to let it bother her. Like most things she tried to not let bother her, it bothered her anyway.
Out onto the sales floor, ugly but sturdy black Keds slapping against the linoleum. Bricks On Fifth had, according to corporate lore, originally had a location in, yes indeed, a large brick retail warehouse on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and the inside walls were still lined with red and brown brickwork facade. It made the place -- again, theoretically -- feel like an intimate, unique location, transporting its shoppers to the heyday of Giuliani-era New York retail heaven. It was supposed to make people feel like home. Morgan Beals, thirty-nine years old, Assistant Store Manager, didn't need the bricks to feel at home, here. This was where she lived. Where her heart and soul came alive. Where her family was.
"Joey, you little shit," Morgan said, to one of her family members. "I didn't know you were working today."
"Zack's sick," Joey, a nineteen year old cashier, shrugged and rolled his eyes. He made giant air quotes, telling what he thought about Zack's supposed illness. "Texted me asking if I could do his shift. Whatever. More hours for me."
"That's the spirit," Morgan said, patting Joey on the arm. You weren't supposed to be too affectionate, especially physically, with your co-workers, and it was a bad habit that Morgan had never quite been able to break. She chatted with Joey for a bit, checked in to see how his classes at the state university were going, then continued on her rounds.
Bricks On Fifth sold what Kiesha, their back-of-house lead, called "expensive trash." Paperweights. Office decor. Cast-iron teapots that cost hundreds of dollars and rusted if you looked at them funny, and overpriced, long-expired looseleaf tea to brew in them. Rolls of wallpaper that would dominate, rather than accent, any room they were applied to. Gifts of dubious utility, and more than a few table centerpieces that look like sex toys, as designed by someone who had never seen a sex toy in their life. Tchochkes. Trinkets. Expensive trash. The good people who shopped at the Jackson Hills Lifestyle Center -- also home to an R.E.I., a P.F. Chang's, a Kohl's, and a Barnes & Noble that was hanging on for grim death -- couldn't get enough of the stuff.
Morgan had long ago written a little Buddhist koan for herself: if you hate your job, then you must love your work. Bricks on Fifth was one of those stores, one of those companies really, that was actively making life on Planet Earth worse by turning natural resources into garbage for profit. Nothing Morgan or her co-workers did here would really make anyone happier, smarter, safer, or healthier. So, that was the job. The work, though? She loved the work.
It beat the alternative. Which was not working. Which was sitting alone, in her apartment -- not her house, not anymore, because it wasn't her house anymore -- wondering how she had managed to get broken up with by both her husband and her mother in the same night. Wondering if there was something wrong with her that had made them suspicious of her. Wondering if she had deserved it.
Inventory was due in a week, and they were behind in at least three departments. That was a sticky, time-consuming problem, but it was a problem that Morgan could fix. Jeanie, the retiree-turned-part-timer who really should have been enjoying her golden years but was instead forced to supplement her social security check by working here, needed a whole week off for her kidney surgery. The schedule was going to be a pain in the ass to move around, but again, Morgan could handle that. Dan, the General Store Manager, apparently wanted to talk to her. That was bound to be some bullshit... but, it was bullshit that Morgan could deal with.
No sense putting it off. Morgan dodged a middle-aged, sour-faced woman who was very passive-aggressively not asking for help -- just sighting loudly anyone with a nametag passed her by -- and made her way through the STAFF ONLY door, into the stairwell that still smelled like cheap Pina Colada mix from an office party a year and a half ago, and up the stairs into Dan's little castle keep.
The door was open already, and Morgan didn't bother knocking. She had vague fantasies of walking in on Dan beating it to porn, not because she wanted to especially watch Dan jerk himself off -- even when Morgan had considered herself exclusively heterosexual, Dan was the furthest fucking thing from her type -- but because she'd be able to report it to H.R. Maybe get him fired, or at the very least transferred, Catholic priest-like, to a different Bricks on Fifth location. Maybe that still wouldn't earn Morgan the top job, but maybe they'd put someone more competent, and less loathsome, in charge.
Dan was, thankfully but unfortunately, merely looking over some paperwork. This was surprising. Dan's problem as a manger wasn't that he did a bad job, it was that he didn't do his job at all. He looked up at Morgan, grinned, and said: "Hey. I got good news for you."
I doubt that, Morgan thought, then pushed the thought away. Rampant negativity wasn't going to get her anywhere in life. If it was going to, surely she'd have gotten somewhere by now with it. "Oh yeah?" she asked, pulling up a chair. "What's the news?"
"I got us a new floor manager." Dan waggled his eyebrows and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. He looked quite pleased with himself. "Who loves you, Morgan?"
Morgan cocked her head. "Wait. I don't get it."
"Ever since we lost Louis, you've been pulling fifty-two hour weeks to cover," Dan said. "Right?"
"Well first off, we didn't 'lose' Louis," Morgan said, holding up a hand. "He's on paternity leave."
"Technically, he's off payroll," Dan said. Which was, again technically, true. The company didn't let anyone who actually worked in the stores take more than two weeks off work. The workaround for this was, you quit, took your time off, and then just applied again and, usually, got hired right back into your old job, at your old pay rate. It was a little white lie they told corporate, and corporate let it go because it meant they didn't have to waste time training new people.
"Yeah, but he said he'd be back in three weeks," Morgan said. "I just talked to him yesterday, actually. He came into the store. I met his wife and their kid. She's adorable."
"I'm sure she is," Dan said. "But for those three weeks, we're working with three floor managers, when we should have five and we absolutely need at least four."
"So, wait... but if you hired someone into Louis' position, then what happens when Louis is ready to come back?" Morgan asked.
Dan let the question hang in the air for a moment. Then he picked up a pencil, and dropped it on his desk. Morgan didn't know what that was supposed to symbolize, but once more, Dan looked very pleased with himself. "Then, wherever he applies, I'll give him an excellent reference."
Morgan's hands balled into fists. "What the fuck Dan?! He's got a kid! He didn't do anything wrong, this isn't his fault!"
"I'd argue that the kid is at least half his fault."
"You know what I mean."
"And what I mean, Morgan," Dan interrupted, "is that you're running yourself ragged out there. You look like hell. The employees can all see it, and the customers are gonna start noticing, too."
"Well, maybe if you put in--"
"I got responsibilities of my own," Dan interrupted her again, and if there hadn't been a desk between them, Morgan may very well have slapped him for that. She hated being interrupted. It had been one of Henry's favorite pastimes. Before their marriage, during it, and even now, in this weird endless twilight before the divorce finalized, Morgan's husband had seemed to relish the chance to interrupt her. "The good news is, now, we can both have an easier schedule."
Morgan ran her fingers through her hair, which was just long enough for her to grab a shallow handful of it. "Who is it," she said. "Who's this new floor manager I'm going to have to train up?"
Dan sighed. "Her name is Parker. She and I used to work together, actually. She's been in a bit of a rough spot, but I decided to do her a favor and give her an opportunity here, because contrary to what some people in this store belief, I'm not a complete and total ogre."
Oh. Great. One of Dan's friends from his "other" job. It was an open secret that Dan was engaged in some gray market shenanigans. Tax-free, after-hours retail, mostly, nothing where anyone got hurt, but still, Dan was a criminal. Which was why Morgan looked over the timeclock every pay period, just to make sure Dan wasn't skimming anyone's paycheck... and she always made sure Dan saw her doing it, too. "What's her name?" Morgan asked.
"Parker," Dan said. "Give her a chance. That's all I ask."
Morgan slapped her knees, stood up, and leaned over Dan's desk. To her dark delight, he recoiled a little. "She gets one chance," Morgan said. "And if she makes my life anything but an absolute, orgasmic joy, then I know who I'm gonna blame for it."
Dan simply nodded. Morgan decided to take that as a victory, and turned to leave.
She got halfway down the stairs before realizing she was going to cry.
The thing was, she was going to have to be the one to tell Louis. Dan sure as hell wouldn't say anything, he'd just wait for Louis to ask for his old job back and ghost him. Morgan and Louis were friends. He was, like everyone else at Bricks on Fifth -- even Dan, in a way -- Morgan's family. And now, a little piece of her family had broken away, and someone new was being jammed in there in his place. And there was nothing, not a single goddamn fucking thing, that Morgan could do about it.
She got down the stairs, dodged the passive aggressive shopper once again, and headed for the stock room. Tears were already welling, blurring her vision.
Which was why it took her a second to realize that she wasn't alone in the stockroom.
"Oh my god, you two!" Morgan snapped.
Becky and Gordon, still embracing each other even as their eyes widened in terror, began coming up with flimsy excuses for why they were holding each other in the dark shadows of the stock room, and why Becky had a gentle pink bruise under one ear.
"No, no, just stop it right now," Morgan said. "I have warned you both once, not as your manager but as your friend -- if you get caught, I cannot protect you."
"I'm sorry," Gordon said, his voice breaking a little. "Morgan, we're--"
"Keep it off the clock," Morgan said. "Or even better, don't do it at all." She looked between them. "I'm dead serious, you two. If someone told H.R. about what you two get up to here, you could both be fired."
Gordon nodded, and escaped out onto the floor to go sell bullshit.
"I don't get why it's such a big deal!" Becky said. She needed to stay behind to apply concealer to her hickey.
Morgan stepped forward and held out her hand. "Let me help," she said. "You don't have a good angle." Becky reluctantly agreed, and turned her head to the side to let Morgan help cover up the mark. "It's a big deal," Morgan said, "because you have to work together."
"So?"
"So," Morgan said, finished up her work and placing the concealer brush back in Becky's hand. "It's against company policy."
Becky shrugged. "Fine."
"Hey," Morgan said, and once again, reached out and touched a co-worker on the arm. "We don't shit where we eat. You get me?"
Becky probably didn't get her, but when she left, Morgan got the sense that she'd at least scared the two into keeping their hands off each other while they were at work.
God, why would anyone want to get it on here, anyway?
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