by Jen Doll
“Thanks,” I say. “You’re like a doughnut superhero.” He has this thick, wavy brown hair streaked with reddish-gold highlights. I can see his triceps rippling where they extend from the arms of his faded blue T-shirt, which he’s wearing with ripped jeans and pale green Chuck Taylors. His hands are tan, with clean fingernails that aren’t bedraggled like some teenage dudes. He’s basically the kind of guy you’d dream up just so he could put his arms around you. His lip curls up, just a hint of a smile, or maybe a smirk, and again I feel heat rushing to my face.
“I’d shake your hand and introduce myself, but you’re kind of occupied,” I joke. “I’m Nell. This is my first day at my new job, and you’ve saved me from disaster, so I probably owe you my firstborn.”
“Nah,” he says. “But maybe I get the first pick of the doughnuts. I hope there’s a lemon-filled in here.”
“I would have pegged you for more of a cruller guy,” I say.
“I’m a cruller virgin,” he says, smiling. “Maybe today I’ll finally get lucky.”
We’re at the door to the store when he stops and looks in my eyes. “I’m Grant,” he says, pausing to let the information sink in, as if he expects some reaction other than simply “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say.
“You’re new here, huh?” he asks then.
“Straight from the suburbs of Chicago,” I say, holding the door open for him so he can walk through with his armful of pastries.
“Well, then, welcome to ’Bama, Nell,” he says, and we’re inside, the rush of cool air tickling my skin. Now I’m glad I have the hoodie.
Doris is already there, hanging some T-shirts on a rack. She waves at me and then her eyes turn to Grant and the smile disappears from her face.
“I thought you were supposed to come in at ten,” she says to him.
“My mom had to drop me off early.” He shrugs like we’re lucky to have him whenever he turns up and for however long.
“I guess you’ll have to join us for the staff meeting, then,” Doris tells him in kind of a stony voice. Resuming her normal cheery tone, she shouts, “DOUGHNUTS ARE HERE, EVERYBODY!”
“Wait, do you work here, too?” I ask Grant, and he shrugs again.
A woman with a topknot plucks the doughnut boxes from his hands. She’s got to be Heather. There’s a little girl with a matching bun running around after her—Freddie. She smiles shyly at me and follows her mom to the doughnut table. I pass Red his change, and he gives me a hearty “Welcome to the team!” The group of us trail after Heather into the stockroom. She sets out paper plates and opens the boxes, gives a doughnut hole to Freddie, and pours herself a cup of coffee from the Dunkin’ Donuts box sitting on the table. She notices me watching.
“We do Dunkin’ for coffee and Krispy for doughnuts, and I try to resist until midafternoon on the latter,” she explains, sliding into the folding chair at the head of the table.
“I don’t!” says Red as he sits and grabs a chocolate doughnut. Doris files in next to him, taking a plain glazed, so I find a seat across from them and help myself to one, too, even though this morning Dad made a special nonweekend weekend breakfast, eggs and bacon and everything. A few other people file in: Nadine is the cozy-looking sixty-something woman in black pants and a silky polka-dot blouse; Byron is the youngish, muscular guy wearing a blazer over a T-shirt and a funky necklace with a dangling elephant charm; and Cat has purple hair and a pierced nose and could be twenty or forty-five, it’s hard to say. Freddie grabs the stuffed manatee off the table and carries it around, cradling it like a baby and talking to it.
Everyone’s sitting and chatting and eating and drinking when I notice Grant standing in the corner of the room against the wall like he’s waiting for detention to be over. He’s got his arms crossed against his chest and this too-cool-for-school expression on his face. No one seems to have noticed him, which could be his intent. I decide to be bold: I stare at him until he raises his eyebrows back at me in a question.
“Cruller?” I mouth, holding one up for him. Doris watches with a curious expression as Grant slouches over and takes the pastry out of my hand. He goes in with a big bite, revealing that his left front tooth is chipped. This does not detract from his looks. “Not as good as lemon-filled,” he says. “But decent.” He finishes in three more bites, returns to the wall, and resumes his pose.
Red starts talking. “Good morning, Baggage Heads!”
I glance around to see if anyone else thinks this is as corny as I do. Grant is rolling his eyes, but everyone else is smiling and paying attention. “I’d like to begin with a special announcement,” Red continues. “We have a new member of Team Stockroom starting today.” He points at me: “Meet Nell Wachowski!” The room is full of warm Southern greetings; my first name almost sounds like it’s pronounced with two syllables here. I wave and try not to feel silly. Grant, across the room, catches my eye and then he starts to slow clap, loud and pointedly. Oh no. I shake my head at him, glancing around the room to see what sort of reaction this cute boy who may be a monster has incited. Doris looks infuriated, Red looks confused, and most of the rest of the people at the table simply seem amused.
“She brought the doughnuts,” Grant says, by way of explanation.
“Grant,” says Red, “how can we help you?”
It’s almost as if Doris is in pain. “He’s here … for an interview,” she says. “With me.”
A brief look flashes across Red’s face. “Oh, yes,” he says. “I spoke to your mom about that the other day. Glad you may be joining us, Grant. Let’s save any remaining clapping for the end of the meeting, thanks. You and Nell, y’all are with Doris, so do what she says! Byron and Nadine, you’re on the registers. Cat, can you handle Customer Service this morning, and we’ll meet this afternoon to talk about the new shipment schedule?”
Everyone nods, mouths full of sugary deliciousness and caffeine, and Red briskly addresses some new store initiatives, goals for the month, and other businessy things. I tune out a little because I’m trying to figure out why Doris seems so angry and why Grant is mostly staring at the wall.
Red finishes off. “We have about fifteen minutes until the store opens to customers, so eat up, and let’s have another awesome day! New folks, remember to fill out your paperwork with Heather before you leave. We’ll meet back here at the same time tomorrow. Nadine has offered to make us her famous casserole, so bring your appetites! Thanks for the doughnuts, Nell,” he adds. “Now we can do this.” He initiates a round of applause, and everyone else joins, including Grant, while I grin and stare down at the table.
Everybody’s standing up and chitchatting when he interrupts again: “Oh, also, please be on the lookout for my master keys—especially you, Doris. As Heather says, I can’t keep track of anything unless it’s attached to me.”
“Speaking of which, go check on your daughter, babe,” answers Heather. “She just told me she was taking her new manatee friend on a tour of the store. You’ll probably find her in Toys.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says as he grabs another doughnut, which he tucks into his mouth, and motors out of the room. Nadine follows, giving me a kindly pat on the shoulder and a slow, Southern “Nice to meet you, honey.” I intercept Doris while Byron talks with Grant.
“What’s up with that guy?” I whisper.
Doris leans in close and talks low and fast. “Total bad news. Grant Collins is exactly the kind of teenage boy everybody warns you about. He’s all about football, thinks he’s the hottest human on the planet, et cetera, et cetera … and it looks like you’ve caught his eye, so watch out. He’s inextricably connected to one of the meanest girls in town, and I don’t think you want to bring on her wrath. Even if they aren’t currently dating. They have always been together; they will get back together.”
“That clapping was pretty embarrassing,” I say.
She nods. “Guys at school do that sometimes when they think a girl is hot. It’s humiliating. They
always play it off like it’s about something else, and teachers let them get away with it. But it’s like their secret code.”
“Gross,” I say.
“I’m already regretting telling his mom I’d talk to him about a job.”
“Why would you do that?” I ask. “It seems like you hate him!”
Her face goes kind of pale. “She called me last night, begging me to let him work here. Something must have happened because he’s not at football camp like everyone else on the team. But she wouldn’t tell me what it was about … I didn’t know what to say, and for some reason, I agreed.”
There’s got to be more to it than that, but she stops as Byron and Grant part and Byron heads out to the front of the store, shooting Doris and me a thumbs-up as he goes. Everyone else clears out, and Grant saunters over casually.
“So,” he says, “what exactly do we do here at this … garage sale?”
Doris brushes doughnut crumbs off her shirt and stands and gives him a hard look. She’s not very tall, but she has presence. “OK, y’all,” she says. (I make a mental note to start incorporating y’all into my vocabulary.) “Nell: You’ll be helping me go through inventory, separating the sellable stuff from the junk and listing everything on these clipboards so we can enter it into the master list on the computer later. Why don’t you start with those?” She points to a leaning tower of suitcases and hands me a clipboard.
I stare at it like I’ve never seen such a thing in my life. What I’m really looking at, though, is the sheet of paper attached to it, already covered in what I guess is Doris’s handwriting, line after line of items of various worth that all went missing at some point and arrived here. Her list isn’t just numbers and words—it’s art, with tiny but intricate pictures in the margins and notes to the sides that make me laugh.
“I can’t … draw,” I say.
“You don’t have to, just do it whatever way makes sense to you—as long as it’s legible, it’s cool,” she tells me.
Still admiring her work, I head over to the suitcase pile, choose a big, bright yellow one from the top, and dig in.
“Grant,” says Doris, “since you haven’t even been properly interviewed, why don’t we do that?”
“I thought I had the job,” he says.
“I told your mom I’d interview you. I can’t just give you a job. It doesn’t work that way here.”
“Cool, cool, whatever,” he says, and sits down at the table like he’s the bad boy in an ’80s movie, turning the chair around so he looks over the back of the seat.
Doris groans.
“What?” says Grant.
“Who does that? Is it even comfortable?” she asks.
Grant, shockingly, has turned red. He gets up off the chair and turns it around the right way and sits in it. “Is that better?”
“Yes,” says Doris. “Thank you. Let’s get started. If hired, can you produce proof that you are sixteen years old or over?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“If hired, can you produce proof that you have a legal right to work in the US?”
“Yep.” (Grant is a master of the one-word response.)
“Can you perform essential job functions like lifting boxes, moving heavy objects, and carrying out the duties of the work here, as you are aware?”
“Sure.”
“Do you currently use illegal drugs?”
“What counts as illegal, exactly?”
She gives him a stare-down.
“Fine, fine, I have been known to drink and smoke, on the occasion,” he admits. “Not currently, as in not this moment.”
She shakes her head but pushes on. “Have you ever been convicted of a crime?”
“Not yet,” he says.
“My next question was going to be are you honest and trustworthy, but I’m pretty sure you just told me the truth,” says Doris. She marks something down on the paper in front of her, then glances over at me. I dig back into my bag, pretending like I’m not totally eavesdropping, and pull out a bunch of sequined tops with the tags still on them, which I start to sort through. This person just went on some kind of shopping spree. I’ve named her, and her suitcase, Natasha.
“Do you promise never to steal from the store, because that would be really, really shitty, and then we’d have to fire you, and I’ve never fired anyone before?”
I sense that Doris is going off-the-cuff with these questions.
“I will definitely not steal from the store,” says Grant. “What would I even take? Somebody’s moth-eaten old polo shirt? A delightful bag of nails?”
In fairness, there’s one of each right on the table in front of him. Doris frowns again.
“Do you promise not to drink or do drugs while you’re on the job?”
“I promise,” says Grant.
I find a pair of gold lamé pants. Natasha is a dancer, I’ve decided.
“Are you generally available for shifts between the hours of nine and five, or ten and six, Monday through Friday and some Saturdays?”
“Yes,” he says. “Baby, I’m free whenever you want me to be.”
She puts down her clipboard and gazes at him coolly for what feels like forever. He returns her look. I pull a pair of shiny high-heeled platform pumps from the bag, log them on my clipboard, and put them in the sale pile.
“Grant. I’m going to say it. Your mom wanted me to give you this job, and she’s a nice lady, and she’s old friends with Red, so I will. You and I, however, are not friends. And that’s fine. We can work together peacefully. But if you start drinking or smoking whatever it is you smoke here or being a … sexist jerk, I will not hesitate to fire you. You can’t just act like you’re the king of everything the way you do at school. You do not get to call me, or any other woman here, baby. And no more of that clapping crap.”
Doris has balls. Or whatever women have that’s way more powerful than balls—strength. I watch and wait for him to explode back at her, but Grant just nods and says, “Yes, ma’am,” and I don’t even think it’s sarcastic. I reach into the yellow bag again, and this time it’s empty, so I put the suitcase in the for-sale luggage stack, say my farewell to Natasha, and start on the next.
“OK,” says Doris. “OK.” She puts a clipboard next to him. “Good stuff goes on your list and in the sale pile. Bad stuff, anything that’s truly garbage or so gross you can’t even tell what it is, goes into the discard receptacle over there.” She points to a huge waste bin in the far corner of the room. “We don’t resell food, so it’s up to you what you want to do with it. There’s an even bigger dumpster out back if we need it. If you aren’t sure about anything, just ask.”
Grant raises his hand.
“Yes?” asks Doris.
“Do you have a pen I can borrow?” he asks. He turns his grin on her, but she stays stoic, handing him a Bic from the table.
He picks up his clipboard, and we all get to work.
* * *
An hour and a half later, I’ve gone through an Amanda, a Parker, and a Roy. I’ve found:
1. A rolled-up Titanic poster (Vintage!)
2. 2 brand-new dog toys in packaging: a chew-thing that looks like a giant sausage and a stuffed eagle with an American flag in its claws
3. 12 pairs of socks, different colors, no holes
4. 6 books of various types/conditions, children’s to adult
5. 2 designer purses, leather (They’re full of what Doris tells me are “the usual accoutrements”: Kleenexes, old lipsticks, grimy loose change, a wallet with the cash and cards missing.)
6. A new lavender bikini, still with the tags (In my size! I ask Doris if I can buy it, and she says yes. We even get a discount as store employees. Perks!)
7. Half a bag of rock-hard gummy bears (I throw those away, though I’m tempted to try one, just for the experience.)
8. 5 tank tops in white, gray, and black
9. 6 pairs of jeans, men’s and women’s
Yesterday Doris and I could
n’t stop talking, but the presence of Grant has changed things. We’re shy all of a sudden, or maybe it’s that two of the people in this room seem to kind of hate each other. I turn my head back to my latest suitcase, which I’ve dubbed a Marvin. It’s full of men’s business suits, each in the same dark gray color; periwinkle blue boxer shorts (thankfully clean); crisp white button-downs; and an array of muted, solid-color ties. It’s like walking into my dad’s closet, except even my average-businessman-dressing dad has that purple tie with skulls on it that Jack and I bought him last Father’s Day.
Doris breaks the awkward silence. “Grant, you’re tall, can you get the box up there? That top one marked ‘Tucson’?” She points to a shelf in the stockroom where a row of big cardboard containers have been stashed, different airport cities written on them in Sharpie. We watch as Grant stretches his arms up to grab the box with both hands and sets it gently down by her feet.
“Thanks,” she says.
“You’re welcome,” he says.
I take this as a positive sign.
Then she grabs a knife and slices across the box in one brisk, badass motion. I look over at Grant, and he’s looking at me with wide eyes, and I can’t help it: I smile, and he smiles back. I turn back to Doris, hoping she hasn’t caught this—I feel my loyalty should go to her. But she’s busy pulling suitcases from the box and lining them up in a row for us to tackle. One of them is especially cute, in a purple leopard print—the sort of bag you imagine someone stylish using for weekends off in Vail or Miami.
“That’s a total Daphne!” I say.
“Huh?” says Doris.
“I’ve been naming them,” I confess. “The bags. They all seem to have a personality, you know? Right here, this is a Marvin, probably owned by a banker or someone in another dull but respectable job, a dignified family man”—and then I let out a scream, because as I pull out the last business suit, something drops out of it that is definitely not conservative or well-pressed or boring like you’d expect from a Marvin. I’ve clearly underestimated Marvin, because it is a sex toy designed all too realistically like a man’s you-know-what.