The Store

by Bentley Little

  "I changed my mind!" Shannon said.

  "The Store can terminate that contract. You cannot. For better or worse, you are a member of The Store Corps. Live it, love it."

  A rush of anger coursed through Ginny. "Knock this off," she told Samantha. "Now."

  "Knock what off?"

  "Your sister is quitting, and that's it. Period."

  "It's not my decision." Sam's voice had taken on a defensive edge. "I'd let her quit if it was up to me, but it's not. I'm just following policy."

  "Then Shannon and your father will just have to have a talk with the store manager."

  "They can't," Sam said quickly.

  "We'll see about that."

  "What if I just never show up again?" Shannon asked. "They'll fire me, right?"

  Sam did not answer.

  "Right?"

  "Will they fire her?" Ginny asked.

  Sam's voice was quiet. "No. They won't fire her. They'll come after her.

  They'll find her. They'll _make_ her work."

  Ginny shivered. A chill passed through her, and she looked over at her younger daughter, who had suddenly turned very pale.

  "You can't fight it," Sam said.

  "It's okay," Shannon said shakily. "I'll work."

  "You don't have to --"

  "I want to." She stood, hurried off, into her bedroom.

  "Sam?" Ginny said.

  Samantha stood, would not look at her. "I have to work," she said. "It's going to be a busy day."

  "So how did it go?" Bill asked.

  "It didn't."

  "Then we'll force them to quit. Or at least we'll force Shannon."

  _They'll come after her. They'll find her. They'll make her work._

  Ginny shook her head. "I don't think it's a good idea," she said quietly.

  "Why not?"

  She told him about what Sam had said, the implied threat.

  "So unless we're planning to move somewhere else, I think it's safer to let them work there. It's not causing any real problems. They work at cash registers, sell things, pick up their paychecks. But if they pulled out . . ."

  She let the thought trail off.

  "There'd be trouble," he finished for her.

  She nodded.

  "I thought Shannon wanted to quit."

  "She changed her mind."

  He laughed harshly. "Jesus. Employment by intimidation. What's this world coming to?"

  She put an arm around his shoulder, rested her chin on the top of his head. "I don't know," she said. "1 really don't know."

  2

  Sam dropped the bombshell after dinner.

  "I'm not going to college," she said.

  Bill looked over at Ginny. It was obvious that this was the first time she'd heard these words as well, and he could see the anger settle upon her face. "What do you mean, you're not going to college?" she demanded.

  "I'm in the management program now. They're sending me off to the corporate headquarters in Dallas for training. It's a two-week program, and after that, I'll be back in Juniper. The Store already found me a house over on Elm, and it's rent-free. They pay for everything. I can move in this weekend."

  They were all stunned. Even Shannon was silent, and they looked dumbly at each other while Samantha smiled brightly.

  "I know I was planning to go to college, but this is a great opportunity."

  Ginny was the first to find her voice. "A great opportunity? Assistant manager of a discount store in Juniper? You can be anything you want. With your grades and your brains, if you graduate with even a bachelor's degree, you can write your own ticket. You can get a job anywhere, with any company. You can get a job like your father's, work at home."

  Bill heard the hurt in her voice. Neither of them had ever imagined that their daughters would not go to college. It had never even been considered an option. Ginny, in particular, had had high hopes for both Sam and Shannon, and he could see from the expression on her features that she felt betrayed.

  "College is a great experience," Ginny continued gamely. "Not just a learning experience but . . . a social experience. It's where you get a chance to grow, to learn things about yourself, to find out who you really are and what you want from life."

  "But there's no reason for me to go," Sam said. "I don't need to 'find myself,' and I already know what I want from life. I want to be on The Store's management team."

  Silence again. Shannon shifted uncomfortably in her seat, would not meet anyone's eyes. She stared down at her plate, pushing her rice with a fork.

  Ginny looked to Bill for help.

  "The Store will always be here," he said. "And you can always come back to it. But this is your only chance to go to college. These are the only scholarships you'll get."

  "I know."

  "And once you get caught up in the rat race, you won't go back to school.

  You might tell yourself that college will always be there and you can enroll later if you want to, but the truth is that that very seldom happens. If you don't go now, you won't go."

  "I don't need to go."

  "We didn't raise you to be a dummy."

  "I'm not a dummy," Sam said defensively.

  "Then prove it. Go to school."

  "I don't need to."

  "Everyone needs to."

  Sam stood. "The fact is, Dad, college _will_ always be there. I _can_ go anytime I want. But this position won't stay open forever. If I don't take it, someone else may get it. And they may stay until they retire. This is a once-in a-lifetime chance. And if I don't like it or it doesn't work out" -- she shrugged. -- "I'll go to college."

  "So you want to move out?"

  Samantha nodded, barely able to hide her excitement or keep the smile off her face.

  "Over my dead body," he said.

  Her smile faltered. "Dad --"

  "Yes," he said. "I'm your dad. And I'm telling you that you can't do this."

  "I'm eighteen, and I can do what I want."

  "Bill," Ginny warned.

  He ignored her. "Once you move out, you can't move back. Even if they fire you." Ginny stood, threw down her napkin. "Bill!"

  "What?"

  "You are over the line!"

  "It is a little harsh, Dad," Shannon said.

  Sam was smiling again. She looked around the table, beamed at them. "It may take a little getting used to," she said. "But don't worry. It'll be great."

  She looked like a fucking Moonie, he thought. Like some brainwashed bimbo who'd been captured by a cult.

  He turned away from her, unable to look at his daughter and contain his rage. He had always considered himself a pacifist, had never really harbored or entertained any violent thoughts or desires -- not even in regard to his enemies -- but his feelings toward The Store and its minions were invariably revenge fantasies, tinged with violence. And never more so than now. He imagined beating the shit out of Mr. Lamb and Mr. Keyes, physically injuring them, and the aggressiveness of his thoughts disturbed him. He wasn't sure where these thoughts had come from, or why he was stooping to The Store's base level of discourse, but he wanted to hurt those sons of bitches.

  Especially for what they'd done to his daughter.

  His daughters?

  He glanced toward Shannon. No, he thought thankfully.

  At least not yet.

  He did not help Sam move out of the house. Ginny did, Shannon did, Sam's friends did, but he remained in his office, in front of his computer, pretending to work, as they carried the furniture and boxes out of her bedroom. He knew how he was behaving -- and he hated himself for it -- but he could think of no other way of demonstrating to her the depth of his disapproval.

  It was ironic, really. He had always felt nothing but disgust for those hard-hearted fathers who kicked their children out of the house for some minor transgression, who disowned their own children and refused to see them or talk to them. He'd always thought those fathers stupid and shortsighted. What disagreement could possibly be so serious that it wa
s worth jeopardizing the relationship between a parent and a child?

  Yet here he was, acting the same way, doing the same thing. Not wanting to, but not being able to avoid it. Ginny had been as angry as he was, and even more hurt, but she was better able to adjust, to roll with the flow, to accommodate change.

  He could not do that.

  He wished he could.

  But he couldn't.

  And he stood alone in his office, in the silence, listening to the fading motors of the pickup trucks as his oldest daughter moved out of his house.

  3

  The mood of the town seemed different, Ginny thought as she drove to the salon. Either something in Juniper had changed during their absence, or her perceptions had been altered by what they'd seen on the trip.

  The Store.

  It was the last thing they'd seen as they'd left town and the first thing they'd seen on their return.

  And it had taken Sam.

  If before she had felt that The Store was an intruder in her town, now she felt like the intruder. A transformation had occurred while they'd been on their trip, and now Juniper no longer seemed like her town. It seemed like The Store's town. And she was the unwelcome guest.

  She drove down Main. The library, she'd heard, was being privatized.

  County funds had been slashed at the last board of supervisors meeting, and since Juniper's library was the smallest and least frequented in the county, the decision had been made to close it. But once again -- of course -- the heroic Store had ridden to the rescue and offered to underwrite the entire operation a proposal that had been gratefully accepted.

  The Store now controlled the police department, fire department, all town services, the school district, and the library.

  And Sam.

  Ginny gripped the steering wheel more tightly. She shared Bill's anger and frustration, but she still saw their daughter as a victim, not an accomplice, and though her gut reaction was to slap the girl and ground her for a month, she realized that Sam was at the age where she had to make her own mistakes.

  And learn from them.

  She had enough basic faith in her daughter to believe that that would occur.

  And she did not want to alienate her and push her away at a time when Sam might need her mother the most.

  For things were getting rough out there. She herself was avoided, ostracized, whispered about. Ignored by her friends. The recipient of cold stares from coworkers and giggling derision from old students.

  This must be what it felt like to have been a Japanese-American during World War II, she thought, to have been a civil rights activist in Mississippi in the sixties. She was treated not merely as a stranger or an outsider, but as a traitor living among them, as an enemy.

  Because she was not a Store sympathizer.

  There were plenty of people who weren't, she knew. The displaced workers, the unemployed, all of the people who'd voted against the current council. But they'd been marginalized, shunted off to the side, and they didn't dare express their true feelings. It was as if, overnight, everything had changed, and all of their allies had either gone into hiding or disappeared.

  The Store was now organizing Neighborhood Watch groups. Juniper's crime rate over the past two decades had been nearly nonexistent, but suddenly everyone was concerned about drugs and robberies, gang activity and sexual assaults. Now people in one part of town were reporting people from other parts of town who were seen innocently walking through their neighborhoods.

  And the police were responding to the calls.

  The town was becoming fractured, fragmented, the larger community breaking off into smaller, potentially adversarial groups.

  And The Store was reaping the benefits.

  Yesterday's issue of the newspaper had a full-page ad for a weekend sale of home security devices.

  Ginny pulled into one of the empty parking spaces on the street in front of Hair Today. A bearded, obviously homeless man, wearing torn jeans and a filthy flannel shirt, walked directly in front of her car, and she pretended to look through her purse, waiting until he had gone before getting out of the vehicle.

  She was a little intimidated by the vagrants. Most of them simply sat in empty doorways or on raggedy blankets under trees, but the bolder ones staked out specific spots in order to ask passersby for money. She knew she should be more understanding, and in an abstract, intellectual way, she sympathized with their plight, but on an emotional, personal level, she was slightly afraid of these people. She did not like seeing them, was uncomfortable around them, and she did not know how she was supposed to act.

  So she tried to avoid them as much as possible.

  She was the only customer in the salon, and Rene was the only stylist, and the two of them coexisted in uncomfortable silence while Ginny's hair was washed, then cut and penned. She would have liked to have talked -- about anything -- but Rene was obviously in a bad mood, and Ginny let her be.

  Afterward, she left an extra-large tip of ten dollars.

  Rene smiled for the first time, touched her hand as she placed the bill on the counter. "Thank you," she said. "For everything."

  Ginny nodded, smiled back.

  On the way home, she saw Sam on the sidewalk, heading away from her new house and toward the highway and The Store. She stopped to offer her daughter a ride, but Sam looked at her and gave her a cold smile. "I don't accept rides from strangers," she said dismissively.

  She kept walking.

  "Sam?" Ginny called out the car window. She thought at first that it was some sort of joke, but when her daughter would not look back, continued on at the same even pace, she knew that it was not. "Samantha!" she called.

  No answer.

  Ginny moved the car forward, pulling next to her. "Honey? What's the matter?"

  Sam kept walking.

  "Get in the car. I don't know what the problem is here, but obviously we need to work it out."

  Sam stopped. "There's nothing to work out. Fuck off, Mom."

  "What?"

  "Fuck. Off."

  Another car drove by, and Samantha flagged down the driver. It was a man, someone Ginny didn't know, and before she could call out, before she could say anything, Sam was in the car and off to The Store.

  She thought of following, did for a few blocks, but then she thought better of it and turned back toward home as the other car turned onto the highway.

  She made it all the way into the drive before bursting into tears.

  4

  Shannon stood against the wall with the rest of the employees, legs spread to shoulder width, hands clasped behind her back in the official Store stance.

  Mr. Lamb walked slowly back and forth in front of them. "The new uniforms have arrived," he said. His voice was low and seductive. "They are beautiful."

  Shannon felt uneasy. She thought of the trip, of Encantada, of the people in that town all wearing Store uniforms.

  Mr. Lamb smiled at her, and she thought of _Sam's bloody panties_.

  She looked quickly away, feeling cold and sick.

  "You are all going to wear your beautiful new uniforms today. You will wear them proudly. For you are the elite, you are the chosen."

  He walked into the dark doorway of the small stockroom to the left of the elevator and emerged with one of the new uniforms on a hanger. It was leather, black leather, and shiny. Holding the hanger with his left hand, he used his right to pull off and display the uniform's top, a strange-looking article of clothing that to Shannon resembled a straitjacket. Next, he held up the pants.

  "They're tight in the crotch," he said. "You'll love them."

  There were a few nervous giggles from some of the employees.

  There was a cap as well, a leather beret with a silver-studded insignia, and matching leather underwear: a codpiece for the males, French-cut panties for the females.

  "And you all get boots," he said. "Knee-high storm troopers. They're perfect."

  He stood there, bouncing a little on the
balls of his feet, looking up and down the line, grinning at them. Neither Shannon nor anyone else seemed to know what came next -- what they were supposed to do or say, how they were supposed to react -- and they stood there dumbly, looking at each other, looking at Mr. Lamb.

  "All right," the personnel manager said finally. "What are we waiting for?

  Strip!"

  Shannon sucked in her breath, not sure that she'd heard correctly, praying to God that she hadn't.

  Mr. Lamb clapped his hands. "Come on! Hop to! Take off your clothes! All of them! Now!"

  Joad Comstock was next to her on the right, Francine Dormand to her left, and she didn't want either of them to see her naked. She had a big red pimple on the left cheek of her buttocks, and more pimples on her shoulders. Her breasts were too small, much smaller than Francine's, and despite all the dieting her stomach was still too big. She hadn't shaved her legs, either, not for over a week, and the stubble looked really gross.

  She didn't want _anyone_ to see her naked.

  Around her, the other employees were perfunctorily taking off their clothes: removing their shoes, unbuckling their belts, unbuttoning their tops.

  "Throw your old uniforms into the center of the corridor," Mr. Lamb ordered.

  No one was balking, no one was complaining, no one was talking. There were no jokes cracked, and even the youngest employees did not giggle as their coworkers stripped.

  Jake was somewhere in line, Shannon thought.

  "Shannon Davis," Mr. Lamb said loudly, warningly, staring at her.

  She began unbuttoning her top.

  "These are _our_ uniforms," Mr. Lamb stated. "They are the uniforms of The Store and they will not leave this building. You will keep them in your lockers, and you will put them on when you arrive and take them off before you leave. You will wear your uniforms only within the confines of The Store." He paused. "If you wear your uniform outside of this building, you will be terminated." He paused again. "If you are scheduled to work and do not wear your uniform, you will be terminated."

  A wave of cold passed through Shannon as she pulled down her panties. Mr. Lamb's peculiar emphasis of the word "terminated" was extremely unsettling. She knew that was intentional, knew he wanted them to pick up on the double meaning of the word, but that did not make it any less upsetting.