by Banks, R. R.
"Go ahead," a voice snapped at us from behind me and I looked back.
The woman behind me was holding the handle of her cart like she was threatening to hit me again, but she lifted one hand to gesture angrily ahead of us. I looked forward seeing that the line had moved a bit. Cristina and I stepped away from each other and I drew in a breath as we followed the others.
Finally, it was our turn and I started loading all of my selections onto the counter. The cashier swept each across the sensor and dropped them into the bags at the end of the station. They were piling up and I realized that she expected me to take them, so I went to work snatching them out of place and settling them back into the cart as she filled them. Cristina made space by moving her purchases behind a divider bar and soon the cashier swept the final item. I grinned proudly, then she hit the total button and I felt my stomach fall.
"Three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents," she said.
I drew in a breath.
"What?"
She turned the screen toward me and I saw the bright red numbers of judgement.
"Three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents."
The bills that I had tucked into my pocket loomed large and I felt my cheeks burning. The people behind me were starting to mumble and I heard a few choice words that did not have a place in any Christmas song. I stumbled over my words, not knowing what to say. My eyes scanned over the items in the bags, trying to find something that I could swap out. It was a sickening feeling, something I had never experienced and didn't expect to happen.
"Don't worry," Cristina said from behind me. "I'll cover you."
She reached in her pocket and withdrew a five-dollar bill. I sighed with relief as I accepted it and added it to the rest of the money I had brought with me. I handed it over to the cashier, took the change and receipt, and got the hell out of the way.
Chapter Ten
Cristina
"Here's your change."
I laughed as I took the quarter out of Josh's hand and dropped it into the empty baby food jar that I kept in the car for change. I had had the same jar since Matteo was a baby and even though the label had long-since worn off and the lid was dented from being dropped countless times, I couldn't imagine getting rid of it.
"Thank you," I said.
"No, thank you," he said. "I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been there to save me. I've never been in that situation before."
His voice sounded as though the situation had genuinely affected him, and I shook my head, waving him off as I started the car.
"Don't worry about it," I said. "I've been in that situation more times than I can count."
"You have?" he asked.
"Of course. You see that baby food jar? I put all my coins in it whenever I get them. Sometimes I slip in a dollar bill or two. I do that because there were a lot of times when Matteo was little, and I hadn't gotten this job yet that the little side jobs and part-time work that I had wasn't enough. The paychecks might not quite stretch to meet each other, and I'd find myself without something that I needed. I knew that I would get paid in two or three days, or sometimes even the next day, but I needed milk or toilet paper or something for dinner that night. It couldn't wait. So, I would get out my baby food jar and see what I could do with what was inside it. There were times when I would stand at the cash register counting out pennies trying to cover what I had picked out. I have literally spent down to my very last penny and dealt with lines of people staring at me while I hoped and prayed I had enough, and sometimes when I didn't. This was long before self-checkouts, the boon to all single mothers and fathers everywhere."
"That sounds awful."
I thought about that for a moment, processing what he meant by it and what the words made me feel.
"You know, there were times when it was. And there were times when I looked at it like a game. I'd try to see how much of the purchase I could make in pennies, and then how much in nickels, and then dimes. I held off on using the quarters or bills until the very end. No matter how I felt about it at any moment, though, I got through it. I always survived it. And now I'm here. I still put money in the jar because I want to remind myself what I got through and how far I've come since then. And sometimes I still use it."
"I'm sorry you had to go through that."
"You know, I'm not the only one who ever has. There are a lot of people who struggle and worry. There are a lot of people who have to make compromises about what they are going to get each week because they simply can't afford to get everything. I didn't just give you a budget and tell you to pick out gifts for a whole family to watch you scramble, not that that wasn't a bonus. A lot of those people that you saw tonight really have been saving for months to try to have enough money to get gifts for their family for Christmas. Doing Black Friday shopping isn't about fun or adrenaline, it's about necessity. Shopping during these sales is the best chance that they have to maximize their budget and get something for the people they love. Some parents have multiple children they are buying for and no one to help them. They try to do the bulk of their shopping now so that they still have a few weeks to try to eke out anything else that they can. That's why the tactics that you use matter so much. It's not about the sales numbers. It's about the people who are affected by it."
Josh drew in a breath and let it out, looking around as people streamed from the store, rushing toward their cars with their arms loaded with their purchases. Some moved faster than others. Those were the ones I knew would be heading to other stores, trying to score other items on their lists while knowing that they were climbing an uphill battle now that the stores had been open for a few hours. Other were slower, finished with their shopping for the night and savoring the moments of calm before they headed home to hide their treasures.
"What do we do now?" he asked. "Is there another store to go to?"
"You're all out of your budget," I said seriously, then laughed. "This was the only one that I really had my eye on."
"So, it's all over?"
He sounded disappointed, and I realized that the thought that our time together was over for the night sent a shock of disappointment through me as well. I didn't want to be away from him. I didn't want to let go of the fun that we were having together. The heat of his body against mine as we stood in the line was still strong in my mind and as much as I knew that I shouldn't, I wanted more.
"Well, it doesn't have to be," I said. "We could participate in one of my other favorite holiday traditions."
"What's that?"
"Wrapping."
We had finally made it out of the parking lot and I started down the street, weaving around cars that were still trying to get to the parking lot and had drifted over into the other lane.
"I thought that you said you found the wrapping station," Josh said.
"I did, but that doesn't mean I used it. It was a little hectic there and the people didn't seem totally ready to handle it all. Besides, I really enjoy the whole wrapping thing. I like to put on a Christmas movie and eat candy canes and wrap. It puts a festive spin on all of the stress of shopping."
"I tell you what. Bring me back to the parking deck so I can get the money you made me leave behind and the wrapping paper is on me. As a thanks for covering me. You can teach me to wrap presents as well as your grandmother."
I laughed and nodded.
"It's a deal."
The years of Black Friday shopping have taught me a few things, and one of them is that even though people tend to flock to the bigger stores when they open in the middle of the night, there are plenty of other stores that open and that often have really good deals for things that shoppers need. We had traded into Josh's car and I directed him to one of the smaller stores in my usual rotation. We roamed the aisles gathering wrapping paper, tape, ribbon, bags, and various other wrapping accessories that he felt we couldn't do without. I was trying to get him to decide between papers in three different shades of blue when
I heard familiar voices the next aisle over. The laminated list of stores that Constance had given me flashed through my mind and I realized that I had coordinated our shopping paths without even realizing it.
I felt myself go tense, pausing with my hands gripping the rolls of paper as though they were going to somehow conceal me.
"I think that I like---" Josh started.
"Shhhhh," I said sharply, cutting him off as I tilted one of the rolls of paper forward to press against his lips. "Quiet."
His eyes widened, but he nodded. I lowered the paper and he looked at me quizzically.
"What's wrong?" he mouthed.
I pointed toward the aisle.
"My sisters," I mouthed back.
He shrugged at me to show his confusion, shaking his head.
I shook my head back at him and leaned toward the aisle to try to hear where they might be. I couldn't hear their voices anymore and I thought that maybe they had gotten what they needed and moved on. I shoved all three rolls of paper into our already-full cart and started creeping toward the end of the aisle. I had only gotten a few steps when all four women came around the corner.
Damn.
"Cristina!" Maria said, obviously surprised to find me.
I thought as quickly as I could.
"I told you I'd catch up with you," I said.
I saw the women glance around my shoulders toward Josh and I took a step to the side to try to block him from view. Considering he was only a few steps behind me and considerably larger, however, I didn't really have much of a chance of hiding him. I saw Maria's eyes widen and then Constance's, then Suzanna, and finally Millicent like a wave of surprise that just bordered on suspicion. Josh stepped up beside me and smiled at them and the border totally disappeared. All four sisters straightened, their eyes traveling up and down Josh with scrutiny. I felt strangely defensive as I saw Millicent, the youngest and most ravenous of the five of us, undressing him with her gaze, her mouth practically watering as she imagined --- likely the same thing that I had been struggling not to imagine every time that I was within five feet of him.
Or when I wasn't within five feet of him.
"Who do we have here?" she asked.
"I thought you said that you had to take care of some things for work," Constance said.
"You had to miss the first four stores because you were so busy with some mysterious work emergency."
I didn't know what to say. I had been totally caught. I started to stumble over some sort of explanation, but then I heard Josh.
"My name is Josh Worthington. Cristina here works at the office of some of my business associates. I've asked her to help me handle the holiday decorations and celebration for the office this year as a token of gratitude for all of the hard work that they did leading up to the beginning of the Christmas shopping season."
He said it so smoothly that I almost wondered if I had somehow missed that conversation and started thinking about the types of decorations that I could help him put in place in the office. The feeling of his hand touching my elbow brought me back into reality and I plastered on a convincing smile.
"Yes," I said. "We've been designing the tree display for the lobby." I grabbed up one of the tubes of wrapping paper. "We're going to wrap a bunch of gifts to put under it."
"That's a lovely idea," Maria said.
I nodded. The oldest sister was convinced. I had them.
"Yes," Josh said, slipping into his masterfully manipulative voice that I knew was going to charm all of them. "I am grateful for all of the help she's giving me. I know she'll make sure it turns out perfect. We actually have to go, though. There's a lot of work to get done so we'll be heading to the office."
"Really?" Millicent said. "It's the middle of the night."
"Yes, well, I'm responsible for following the sales reports so I thought that I should maximize the time. We are going into a very busy season, you know."
All four of my sisters made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a murmur of agreement. Before they could bring themselves out of the fog, Josh tightened his grip on my elbow and lead me out of the aisle and toward the registers. I didn't risk saying anything to him until we had bought everything and were back out in his car.
"You can lie with the best of them, you know?"
"I wasn't lying," he said.
"Oh, really?"
Dammit. Did I actually forget a conversation that we had? Did I concoct this whole thing about me teaching him about Black Friday?
"We have enough things here to decorate the office and I'm sure that we can throw together a little party for the staff for when they get back on Tuesday. I'll call the caterer and it will be all merry and stuff. There. Not a lie."
"So, we really are going back to the office?" I asked.
"Not the Sommers office," he said. "I want to show you my office."
I felt a little flutter in my chest and a smile came to my lips.
Chapter Eleven
Josh
"Why on Earth would you spend so much time at the Sommers office when you could be here?"
I smiled as I watched Cristina look around the office. Positioned at the top of the building, the office was spacious and airy, two walls entirely made of windows.
"You like it?" I asked.
"It's gorgeous."
"Thank you. I wish that I could be here more."
"Why aren't you?"
I shrugged.
"The Sommers business is technically bigger even though mine is older and comparably as financially successful, if not more successful at times. It also makes more sense for the three of them to stay where they are and me to go to them rather than them come here."
"I don't think that's fair," she said. "They aren't taking over your business or dissolving your holdings and creating one entity under their name. You are discussing a merger under which both store models will continue to operate as individual stores in addition to the blended concept stores. You shouldn't be treated like a less-important aspect of the relationship."
I was stunned and stared at her, not knowing what to say.
"Wow."
Smooth.
"I can do my research, I know what I'm talking about."
"Do you really?"
She stared at me defiantly for a few moments, then shook her head.
"No. I'm not even sure that I said all of the right words."
I laughed at her candor and nodded.
"Actually, you did pretty well. You summed it up."
"Can I ask you a question?"
I felt my heart sink slightly. I didn't want her to start asking questions about Willa again. We had spent such a fun night together and the last thing that I needed was to have to think about her or the reality that I was going to have to go back to when this was all over.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Why are you going through all of this?"
Well, that wasn't what I expected.
"What do you mean?"
"You own this business, right? Just you? You don't have a whole bunch of stockholders or anything?"
"No, I don't have any stockholders. It's privately owned. Always has been."
"Alright. When I was doing all that research, I read a thing about hostile takeovers and I realized that when you were talking about this whole thing with the Sommers family, it didn't sound like that was what was going on."
"You're right. It's not a hostile takeover."
"Then why? Because, and I hope you don't mind me saying this, I hope it doesn't overstep my bounds or anything, but it doesn't seem like you are too happy about everything that's going on."
"You don't have to think about bounds with me," I told her clearly, wanting to make sure that she heard and understood each word that I said. "But I guess you're right. I'm not terribly happy about all of this, but I know it's the right thing to do."
We had borrowed one of the mail hoppers to unload the car and Cristina had started to unload the bags from it, lin
ing them up along the floor in different piles according to what was inside. Her ponytail and all black outfit complete with combat boots made her look like an adorable tiny SWAT member, but the concern in her eyes took away some of the cuteness. I saw emotion and concern there that I wasn't accustomed to seeing anywhere else and I felt the pull toward her increase sharply.
"Why? Why do you know it's the right thing to do?"
"My father and Wilton were very close friends. They met when they were children and their fathers were running the businesses. Ever since they took over their respective chains, they talked about how amazing it would be if the businesses combined and made one enormous retail giant. It would provide opportunity for greater power and growth than either would be able to accomplish on their own, and it would allow the families to stay close. Ever since I was a child, I knew that that was the eventual intention, though they had never taken steps to start bringing the companies together formally. For years we had been loosely working together to create sales and product lines to make sure that our competition was healthy and beneficial for both. Then they started putting more official plans into place to start bringing the companies together. When my parents died, everything fell to me. Suddenly the business was mine. The legacy was mine. But I knew that I was just carrying on what my father wanted and had worked so hard for. It's my responsibility to fulfill that for him, to make sure that I can accomplish what he didn't have the chance to for himself."
"But you wish that you didn't have to," she said.
It wasn't a question, but a statement, as if she could look inside of me and know exactly what I was thinking.
"I know how hard my father and grandfather and great-grandfather worked to build the business. I also know that my father thought that so much more could come from the two businesses combining. But I really don't like the thought of the company not fully belonging to my family anymore. No matter how well I get along with Wilton, eventually he's not going to be the one who is in control of the business. Even if he was, I don't want to think about someone else having any type of control over the work that my family did. I've watched the ways that they've changed and the steps that they are starting to take. For now, I have the option of not going along with anything that I don't agree with, though I admit that I haven't always done it. When the companies merge, though, I won't have that option. I'll have to fight for everything and just accept when they change things even if I don't want them to."