Becoming Daddy

by R. R. Banks

  "I can definitely understand why you would want to sit down and eat all of this," I said.

  "Why do you think there's only half a pie?" she asked.

  My phone gave a loud trill in my pocket and I fished it out.

  "Is that thing going to explode?" she asked, pulling back slightly.

  I chuckled and shook my head.

  "It's an alarm," I told her. "I set it earlier today."

  "For what?"

  "The whole reason I'm here," I said mysteriously. I turned the phone around so that she could see the screen. "Black Friday shopping at my store starts in exactly four hours."

  "You came here to be reminded of when your own sale starts?" she asked.

  "No," I said. "There is a system set up to provide real-time updates on sales from the different store locations throughout the area. I came to monitor them."

  "That sounds like a delightful way to pass an evening," she said, a slightly distasteful look on her face. "I'm sorry that I've come and ruined your solitude."

  I flashed her a glare and looked back down at my phone. Just as we had requested, the managers from each of the stores were starting to send in their initial messages, confirming that they were ready and that they had followed our instructions to make sure that the sales went as smoothly as possible.

  "It looks like things are gearing up nicely. I'm sure that everything's going to go well."

  "Have you heard from Willa?" she asked.

  I shook my head, wishing that she hadn't mentioned her.

  "Not since yesterday. She's supposed to be back sometime tonight, but honestly, I have no idea. I'm sure I'll hear all about it whenever she does get back."

  "How long have the two of you been together?"

  "A long time," I said. "I don't really remember."

  "Do you live together?"

  I am not thankful for this conversation.

  "No," I told her. "We don't."

  Relief washed over me when I heard my phone trill again and looked down to see another message on the screen.

  "What's going on?"

  "The main store will be opening the parking lot in an hour and they want to confirm that they aren't to allow people to line up until an hour before the doors open."

  "Is that new?" she asked.

  I nodded.

  "Last year the managers complained about the lines and people knocking on the doors for hours, or staring in and scouting things out while they were still getting ready. There were a couple of fender bender accidents in the parking lots and it was a bit messy, so I wanted to do something to try to ease that. So, I had gates installed at the entrances to the parking lots that won't open until three hours before the doors open, then people aren't going to be allowed to line up to get into the actual store until an hour before the doors open."

  "I must have missed the announcements about that," she said.

  I felt some of the happiness that I had been feeling drain away.

  "There weren't any announcements," I said.

  "There were commercials for your store every ten seconds for the last three weeks and you published a huge glossy ad in the newspaper announcing all of your deals, and you didn't think that you needed to mention to the people who were going to swarm to the store that the way that you were going to handle the crowds had completely changed since last year?"

  "Is that a problem?"

  "Hundreds of cars bottlenecking at an inexplicably locked parking lot and then allowed into the parking lot only to be trapped in their cars for two more hours? No. Not at all. I can't see anything that might go wrong with that."

  "Do you really think that there is going to be that much trouble?"

  Cristina stared at me for several seconds as if waiting for me to laugh or reveal that this was all some elaborate hoax that had a punchline I hadn't quite caught up with yet. Finally, she tilted her head at me and narrowed her eyes until I felt like I was under some kind of intense scrutiny.

  "Have you ever been Black Friday shopping?"

  Oh, shit.

  "No."

  "Never?"

  "Never had the opportunity."

  "Yeah, I can see where privately owning a chain of wildly successful retail stores would limit your chances to go shopping."

  "You'd be surprised."

  "How can you possibly think that you are able to understand what people going Black Friday shopping need or want when you've never even done it?"

  I opened my mouth, hoping that brilliant words would miraculously form, but I only heard silence, so I closed it. After a few seconds, I opened it again.

  "I don't know."

  Cristina wiped her mouth and stood up, starting to gather up all of the containers from the table.

  "Do you really need to sit here and watch the updates?" she asked.

  "Not really," I said. "I'll get the full reports after the weekend. I was mainly doing it to fill time."

  "OK, good. Come on," she said when she was finished packing.

  "What are we doing?"

  "We're going Black Friday shopping."

  Oh, serious shit.

  I turned off the lamp and followed Cristina out of the office.

  "What do you mean we're going Black Friday shopping?" I asked.

  "What do you think I mean? You want to learn more about how this season works and what you can do to make the most of the holiday shopping season? You aren't going to learn any of that from some texts from terrified store managers and sales reports. All that's going to tell you is what happened before it all started and then what made it to the cash register. If you really want to know what's happening and make a difference, you need to get down into the thick of it all and know what your shoppers are really experiencing."

  I followed her into the elevator and pressed the button for the parking garage.

  "Alright. Which store do you want to go to? I can call ahead and let them know that we're coming so they'll let us into the back."

  "I want to go to the main store, but you're not calling ahead."

  "I'm not? Why?"

  "I said that you're going Black Friday shopping, not that you're going on another of your corporate tours. Getting let in the back and ushered through the lines isn't going to teach you anything. You need to know what it's really like. You're going to do this right, and that means getting out with the crowds and doing what they do. It also means some preparation."

  "Preparation?"

  Cristina nodded as the doors to the elevator opened and we stepped out into the nearly empty deck. I could see my car ahead of us, but I had to look around to see a tiny compact I assumed was hers tucked into a far corner like she had purposely hidden it in the shadows, so I wouldn't see it when I got there.

  "That look isn't going to work. Do you have anything more casual?"

  I glanced down at my khakis and sweater.

  "How casual?"

  "I wouldn't choose now to whip out your flannel old man pajamas or anything, but perhaps an outfit that doesn't look like you should be patting the head of an Irish setter and staring into a golden sunset."

  I stared at her for a few seconds.

  "I'm not sure what that means."

  We walked toward her car and Cristina scrambled around in her purse for her keys.

  "I would look for something maybe in a nice denim." She looked at me and sighed. "Alright, we'll add that to the shopping list. Just try to look as little like you own the store as possible. Meet me back here in half an hour. Bring $200 in cash."

  I felt like I was getting myself involved in some kind of weird drug deal, but before I had a chance to say anything else to her, she tucked her bags into the back of the car, slid behind the wheel, and backed out of the parking spot. Still processing the instructions that she gave me, I walked over to my car and headed out of the deck toward my house. Only having half an hour didn't give me much time to get ready, but that was probably for the best. This was a situation that I didn't think would be benefitted by thinkin
g too much.

  Chapter Eight

  Cristina

  This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy.

  My cheeks were burning so much as I headed out of the parking deck and toward my house that I reached forward and turned the heater off, so I could feel like I could breathe. What in the living hell was I doing? Bringing Josh dinner was a humanitarian effort. No one should be left alone on Thanksgiving, and definitely no one should be forced to eat restaurant food and pretend that it is a holiday feast. That just wasn't going to happen. I just planned on bringing him the home-cooked Thanksgiving food that everyone deserved on the holiday, spending a little bit of breathing time away from the craziness of my family, and then go about my day. I was already letting myself get too close. I was already allowing myself to feel too comfortable and too attached to Josh. He had a girlfriend. A wealthy, powerful, gorgeous girlfriend who just so happened to be the daughter of the man who owned the company I worked for.

  Somewhere between giving the man some turkey and getting the hell out of there, though, I had lost all control and invited him to go shopping with me. No. I had demanded that he go shopping. It was consumerism by duress. The truth was, I did think it was important that he go with me. He held the control of a large portion of many people's holiday shopping in his hand, yet he didn't even really know what he was planning. He couldn't possibly understand the impact of the plans that he had made if he didn't even have one experience to base them off of, and I was going to make sure that he did. Some of the issues that I had heard him and the Sommers family discussing over the weeks had stuck with me. Some were ill-advised, some were fairly unfeasible, and others were just downright shady. I had tried to sway Josh away from the most grievous, but it wasn't my place to directly tell him how to do his job. He needed to see it for himself. Besides, I hadn't been able to hear all of the conversations that they had. I could only imagine some of the other plans that got put into place that I didn't even know about.

  In the back of my mind, however, I knew that it wasn't just a humanitarian desire to rescue holiday shopping from the greedy grasps of corporate evil.

  I should share that description with Willa. It would be a good way for her to sign her Christmas cards. Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings from your neighborhood Greedy Grasps of Corporate Evil.

  Instead, I craved more time with Josh. I wondered about the precedent I was setting by taking our interaction outside of the office. No matter how much Chinese food we shared or how long our conversations drifted into the night, it seemed like the environment of the office created a bubble around us. It somehow helped to maintain a sense of distance, as though we only knew of each other and influenced each other's existence in those brief times that we were together in the office. How was it going to change that when we were no longer in that space? My attraction to Josh was building steadily and no matter how much I tried to see Willa's face in every Christmas ornament and terrifying bell ringer that had popped up for the season, I couldn't stop thinking about him. This was only intensified after we had talked about her. I thought that I would see the sparkle in his intoxicating blue eyes that would tell me that he loved her, or at least hear something in his voice that said that there was a side of her that I didn't know that came out when they weren't at work and that made who she seemed to be worth it. But I hadn't seen any of that. In fact, he had only seemed sadder and more distant when he spoke of her, and was eager to end the conversation as fast as he could.

  That was still on my mind when I turned into the driveway of my house and stepped out of the car. Lights were burning inside and by the time that I got near the porch, I could hear the voices of my relatives streaming through the windows. The hour didn't matter to them. These people had no decorum when it came to Black Friday shopping. Which is one reason I was not particularly looking forward to telling them that they needed to go on without me. Fortunately, I didn't have much time built into the night before I needed to meet Josh back at the parking deck, so I was only going to be subject to but so much holiday season guilt.

  Another lovely Christmas card sentiment or store motto for the season. Guilt, Gelt, and Gild...all you need for the holiday season. It's multicultural so it works on several levels.

  My sisters and mother descended on me as soon as I got into the house.

  "Where were you?"

  "What were you doing?'

  "You said you were going for an after-dinner walk!"

  "Where do you walk with two grocery bags and a cooler filled with leftovers?"

  "Do you know how close you are cutting it to the schedule? We could be late because of you."

  I nodded at each of the admonishments as I crossed through the house on the way to my bedroom.

  "I know. I'm sorry. Something came up. Look, why don't you go on ahead. I know the order of stores. I have a couple of things that I have to take care of for work, but I'll catch up with you."

  "Catch up with us?"

  "What could you possibly have to do for work this early on Black Friday?"

  It truly didn't matter to my oldest sister Maria that it was still technically Thanksgiving. If the last bite of pie had been swallowed, it was Black Friday. I knew that there were stores in some areas that were starting to do the holiday creep and opening their doors on Thanksgiving itself, and I was glad that the Sommers and Josh at least had the decency not to play into that. Storming the stores when it was still dark out was one thing. Cutting into the holiday itself was something completely different and unforgivable in my book. Some things were sacred, and the turkey coma surrounded by loved ones was one of them.

  I could still hear them questioning me when I closed my bedroom door and changed into an outfit more befitting Black Friday shopping. I swept my hair up into a ponytail, dabbed on some extra mascara for confidence, and walked out of the room, snatching the laminated shopping schedule Constance had made for us off of my dresser as I went. I held it up for them to see as I walked back through the house toward the living room, stopping off to grab my savings from inside of the collection of antique books I had tucked into a shelf on one wall. I wasn't one to trust the idea of credit cards. I much preferred feeling and control of cash in my hand, and figured the books were as secure a place as any to keep it.

  "I'll consult the list and give you a call when I can meet up with you," I said. I checked the first store that they would be going to and handed Constance some of my cash. "You know what I have my eye on," I told her. "Grab it for me."

  She nodded and tucked the money away in her bra, the opposite cup of where she had stashed her own savings.

  The time-honored place of concealment.

  I hugged each of them and left, rushing to my car so I could get back to the parking deck. It was empty when I slid back into my usual parking spot, and for a few seconds I thought that maybe Josh had thought better of the plan and wasn't going to come. Then I heard the squeal of tires and looked out to see his car shoot into place beside mine. We rolled down our windows and he leaned across the passenger seat to talk to me.

  "Am I late? Did I ruin everything? Are we going to have to beat up old ladies to get to doorbusters now?"

  "You laugh," I said, "but that first time a granny throws an elbow and knocks you into a display of Distractamabobs, you're not going to think it's so funny."

  "Distractamabobs? I don't think I'm familiar with that brand."

  "Of course, you aren't. Get in and I'll tell you all about them."

  "You're driving?"

  "You don't seriously think that I'm going to let you roll up to your store in a car that is worth more than several of your employees' annual salaries put together, do you?"

  I saw Josh's eyes flitter around the cabin of the ultra-luxury vehicle that I noted was not the same one that he had driven off in.

  "Probably not," he said, looking back at me.

  I shook my head and he climbed out of his car, reaching in to grab his jacket and his wallet.

  "You only
brought the $200, right?"

  "Yes, but do you really think that's enough?"

  I thought about it for a moment.

  "Alright. You can bring $300, but that's it. Everything else, including credit cards, stays in your car. It'll be safe here unless one of the people who work in the building is suddenly going to decide to throw caution to the wind and use their personal access code to get into the deck just so that they can ransack your car."

  I watched him pull a thick stack of cash and several credit cards out of his wallet and tuck them away in a folder in the glove compartment. He put the rest of the cash back in his wallet and came around to the passenger side of my car. I leaned across to unlock the door, wondering as I did it if he had ever even seen a car with manual locks. I had intended for a while now to replace my old car, with something that at the very least was a little closer in age to my son, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet. Things always seemed to come up, and the truth was that I loved my little car. For all its faults and outdated inconveniences, it was a trusty old friend. We had an understanding. I made sure it never ran out of gas and always smelled good inside, and it didn't break down on the side of the road in bad weather or the dark.

  As soon as Josh was settled into the seat and his seatbelt in place, I grasped the wheel and looked over at him.

  "Are you ready?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  "As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose."

  "Good."

  I pulled out of the spot and turned the car so that I could leave through the back entrance, which brought us closer to the store.

  "So, tell me more about these Distractamabobs. I don't remember even putting them in the ad scan."