Sometimes a Light Surprises by Jamie Langston Turner

Author:Jamie Langston Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2009-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

Kelly was sitting on the edge of the sofa in Caroline’s office, waiting for Mr. Buckley to get off the phone. It was her first summons to his office. She’d heard other employees talk about being called in, usually not for anything good, but so far all her encounters with Mr. Buck since her hiring interview had been friendly, casual ones out on the floor. He was always polite to her but usually seemed preoccupied and in a hurry to get on his way. Even though he had complimented a couple of her window displays, she wasn’t sure he liked her as a person very much. But then he was a funny man. He didn’t seem overly impressed with anybody.

She was trying to prepare herself for anything. Maybe he was going to release her. Or maybe he had found a designer with more experience and was going to ask Kelly to be a floorwalker. She had already made up her mind that she would do that if he asked. It wouldn’t be as interesting a job, but she would get used to it. She was trying to convince herself not to think of it as a demotion. The floorwalkers’ main responsibility was to circulate in their zones, answering questions and keeping an eye on the shoppers and the merchandise.

The hardest part, the part she was already dreading, was having to follow up on suspected shoplifting activity. That wouldn’t be fun. Recently LaTeesha had reported a woman slipping jewelry inside her purse in the Pearls and Diamonds showroom, and there was a big, ugly scene outside the store before it was over. The woman had pretended to be insulted and had threatened to sue LaTeesha for every cent she was worth. LaTeesha told her that would be the lowest settlement a court ever awarded.

“It sure looks bare in here, doesn’t it?” Caroline said. She was sitting at her desk across the room, looking at Kelly over the top of her computer screen.

Kelly nodded and smiled. “Yes, it does.” She looked around to where the pictures on the walls used to be and the two little tables and the magazines and the brass umbrella stand and the coatrack. All of the smaller things had already been moved to the new offices, even though the official moving date for the Bazaar was still three weeks away. They would move the big items later, closer to the grand opening at the new location on Labor Day.

Kelly was hoping to have the opportunity to suggest putting the tables and brass coatrack inside Mr. Buck’s new office to make it look more executive. The three pictures, too—they were nice, understated abstracts in blues and purples. They would look nice on the wall behind his desk. And there was a blue plaid sofa in Mr. Begian’s Classic Interiors showroom downstairs that could replace the plain gold one he had now, which could be put somewhere else. They could use a sofa in the break room, in fact. Then, of course, Macon Mahoney’s large linocut.

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