Am I Right or Am I Right? by Barry Jonsberg

Author:Barry Jonsberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780375849459
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-02-12T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

From harlot to heroine

If it’s all the same to you, I’ll let the details of my long walk to work remain in oblivion. Maybe deep hypnosis could resurrect the grisly experience, but some things are best left buried.

I’ll tell you one thing, though. It was not a happy, carefree Calma Harrison who finally staggered through the doors of Crazi-Cheep on Saturday afternoon. It was a Calma Harrison in the mood for violent confrontation with any pensioner who glanced at her sideways. I burst through the automatic doors looking like Sexually Deviant Barbie. Mothers grasped small children to their bosoms as I clicked toward the staff changing rooms. I couldn’t see Jason. That was the only bright spot in an otherwise bleak situation.

At least I had the opportunity to clean myself up. Typically, the store only provided cheap Crazi Brand soap for its employees, but it did the trick. The mascara was stubborn, though. By the time I’d finished scrubbing my eyes with gritty soap, the redness around my face made it seem like I had been sobbing hysterically for a large portion of the millennium. For once I was grateful for the outsized uniform. I stripped down to my underwear and unless a freak tornado careered down aisle twelve and lifted up my uniform, I would remain decent. The wig had to go, as did the high heels. Those things were spawned from a mind of pure evil.

I marched from the changing room straight to Housewares, where I picked up a multicolored dish towel and folded it into a bandanna. With my red eyes and a tea towel on my head, I resembled the late Yasser Arafat, but I didn’t give a stuff. From there, I went to the section that had flip-flops. My transformation from Penthouse Pet to middle-aged housewife complete, I fronted up to Candy at customer service to inquire about my duties for the evening.

I was hoping she would say something about my appearance. I was in that kind of mood—the sort where if someone says, “Good evening,” you’re liable to give them a stiff-fingered poke in the throat. But she just assigned me to shelf stacking again.

That didn’t improve my mood either. I wanted to say, Oh, I was good enough for the registers when you were desperate, but now the brain-dead zombies you call your staff have returned, I’m back to the chorus line, is that it? I didn’t, though. It was just another small flame under my simmering anger.

I plunged through the plastic curtains out the back and loaded up a cart with sundry items apparently in short supply on the shelves. I grunted at one of the men when he smiled and said hello. Provocative bastard!

I was slamming cans of something onto a shelf and cursing softly under my breath when there was a tap on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to slam a can backwards into a rheumatic ankle and got wearily to my feet.

It was my father. Of course it was.

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