workers unknowingly surrounding a soiled conference table
Of course, that which is initially perceived as pretty fuckin funny, it can eventually become a concept which others will eventually wrap their heads around, too. It starts somewhere around 7, when he notices that she is still here, bebopping around the store, passing through the community room every so often with wave or a grin. Then just after 8 she’s in here again, perched on the edge of the patient chair and asking him how he plans on pulling this off, logistically.
“Well, okay,” he begins, sticking out a thumb, and then successive fingers, as he begins elucidating these various points, “I just so happen to have blankets and pillows in my trunk, don’t ask me why. Which I should probably go get here soon, after the place clears out…but yeah, so then, as long as the internet holds up, I mean, there’s all kinds of things to get into, which…”
“I’ll bet,” she says, offering a suggestive smirk.
“…heh heh, well, no, I probably won’t be watching porn, if that’s what you mean. Considering they’ve got all the CD drives disabled, they might be tracking that shit, too. I mean it’s possible. But no, I was thinking, like, you know, I can read, I can play cards. Listen to music, obviously. Maybe a little later I can fire up YouTube or something. And hey,” he clicks his fingers, having just thought of this angle right this very second, “I could actually just connect my laptop to the TV in the community room, now that I think about it. So long as there’s an HDMI cord to be had around here.”
Valerie’s eyebrows shoot up and she smiles, nods her her head a few times, says, approvingly, “hmm, you make a pretty compelling case, actually…”
A silent few seconds will follow, as she smiles at him, expectantly, though he initially fails to realize what she means. “Oh! Wait!” he eventually replies, “do you mean…”
She nods and shrugs, allows, “yeah, I mean, like you said, what’s the point? Driving home now would actually be pretty fucking stupid.”
“Yeah but you only live, like, five minutes away from here,” he suggests.
She shakes her head and says, “not at the moment I don’t. I’m kind of in between places, shall we say, heh heh. We’ve been staying up with my parents, it’s like a 45 minute drive from here. Almost as bad as you.”
“Oh wow. But then what about the…didn’t you have…”
“What, the boyfriend? He’s toast…well, I don’t really know, it’s hard to say. But right now, yeah. He’s mostly toast. He’s semi-toast.”
“He’s parbaked,” Edgar jokes.
Was this not entirely inevitable, obvious from the outset? Well, yes, Edgar supposes, it certainly seems that way now. In retrospect it always seems inevitable that this would happen, though to talk as such before it happens always sounds cocky or delusional. And there are certain seemingly sure things which failed to transpire, anyway, across the ages, which also always spooks him from ever talking about such. But in truth, he had thought this about Valerie from their first meeting, an afternoon he remembers distinctly. He had just exited the second floor ramp, dumping him off in the last aisle, between frozen and bulk, as Destiny was making her rounds with this new hire Valerie, and introduced them then — and immediately his thinking that, maybe it’s the ego tripping every guy falls victim to at some point, but even during that initial encounter, he just knew they were going to hit it off. Though subsequently blocking out every thought of such, both as a self-defense mechanism, but also to avoid unwittingly trying to force this to be true.
Nothing much changes until it’s well past 10pm. He has long since clocked out, naturally, is quietly spinning a succession of playlists on Spotify, lazily flipping through articles he has bookmarked for reading later — in other words, the kinds of things he would be doing at home, maybe, though in all seriousness almost never does here. It’s gotten so quiet that he fears and mostly suspects that Valerie changed her mind and split without saying anything. Then, following a mild flurry of activity, voices and the sounds of people hammering keys to punch out in the back hallway, these noises trail away to nothingness. Even so, he continues goofing around on his computer for another good fifteen minutes, continuing to hold out hope but avoiding the surely inevitable disappointment anyway. Until, that is, he hears some rustling footsteps, which even then he can’t entirely verify from here, not before she materializes in his doorway, hands outstretched to touch both sides of it, as a dramatic gesture, as she beams over at him.
“Well, it looks like we pulled it off!” she declares.
“Seriously? Sweet!”
He pops up from his chair, and without even discussing such, both venture out into and across the community room, to the bank of windows overlooking their store. From here, they can just barely glimpse over the tall freezer doors, beyond the subsequent shorter aisles, to the now darkened deli. There are some low wattage lights here and there, enough to glimpse most of the store, and not a visible other soul in sight.
“This is so weird. But…oddly kind of beautiful,” he says with a laugh. Then adds, “I can’t believe how late the deli people stay here, though. I don’t think it’s like that at Palmyra.”
“Yeah…and they get here early as hell, too!” she points out. “Granted, it’s a totally different crew — at least as far as I know it is — but yeah, like Lakshmi, and the Russian women, they get here at five in the fuckin morning!”
This is something he hadn’t counted upon, and he feels his spirits momentarily drop. Once he’d realized he could connect his laptop to the big TV here, and even located a cord for doing so, he had intended to create a makeshift bed on the community room table and pass out. The only problem with that plan is that he failed to consider who would be getting here in the morning, and more importantly, at what time.
But then it’s on to more practical concerns. Like, for example, he hadn’t quite planned on playing host for this exceptionally strange sleepover, but that’s how it feels right now, as though since it was his idea, now he’s got to come up with ways to entertain her. To this end, he brings out his laptop, and fires up YouTube, just to make sure it’s working, before connecting to the giant, mounted television, looming in the corner above the conference table.
“So whatcha into?” he asks, as they kick back — sort of — in the not exactly comfortable, square metal chairs, he in the middle, she at the foot of the table with her back to the windows. “They’ve got a decent amount of old movies, a bunch of weird, forgotten TV shows, old sporting events, poker, uh…music videos, obviously…”
“Eh, I don’t give a fuck,” she says, admits with a self-conscious laugh, “I didn’t even have cable at my house. It still seems weird that my parents do.”
“Yeah, I don’t either. I mean, there’s no need to,” he says, gesturing toward this screen.
“That’s pretty cool that you figured this out. Then again, you’re really good with computers, right?”
Edgar busts out laughing, causing Valerie to whip her head in his direction, though, smiling, and asks what’s so funny. “Nothing, it’s just that half the people working here would say that is my job. Um. No. I mean I guess it’s somewhat true, but that’s not my job. Good With Computers isn’t really anyone’s job, anywhere.”
“Really? Well, I mean, I know mostly you’re just dealing with numbers here, but…”
“Right. If you want to get technical, as far as payroll goes I’m in the accounting department. Definitely not the IT department. Like, OK, to stick with this analogy,” Edgar suddenly considers, and holds up the remote for this television, “I would be the guy back at the home office entering the information that comes up, when you start mashing buttons on here. But I wouldn’t know the first thing about, like, climbing on someone’s roof and installing the cable service. Or repairing the satellite up in outer space.”
“That’s funny. Because every time the internet goes down around here…”
“Yes! Exactly! Someone’s running up here and bugging me about it first thing! But you probably know as much about it as I do…”
“That’s true. I probably do,” she admits, playing with her hair, having flopped into a chair at the end. She too is stuck working this weird atypical Saturday event, but with even less to do. “But don’t tell anyone.”
“Palmyra’s even worse,” he muses, on a roll now with this topic, “you can pretty much guarantee that every time you’re in that store, the internet’s gonna go down for awhile. Then they’re tracking me down. Hey man, think you can take a look at it? Usually like a total chump I’ll just go ahead and contact IT myself instead of telling them to do it. But sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be better just to tell them, look, this isn’t my job, please leave me alone. Call the damn IT people yourself.”
“Oh yeah. I wonder about that all the time. Like that day with Harry and the gluten free list. I’m sitting there like, uh…..I’m literally too stupefied to even come up with a response for a couple of seconds there. All I can think is, how in God’s name did he ever get the idea that this is something I handle?”
“Yeah,” Edgar snickers, “tell me about it. And then all I could think was, well wait a second, if Harry’s under the impression that this is Valerie’s job, then what does he think that I do all day?”
“It’s a horrifying thought, isn’t it? I worry about that sometimes, like, thinking, please don’t let me ever become the befuddled old-timer who doesn’t understand what the fuck is going on. Please. Anything but that!”
“Oh yeah, totally. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s like this…vague fog, swirling around in their heads. If they had to describe your job, they would say you’re…Good With Computers.”
The most hilarious aspect of this conversation, perhaps, is that Harry is the one heading up their latest store opening. Or maybe that, going even a level higher, that the climate is so surreal around here that nobody even thinks it all that strange. Although it’s certainly telling that, clearly unimpressed by this operation himself, during what is generally presumed to have been his first and only visit, they haven’t seen John Amos in here ever again.
He’s actually a bit mystified as to what’s even going on with this store opening. Though aware that it’s located in the Arcadia section of town, on the eastern fringe of Chesboro, neither he nor most other employees have yet seen it. Harry, Duane, Corey, and Vince are all over there quite a bit, possibly one or two others, but that’s it. This despite Edgar asking Harry on a couple occasions thus far, “are you sure I’m not needed for anything over there?”
“Hmm mmm,” Harry has decisively assured him, with a steady shake of the salt n’ pepper hair helmet, “I’ll let you know when you’re needed.” He even goes as far as to explain his vision for how this will transpire, once he enlists Edgar’s help. “See, I’m gonna have you just go through the entire store, scanning everything — boom, boom, boom — and then I’ll have this whole team of people right behind you, hanging all the tags.”
So in the meantime there’s nothing to do but wait. The way Duane has explained it, the permits needed for a new store like this are beyond brain numbing. The city won’t approve permit A until they have received permit B, which is itself only issued upon being granted permit C. And even that minefield might be navigable, except for the fact that permit C is contingent upon a green light for A. So it’s weeks upon weeks of this glacial near standstill.
Edgar has done what he can around the fringes thus far. A handful of new items have trickled in for Arcadia, and he’s added these. Their accountant down in Orlando, Reece Leibovitz, discovered that although it’s considered part of Chesboro, the Arcadia shopping plaza actually sits about a block beyond the county line, which has opened up a whole other can of sugar free organic gummy worms. The extra 1% prepared foods tax doesn’t apply there, and as their Orchestra software has no functionality for charging a different tax rate for the same stuff, depending upon location — they’ve been in touch with the software’s creator, Jacques, up in Canada, concerning that point — and considering that they’ve already begun construction of a smoothie/coffee bar for Arcadia, to serve precisely some of the items this tax would apply to, this means they’re forced to get creative yet again. It isn’t just a tax issue, it’s an EBT one as well, so now they’ve got this brand new sub-category, Grab & Go 2, with the middle tax rate, yet also not eligible for EBT. With a whole slew of specially created PLU numbers, to be added to their scale which is not yet online, and entered of course into their Orchestra database as well, though these numbers are otherwise identical to the items already being sold at Southside and Palmyra.
Aside from this, while stuck in this holding pattern at Arcadia, there are just the standard daily grind type projects, albeit heightened as this is the holiday season. Though they’ve finally gotten Pat to knock it off with jacking up deli dishes every time his margin comes back soft, the Thanksgiving turkeys have been a mini-debacle. Their illustrious merchandiser for some reason ordered reams of a totally normal supplier that half of the grocery chains in existence use — Smithson Farms — and they’ve therefore been forced to slash that retail in an attempt to keep up with their competitors. The only problem is, they don’t quite have the purchasing power of a Cost Merchant or a Harry Teet, and aren’t getting quite the same price breaks. Leaving them now in an awkward spot of making just four cents per pound on these turkeys, which is nowhere near a 25% margin, yet is still much higher than every other retailer selling Smithson as their Thanksgiving birds.
But he tries not to dwell upon that, particularly now. Though work-related conversation inevitably crashes this charming little party, Edgar battles to keep this to a minimum — which is accomplished easily enough once he gets Valerie talking about the ex, or the semi-current, or whatever the boyfriend is now. Here in this community room where, as the only two souls in the building, they have flipped on the overhead lights, lending it the feel of some meeting room you’d rent for a few hours at a middling outerbelt hotel. And yet, apparently catching herself, attempting not to get bogged down in this overly sentimental quagmire, Valerie navigates a course correction into garden variety wistfulness.
“Don’t you think it’s sad how we never have enough time or money to do what we truly want?” she asks, suddenly mournful, toying with her necklace as they sort of halfway watch this District 9 movie that Edgar seems to remember being a lot more interesting the first time. “We spend all this time working, but then don’t get to travel where we want to anyway, or really do any of the things we really wanna do.”
“Whoa, how did this get so deep?” Edgar questions, chuckles. However, when she fails to laugh, and regards him with curious, pursed lips, he clears his throat and adds, “no, but I hear what you’re saying. That’s why I don’t even really care about owning things, I would rather just go out and do stuff, and travel.”
Valerie continues fidgeting with her necklace for a few silent moments, before sighing, “yeah…damn I wish we would have planned this better. We could use really use some drinks right about now. Totally. We need some drinks, and we need some snacks. Although come to think of it…,” she says, with a wicked grin, and pointedly turns her head in the direction of the beer cooler.
Edgar’s eyes go wide and he snaps his fingers, as this thought has somehow just popped into his head as well. “Oh! You know what? No need for any of those drastic measures.”
“No?”
“No. I’ve got just what we need.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh yeah. Trust me. I mean, do you like wine?”
When she shrugs and says sure, he dips into his office, returns a short while later grasping a bottle in each hand: something called Merops Ornatus, and some other line called Trentadue. They’re both reds, which is all he’s really into, anyway, and even then only on miserably cold nights such as this.
“Helping ourselves to some handier merchandise, eh? Nice, nice,” Valerie cackles, nodding approvingly at this development.
“Eh, no, not exactly. I try to keep this on the down low, but…my brother’s girlfriend is a wine rep. This store is on her route, or whatever you call it.”
“Seriously? No way. That’s cool,” Valerie says, as he sets these bottles on the table.
“Yeah…so what do you think? You into either one of these?”
“Yes. And yes,” Valerie giggles, grasping each bottle in turn from behind, tilting it in her direction for a closer inspection.
“Cool. Oh wait,” Edgar says, realizes he forgot to grab the corkscrew tucked away in his junk drawer. As he walks away, he continues explaining, calling out from the next room, “yeah, so she gives me free bottles every so often. And actually she’s the one who kinda hooked me up on my new job, too.”
“What!? Your new job? You’re not leaving us, are you?”
“Noooo. Nothing like that. I’ll be working part-time at this country club, on nights and weekends. I’m supposed to start this coming Wednesday.”
Drinks in hand, once some perfectly acceptable vessels are secured for consumption — neither wants to appear to so crudely mannered as to drink from the bottle, it seems — it’s only a matter of time before the next inevitable development rears its head: sustenance. To this end, however, they also have no need to pilfer the shelves, for there are two shopping carts and some assorted boxes, bags on top, shoved into the corner of the merchandisers’ office. In a similar vein to Melanie’s wine freebies, these are assorted promotional materials, given to them by various reps, to be used for whatever. This would include employees sampling these products themselves, a perfectly viable use case in that it makes them more knowledgeable, if not converting them into customers of this item, even.
As far as tonight goes, however, they have specific needs. Casting aside the mountains of lotions, vitamin packets, and the likes of a male “enhancement” product featuring an admittedly ripped looking, shirtless African-American dude covering a significant portion of this item’s label, Valerie giggles to stumble upon these flavored honey sticks.
“The rep was actually trying to pitch these to me, for some reason,” she informs Edgar, “he was, like, this Middle Eastern dude, and he kept telling me, these will keep you juicy, reeeeeeal juicy. You wanna be juicy, dontcha?”
Both cackle as she relates this tale, continuing to flip through one shopping cart apiece, although for Edgar, it is conjuring some fairly vivid mental imagery. This is perhaps not the setting for such activities, but they do seem to have a pretty good rapport developing between them, and so who knows where future evenings might lead?
More to the current point, they have various chip bags, not just potato-based, but stemming from every other known source as well. And energy bars, and candy bars, though the real find, the mother lode at least in Edgar’s eyes, is when he unearths a layer of various high end beef jerky varieties near the bottom of this cart. Score!
It’s only a natural feeling reflex move that as they reenter the community room, he flips off the light beside the doorway and they settle into their seats once more. As she now scrolls through the offerings and finds something a little more exciting for them to watch, he begins to consider the blankets and pillows in his car, wonders when the right moment is for broaching this topic, without coming off as a lecherous perv or something.
Inevitably, getting about half a bottle into the wine apiece solves this problem. Somewhere just after this point, about when they raid the snack arsenal a second time, and begin conjecturing about the mathematical formula for time remaining versus difficulty in sleeping in this environment versus the effects of wine versus the wisdom of potentially opening a third bottle of wine, Edgar braves the already considerably less harsh elements to drift out to his car for a pair of blankets, pair of pillows, and then a hooded sweatshirt, too, for good measure — perhaps influenced by this bitter cold, it seems like a good idea while out here, anyway, and couldn’t possibly hurt. Owing to the murkily defined hierarchies around this place, Edgar has never possessed a key to any of the stores, but even though it turns out that Valerie does have a key to this one, he has left the sliding ones here open just a crack, paranoid about who knows what kind of unforeseen mishap that leaves him stranded out here. And meanwhile, she has been busy trying to find one of those giant, padded, back supporting pillows, vaguely u-shaped which she insists is also stowed away in the merchandisers’ office somewhere. Also “just might” happen to “stumble upon” another bottle of wine somewhere, considering that his limited freebie stash is depleted, and if so, he is not to inquire as to its source.
On this score, she has already done so, cracked this bad boy open — one of their cheapest reds, he sees — and must be feeling somewhat more ambitious than he, as well, in that it’s a 1.5 liter specimen. Has already poured each of them what amounts to their fifth glass of the night, is sipping from hers with a merry grin. The damage is already done, so to speak, if this is indeed contraband, and as they’re toasting their fully recycled and recyclable cardboard coffee cups, it occurs to him with just a twinge of wicked delight that this is at least bringing down the Executive Beer Hipster’s alcohol margin ever so slightly.
It’s encouraging that she has not just found the enormous, padded pillow, but has placed it suggestively upon the conference table. He was kind of wondering about the logistics for pulling this off, because in his original, hastily scribbled blueprint, he was planning on crawling into the cavity underneath his desk, sleeping on the floor. Maybe she has casually placed it here, without a thought, but before losing his nerve or second guessing anything, has also just let go of this blanket and pillow bundle, allowing them to drop where they may on this table. Right before he accepted that cup from her, before he settles into the chair next to hers, in the middle of the table, facing the television.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she says, smirking, facing the flickering images on the screen, “I put on Cold Case Files. I figured some random old crime playlist would be better than dicking around with another movie every hour and a half. This can just play all night, right?”
“Oh no, this is good. As long as the internet doesn’t go out, we should be golden. I’m actually kind of surprised we haven’t had-”
And he has no sooner unleashed these words, then does the image freeze on the screen. Which causes both to simultaneously unfurl sharp, if slightly uneven, laughter bursts. Followed a good fifteen second run where both stare silently at the screen, mesmerized, spooked, mentally willing it to come alive again.
“Uhhhh……….”
“Heh heh. Heh.”
No amount of playing with the cables, rebooting, stuffing pins into voodoo dolls or lighting votive candles and praying over top of them will bring this blessed entertainment delivery portal back to life. The expected comments that Edgar has jinxed them somehow eventually surface, suggested by both. As Valerie pours them another half cup — half of a coffee cup, that is, as opposed to four ounces, four fluid ounces — and they mull the possibilities of entertaining themselves with random clips from YouTube, that she snaps her fingers and says she thinks there’s this DVD she borrowed from Barbara, sitting in one of her desk drawers. Disappears in there, having flicked on that insanely harsh seeming office light, and can be heard rummaging around for untold minutes before returning empty handed.
“So…what now?” she questions, one hand on a hip.
He opens his mouth to speak, but just then…the screen across the room unexpectedly sputters back to life. They share a glance or raised eyebrows and grins, though don’t otherwise comment on this phenomenon. And the same applies to how both now wordlessly climb aboard their intended makeshift bed.
Atop this plenty large enough but not exactly giving, laminated faux wooden conference table, they begin arranging this cobbled together nest. They eventually conclude that just one blanket is way too thin, but they can lie atop both, and it’s warm enough in here to go without coverage anyway, and that this is just barely adequate. Situating that giant back support pillow thingamajiggie up around their heads, with the remaining pillows stuffed into its u-shaped crevice, this offers plenty of support for their heads, too. In a flash of what feels like brilliant insight, he thinks to set an alarm clock on his phone, for 4am, leaving just enough time to clean up the incriminating evidence and…well, for him, anyway, crawl under his desk like originally planned, he supposes. Although it’s disconcerting to realize that the time has already advanced past eleven, and, while a little bit buzzed, he’s not exactly wasted, and also doesn’t see how he’ll be falling asleep up here anytime soon. As if reading his mind — which, on second thought, isn’t all that surprising, considering they’re in the same leaky lifeboat — Valerie expresses pretty much the same sentiment.
“Oh my god,” she sighs, “it’s not even midnight yet! But at the same time…I’m not the least bit tired. I can’t myself see getting much sleep tonight. Or any, really…”
“Same here,” he says.
Bored in almost no time with the crime shows, and further fueled by the deadly combination of wine and discussions of music, they almost immediately course correct into watching music videos instead. Initially, absent any better options, they take turns thinking up treasured clips they’d like to see, as he types these titles into his laptop. Having by now determined that the big screen overhead is far too bright, they’ve cut that cord, at least, and are now viewing these clips directly on his device. Except that after no more than three turns apiece, this begins to seem like way too much work, and they give up this ghost in favor of just letting some random 250 song 1990s and early 2000s playlist roll out, featuring all manner of genre.
“The sad part is, I’m not the least bit fucked up, either,” Valerie observes, half sits to grab the steadily diminishing wine bomber and accept a lengthy kiss directly from its mouth, before reclining once more.
“Yeah…it’s been an interesting time and all…,” he begins.
“It’s been something, anyway. It’s definitely been…something…,” she interjects.
“…but I wouldn’t necessarily care to repeat this, uh, experiment, ever again…”
“You said it,” she allows. “I mean, what are we gonna do?”
Oddly enough, although lying atop some blankets beside this quite attractive warm body, he hasn’t really given much conscious thought to making any moves on her here. The situation just hasn’t played into that particular hand. Even the potential opportunity of making oneself more comfortable for bedtime hasn’t reared its head, as he’s remained in his khakis — not the first time this has happened, by any stretch — and taken off no more than his shoes and his polo shirt, leaving just the faded old tee underneath.
As for Valerie, he still maintains that there’s this unmistakable essence of a 1940s film star about her. Whether intentional or not. She even occasionally wears the hairstyles of such, like for example when her raven locks are pulled up into one elaborate sweeping curl atop her head. Tonight it’s merely long and straight, but the sheer black blouse with white polka dots and the tan corduroy pants are very much in keeping with his look, as was her bright red lipstick earlier in the day, though mostly faded now.
Whatever the case, there’s no denying this has suddenly become a charged moment, if in his head alone. And as his heart beats out of his chest, maybe even visibly so, he feels as though this ocean liner sized anchor weight of silence demands that he say something. And while he wouldn’t necessarily call the inspiration behind this comment “liquid courage,” it’s probably safe to say that the wine…yeah, it’s definitely not a non-factor.
“Well, I know one thing we can do…,” he suggestively offers, with just enough of a chuckle to leave himself an escape hatch, and play it off as a joke.
And this defense becomes more and more likely with every passing second. Though Valerie makes an amused, or at least what he’s hoping was amused, grunting sound, she doesn’t actually say anything. A bare minimum of fifteen seconds must pass, during which time it becomes increasingly aware that he has blundered. It helps that she is on the near side of the television, and facing that way, but only so much. He’s just about to open his mouth, too, and institute the joke defense, until she finally speaks.
“Eh, what the hell,” she says.
At this, he can’t help laughing, and questions, “seriously?”
“Sure. Why not,” she replies, smiling and turning toward him at last. As she also unbuttons her pants, unzips them, begins pulling them down.
Is it possible to describe an encounter as romantic, absent any verbal platitudes whatsoever? Or for that matter, without so much as kissing, or even touching one another up until this moment? Not in his experience, and yet, that’s exactly what is happening here.
It does the trick as well, soon regarding their sleep. At least up until shortly after that 3:56am moment where, feeling awesome on many different levels, no less for waking slightly before his alarm even went off, he sits up and, facing that bank of windows, his thoughts move in short order from a warm reminiscence about these events, to a slow realization that the deli lights, at the far end of the store, already appear to be on.
He jumps to his covered feet, having also dressed himself following their little …interlude… as did Valerie, mostly in the name of warmth, though she wrapped one edge of the blanket around herself, while he had draped that hoodie over his own top half, crossed his arms underneath. Races over to the window where, yes, the highly unambiguous form of Lakshmi can be seen flying around at breakneck speed back there, even from here. Dear god, how early does this woman report for duty? Well, it is a big event staring them in the face, hours from now, and she surely has a ton to knock out. Although this leads inevitably to the next thought, a sidelong glance over at the community room’s rear door, with its quite large rectangular window, with the time clock immediately beyond it, the time clock that any hourly employee, such as Lakshmi, would have used to set the meter running on her day. Yikes.
“Hey, uh…Valerie…,” he croaks.
