In Too Deep(23)

"Not a problem Melina. Here, if you can fill this paperwork out, I'll pair you off with Kelly up front to have you do some training in about thirty minutes. Now officially by pharmacy policy you are supposed to do your entire shift today just watching, then next time we can actually trust you to use the laser scanner without blinding yourself, so you're probably going to be bored."

"If it gets too bad I'll ask if there are any boxes I can stock or something. What do we have?"

The paperwork wasn't anything out of the ordinary, standard IRS forms and an employee profile sheet. There were also a few other pieces, nondisclosure agreements and stuff like that. I was familiar with all of it and knew that Jay was just doing what needed to be done. Sitting down at the desk I got them all completed and double checked in plenty of time.

"Oh great," he said, looking them over. "By the way, here's your name tag."

He handed me a pretty typical looking plastic name tag, with the word MELINA put on with what looked like stickers. Underneath, in a detachable pocket, was a smaller tag that said trainee.

"That'll stay until the the end of the month," Jay explained, "it's part of the pay structure too. Once you are through the training phase, we bump your pay up. Not a lot, but it's something."

"I didn't take the job to make a ton of money," I said. "But your offer was for shifts that allow me to spend the most time I can with Cam. Isn't that what's important?"

"I like that idea, too bad more couples don't think that way," Jay replied. "Okay, well, let me introduce you to Kelly. She'll be your trainer today, we'll see about your next shift. Come on."

I followed Jay up front, where he handed me a pharmacy apron and helped me pin on my name tag. Kelly was a nice girl, just nineteen, with sort of dishwater blond hair and a mousy face that told me she most likely had spent a lot of nights in high school lonely and alone. "Hi."

"Hi," I said, offering my hand. Kelly's handshake didn't change my impression of her, nor her quiet voice. Then again, I realized I shouldn't be one to judge. Until meeting Cam, I'm sure a lot of people had the same impression of me. "Thanks for offering to train me."

"It's okay," she said, giving me a small little smile. We got started by her going over the basics of the register system, which was nearly identical to the system I'd used in Lima. Most registers nowadays are, after all. You scan, the system pops the price, you go to the next item. If something doesn't scan you can either put it in by the UPC or SKU code, or for prescriptions and other items like that you used a customer code that was generated by the pharmacy techs in the back. The system was nearly foolproof, which was probably a testament to the ability for people to screw it up.

By eleven o'clock I was fully confident in being able to do the job, and Kelly also could see I knew what I was doing. "So what had you move to this dump?" she asked, shifting to small talk. "No offense, just that this isn't exactly a popular place for new people to move. Hell, even with the Spaceport thirty miles away nobody wants to move here."

“I don’t know if you know him, but I’m dating Cam Swagger," I said simply. "We met on vacation."

"Oh, Mr. Swagger? You're dating him?"

"You know Cam?" I said. "How?"

Kelly blushed and twisted her hands in front of her. "He uhm, he was my English teacher last year. I really liked his class."

"So how is Cam as a teacher? I've never seen him in the classroom," I said, "although I got to watch him a bit with the basketball team."

"Mr. Swagger's awesome," Kelly said enthusiastically. "He didn't talk down to us or anything, but still you could tell he expected us to work hard and he was always pushing us to do better."

The rest of the shift went quietly, until right before the end. I was going over end of shift procedures with Kelly, who was showing me the checklist I needed to go over each time before handing off the register. The little electronic chime over the door buzzed, and I looked up to see two men come in. There was nothing all that out of the ordinary about them, there'd been at least a dozen other men just like them coming in and out during the shift, so I ignored them at the time.

As I went over the checklist again, I got the weirdest feeling and glanced up. There was nothing in sight, but when I looked into the old fashioned security mirrors in the corners of the store I saw both men standing in the middle of one of the back aisles, looking up at the mirror. I swore they were looking at Kelly and I. "What the?"

“What’s wrong?" Kelly asked, and I shook my head. "What is it?"

"I just swear that those two guys who came in are staring at us," I said quietly. "See them in the mirror?"

Kelly glanced up then looked over. "Maybe they think you're cute."

“With that look? I don't think so. Are they locals?"

Kelly looked up again, then shook her head. "I don't think so. I've never seen them before. Want me to do a walk-by?"

I shook my head. "No, just keep an eye out. They're not doing anything wrong.”

"Okay. Still, Mr. Winters tells us that if we have a strange feeling, we should act on it. Better safe than sorry, you know."

In that moment, something Jay said came to mind. I'd trust Cam with the keys to this place and the registers stuffed full of flu season cash, but he seems to be a magnet for things going wrong.