Along for the Ride(27)

The girl laughed. ‘Then I definitely need to try them.’

‘Done. Let me just find your size…’

I rolled my eyes at no one, punching a few numbers into the calculator. Every time I overheard her going on in such detail about stuff like this, the nuances of different brands of flip-flops, or the pros and cons of boy shorts versus bikini bottoms, it seemed like such a waste. Here you had the capability to know so much about so many things, and you chose shoes and clothes. Leah at least seemed smart, while Esther, who clearly followed her own beat, was an individual. But Maggie was just… well, she was just like Heidi. A girl’s girl, all the way, all pink and fluff and frivolity. Even worse, she was happy about it.

‘Here they are!’ I heard her say now. ‘Oh, and I grabbed a pair of these great Dapper wedges we just got in, so you could see how they do with a bit more formal look.’

‘Thanks,’ the customer said. ‘These look great. I love shoes.’

‘Of course you do!’ Maggie replied. ‘You’re human, aren’t you?’

For God’s sake, I thought. Where was the wave machine when you really needed it?

A little while later, I heard the front door chime. A moment later, the music cranked up, this time a loud, thumping dance beat. I didn’t even have to look at my watch. By this point, I knew the nine o’clock dance when I heard it.

It happened each night, an hour before closing, regardless of whether there was only one employee or all three present, and always lasted exactly the length of one song, no longer. I didn’t know how the customers reacted, although I could remember how I had, which was why I made sure to stay in the office.

From about 9:03 to ten, there were always a few more customers and a lot of idle chatter, usually concerning plans for the night or the lack thereof. Again, I tried to make it a point not to listen, but sometimes this was impossible, which was why I now knew that Leah always wanted to go out to the clubs (better chances of meeting older boys they hadn’t known all their lives), while Esther preferred to go hear music (apparently she had some sort of singer-songwriter bent). Maggie, from what I could tell, didn’t do much other than hang out with the boys from the bike shop, most likely pining after Jake, although she swore up and down she was over him, so over him.

This night was no different, as became clear when I heard Leah say, ‘So, it’s Ladies in Free at Tallyho tonight.’

‘What was it,’ Esther said, ‘that we swore the last time we went there?’

‘We didn’t –’

‘No, no, no to Tallyho,’ Maggie recited over her.

Someone snickered. Then Leah said, ‘I don’t understand what is it you guys hate so much about that place.’

‘Everything?’ Esther said.

‘It’s better than going to open mike night at Ossify and watching some guy recite his shopping list over a drum-beat.’

‘I don’t know,’ Maggie said. ‘Is it really?’

More snickering. ‘Look,’ Esther said, ‘I’m not saying we have to go to Ossify. I just don’t feel like getting grinded on by some drunk tourist again tonight.’

‘There’s always the jump park,’ Maggie said. Loud groans. ‘What? It’s free, there are boys there…’

‘The boys we’ve known all our freaking lives,’ Leah said.

‘… and it’s fun,’ Maggie finished. ‘Plus, I heard Eli might be riding this weekend.’

I’d been adding up a long list of numbers, and at just this moment lost track of the last one I’d punched in. I hit clear, and started over.

‘That rumor,’ Leah said, ‘goes around every week.’

‘Maybe, but this time I heard it from Adam.’

‘Who heard it from Eli?’ No answer from Maggie. ‘Exactly my point. It’s like a Bigfoot sighting by now. It’s urban legend.’

No one spoke for what seemed like a long time. Finally Esther said, ‘It has been over a year. You’d think that he’d eventually…’

‘Abe was his best friend,’ Leah said. ‘You know how tight they were.’

‘I know, but still. He has to get back to it sometime.’

‘Says who?’

‘What she means,’ Maggie said, ‘is that it was his life, back then. And now he’s here, managing the shop. It’s like everything just stopped.’

Another silence. Leah said, ‘Well, for him it probably did. You know?’

There was a tap on the door behind me, making me jump: at some point, Esther had slipped away from them and come back with the cash from the register. ‘We’re about out of here,’ she said as she came in. I moved aside, like I did every night, as she ducked under the desk to the safe. ‘You almost done?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. She swung the door shut, pulling out the safe key. ‘I’ll, um, be out in a sec.’

‘All right.’

When she left, I turned back to my calculator, starting to add again. Halfway down the row of numbers, though, I stopped and sat as still as I could, listening hard to see if the conversation would double back to where it had been before. When it didn’t, I bent back over my numbers, punching them in slowly this time, one by one by one, so as not to make the same mistake again.