I knew Paige was coming to work today, I'd seen the schedule. So fine. Just because I was working with her didn't mean I had to talk to her. I was all decked out in my uniform behind the counter just waiting for her arrival, and it annoyed me that my heart was beating so fast.
I saw her heading over with that patented Paige strut, blond hair bouncing as she walked. Even from this distance I could see the funny blue/green shade of her eyes.
"Hi," she said, looking down and then up at me. In a way I had the advantage, I'd been here longer, I knew how to deal with Meeri, I knew what I was doing.
"Hi," I said, short and sweet. That was about all the talking we'd need to do today. But I couldn't help sneaking glances, couldn't help noticing the blond highlights in her blond hair, the way she smiled at customers, the way she half-smiled at me.
So I broke down. She asked questions and I answered them, and for a half a minute I forgot that I was supposed to hate her and people like her and all they represented, and I smiled at her and got her full smile in return.
Then I see Spinner and all them coming toward us. The popular kids. Paige's little crew. Her boyfriend lapdog. I narrowed my eyes at Paige but she didn't notice, restocking the candies between customers. I narrowed my eyes at Spinner and all his little friends, they didn't notice either.
I swear Paige didn't see them until they were smack dab at the counter in front of her, and her baby talk to Spinner made me want to puke. I was glad I cut Jay loose. I didn't need him or all his shit. Looking at the shit-eating grin on Spinner's face I thought Paige should do the same. Screw them. Screw guys. They just want to fuck with you, that was all.
"More popcorn," Spinner was saying, "Stop halfway for butter," Paige was dutifully fulfilling all his requests and I was glaring at him now. Even his friends were looking at him like he was going too far. The only one who didn't seem to notice how obnoxious he was being was Paige.
"That's real nice, Spinner," Craig said to him.
"No," Spinner said, the cunning little look still on his face, "it's good training," At that Paige's shoulders slumped and she looked defeated and trapped, a look I'd seen on my mother's face about a hundred times. I don't know what prevented me from lunging over the counter and pounding on Spinner, but something must have. They walked away, over to the little metal tables set up a little ways away. Good, go. I watched Paige try to shrug it off, try to regain her composure. Neither seemed to be happening.
She explained to me that the cretin I just saw wasn't her boyfriend. I never understood this sort of denial, this sort of backwards reasoning. That wasn't him. It was the drugs. It was the alcohol. It was the stress. What is wrong with everybody? Bad behavior is still that person, you can't divide people like that, can't split them into how they act under these circumstances and how they act under those circumstances. Spinner was treating her like shit, and he was choosing to treat her like shit.
"I'd be shopping around for a new boyfriend," I told her. She licked her lips, and that sexy little song popped into my head, Lips Like Morphine. I suddenly wanted to taste those lips. I felt almost hypnotized by her sometimes. I shook my head. What a fucking dream. Christ.
"Well, why don't you take the garbage out to the back dumpster," I told her, she nodded, shoulders still rounded like that. I wanted to punch Spinner in his stupid face. Paige gathered up the garbage, the swollen black bags looking like they might split wide open.
Across the way, at the little metal tables, I saw Spinner walk by his friends and say something, but I couldn't hear what. Craig got up as he walked by, went up to him and shoved him. Paige held the garbage bags, stared at them, her mouth a little o of surprise.
"Looks like someone has the balls to stand up to him," I said, and she breathed out through her nose, shook her head. We both watched as the shove turned into a wrestling match and turned into a full out fight, both of them falling to the floor, Craig raising his arm and just pounding on Spinner like I'd wanted to do. Craig was my new best friend. Paige ran over to them with the garbage bags, tried to break them up. I could hear her from where I was, her high pitched pleading tone.
"C'mon, I work here!"
Then Meeri, with her stern little Meeri eyes. Threatened that she called security and made them go. She didn't call security but the bluff worked with spoiled little high school kids. I laughed to myself, Spinner got what he had coming, though I would have liked to have been the one who did it.
Then Meeri fired Paige, and I could see her crestfallen look, her wide-eyed stricken face. Paige left, the garbage bags forgotten where the fight had been, and I watched her go. She walked slow, blond hair limp against her back.
I walked fast over to Meeri, and she turned her stern little eyes on me.
"Meeri, Paige had nothing to do with that fight,"
It was too early for this, Meeri gave me that steely eyed stare.
"Not now, Alex," she said, and marched away. I picked up the garbage bags and brought them to the dumpster, and fully planned on having a long talk with Meeri at closing time, a long talk about responsibility and blame and fairness. I'd get Paige's job back for her, and it looked like Spinner was doing a pretty good job of seeing that she would become unattached.
