Chapter 3: The Miracle Worker
(warning for use of strong language)
"Well, that's a problem," said Rick.
The employees stood circled around a wall between the entrance and the produce department. They all studied the large water stain that leaked through and bulged the blue paint.
"Hershel you need to get this fixed. No one's going to want to buy oranges with this disgusting thing staring them down," said Michonne, her lips curling.
"How do you suppose we do that? Use that big emergency fund we have stashed away?" Rick grumbled as he got nose to bubble for a closer inspection.
"Don't sass me, Grimes." She shot back with a barely there upturn at the side of her mouth.
"Rick's right," agreed Hershel, "However much this would cost to fix would be more than what we can afford."
"And no telling what's going on under all that. Water in walls tends to do more than just bubble paint." Daryl spoke up. "Mold, rotting, warping.." He trailed off once he noticed that his coworkers' curious eyes were all on him. "Might've dabbled in construction before I got here." An amused smile bloomed on the blonde's face next to him.
"Does that mean you can fix it?" Asked Rick.
"I'll take a look at it. If it's something I can handle, I'll bring in my stuff and get it done. Give you the family discount."
"Here you go, Rick. Don't ever get too down because there's always a solution around the corner!" Hershel clapped Daryl on the shoulder.
"Thank, God. And you too, Daryl. The last thing we need is to get further in the negatives," Rick ran a hand through his hair in relief.
The group began to disperse when T-Dog took a few steps closer to the stain.
"Does it look like anything to y'all?" Everyone stopped to peer back at the discolored streaksl.
"Like what?" Asked Beth taking a place next to him, both their noses scrunched in concentration.
"Oh yeah! I think I see something! A face!" Glenn ran up to the wall and began waving his finger across it, "There are the eyes, and the nose, and there's a beard!"
"Ah, that's creepy." Michonne called out.
"That's it! You know it reminds me of those stories you see on the six o'clock news about people finding potato chips in the shape of Jesus and putting them on display in their china cabinets." T-Dog chuckled.
The group again separated to get back to work while Rick kept his stare fixated on the stain.
"Huh."
"I cannot believe he's doing this," muttered Beth to her sister as they watched the show unraveling in front of them at the customer service desk. A crowd, twice as large as their humble Sunday afternoon rush hour, mingled in the store. They were all eager to catch a glimpse of both the holy stain as well as the attractive store manager who was now being interviewed by a local news reporter.
"I don't know." Beth whipped towards her older sister in disbelief as Maggie went on, "It's kind of a great advertising ploy. I mean look at all these people! And Glenn's having so much fun. There's actually a line at the register! He can finally time how many bags he can pack in half an hour. He's been worried he'd be too out of shape to beat Woodbury Mart at this year's competition.
"Maggie! This is blasphemy! I'm pretty sure this exact thing was under the 'What Not To Do' list in Sunday school."
"What is this exactly? Do you mean a man taking drastic measures to keep his family and our's business afloat? Is that was this is?" Shot back Maggie.
Her younger sister's cheeks reddened and puffed once she was finished opening and closing her mouth in a fit. She huffed in a high pitch before jumping from her seat and pushing her way past Rick and his interviewer, but not before throwing a frown into the camera over her boss's shoulder.
"Yes we here at the store feel very blessed that our Lord and Savior has chosen us to grace with his beautiful face. And we're celebrating that blessing here at the Greenes & Grimes with a nice big sale on our baked goods and fruit drinks, perfect for a Sunday after -"
"That's wonderful. Congratulations again, Mr. Grimes. This was News at 5's Mindy Marks. Now back to the studio." The reporter's smile dropped the second the cameraman yelled cut before turning back to Rick. "We'll just get a couple of extra shots of the stain, the crowd, and maybe some of the store and then we'll be off. Makes sure the close up of the stain isn't blurry this time, Barry!" Enforced the reporter as she pushed her cameraman through the adoring crowd.
Hershel sidled up to the dazed Rick, "I haven't seen this many customers at one time in years. And while I'm not on board with how you made it happen, I can't complain. Desperate times."
"You should tell that to your daughter. Beth won't stop glaring at me." Rick paused while the older man let out a laugh before continuing, "Just you wait. After people see this tv spot and the flyers I got one of Carl's friends to put on all the cars across the street, we'll have enough customers to get us a couple feet closer to getting out of the hole."
In the middle of Rick's speech, Hershel halted his nodding and frowned before asking, "Not Woodbury Mart's parking lot though, right?"
"Of course. That's where the people are. Why?"
Before Hershel could inform Rick of why that was such a bad idea, the subject of his concern stomped through the automatic doors bellowing, "No act of God can help you and your shack of a store, Greene. Now come get your desperation off Woodbury's property!"
"Meet Philip Blake. Our competition." Sighed Hershel.
The tall man with an eyepatch marched up to the two men with a wad of the green flyers in his fist.
"Philip, always a pleasure. This is my partner Rick. He's finally come back to run the store with me," introduced Hershel with a wave between the two men.
Rick's outstretched hand and greeting was unreciprocated as Philip looked him up and down before pushing the flyers in his face, "This was your idea then?"
"Nice to meet you too. And yes, it was," grumbled Rick taking the flyers.
"Why are you so angry? We're not stealing your business. Your customers won't even see the flyers till they get back to their cars," said Hershel trying to appease the glowering man.
"I'm not angry. Just tired," Philip's voice had dropped to an almost convincingly mellow octave. "Tired of waiting you out until you finally give up and sell me your store."
"Doesn't your huge and impersonal chain sell groceries? Why do need the G&G?" Rick interrogated.
Philip turned to him with a sly smile and said, "To bulldoze it over. Our lot just can't handle the weekend masses."
"Have fun waiting. Now that I'm here, things are only going to get better for this store," growled Rick into the taller man's face having settled into an intense glaring match.
Beth, who was giving the stink eye to the offending wall as she returned to her desk, suddenly stopped near the group and shrieked, "Oh my God!"
The worshippers awed, the enemies stopped their intimidation, and all watched as trails of water slid down from the eyes of Jesus.
In the chilled stockroom on the other side of the stain, Daryl had finished emptying and moving the shelf that stood in front of the moist wall when the younger Grimes shuffled in.
"You should've gotten T to help you lug that in. Even I've a hard time carrying tha- What 're you wearing?"
His spine bent over like Igor by the weight of the large toolbox in his hands stood Carl looking as if he stepped out of a reenactment of the nativity story.
"Never joke about anything with my dad. He takes everything seriously." Grumbled the young Grimes before he dropped the box. The resulting clang caused the both of them to jump and for one of them to yell out a curse.
"Careful with the tools, Joseph," sighed Daryl and the teenager cringed, "Wanna stick around in case I need extra hands?"
"I was going to anyway." Carl ripped off the brown headdress and went about following Daryl's orders to search the box for his stud finder and mini hand saw.
Daryl let the boy make sure the stained part of the wall was free to cut before he stepped in to begin the now easy job of sawing through the soggy drywall. Once he began cutting into the surface, Carl started to fill him in on the show he was missing.
"It's great. People are coming in and praying at the wall, and before they can even finish crossing themselves off, Dad swoops in to remind them about the sale. But I don't know if that's more fun than watching Beth freak out about it all." Carl's laugh faded into a sigh when he spoke her name.
Daryl slowed his sawing through the last bit of wall. "Beth?"
"Yeah. She's been stomping around the store all day. Won't even look at Dad when he tries to talk to her. It's great. She looks like an angry rabbit the way her nose scrunches up when she's mad. Glenn told me how red she got yesterday when Dad brought up his idea to y'all. Wish I'd seen it..." The boy trailed off as he slipped into a daydream of the riled up blonde.
Daryl remembered her face. Her cheeks and ears had turned rosey after Rick's announcement. But he had been more drawn to way her teeth wore out her frustration on her bottom lip. And how in the locker room at the end of the day, as she relayed her worries to him about all of them going to Hell, her teal painted fingers plaited a thin braid into her thick, curling, golden ponytail.
He pushed away the distracting images and pulled the saw the rest of the way through. The slice of drywall fell to the floor with a heavy thump and exposed the leaky pipe that spat a steady flow of water onto the wall.
Daryl had offered to talk to the kid about his crush, and Carl had unknowingly set him up perfectly for it. He wished he never brought it up to Beth in the first place. He could pass off the job to someone else, Beth herself for fuck's sake. But he sort have promised her that he would, so now he had to. Daryl braced himself for the impending awkwardness.
"Beth, huh?"
"Yeah. Beth." Carl said slowly, as if Daryl was hard of hearing.
"Nah. I meant-" Daryl sighed with a shake of his head before mumbling, "You like her?"
"Yeah, I like her. I like all y'all." Carl shrugged as he returned Daryl's tools to their homes in the toolbox.
"You like her like her though."
"I - Yes. Yeah, I like her! God, Daryl, what's with you?" The teen slammed the metal box shut before springing to his feet. He stared down the older man with a pinched yet reddening face.
"Nothing! Just - Trying to talk to you is all." Daryl shifted away from the boy and rested a hand against the wall before running his fingers over his short beard. "Once it's over, I'll for sure never do it again." Daryl grumbled.
"You jealous of the competition?"
"What are you talking about?" The butcher pushed off from his resting place to stare down Carl. He focused on projecting his indignation to distract himself from thinking about how the kid's words might have a grain of ridiculous truth to them.
The plumbing totally forgotten, the two were oblivious to the leaking water's increasing pressure.
"You're not the only single guy around here anymore! You're scoping me out!" Carl poked a finger into Daryl's face.
The man smacked the hand out of his space before growling, "I'm not scoping out a ten year old."
"I'm fourteen, Grandpa!"
"Well you're creeping her out! This is a reverse Chris Hansen intervention!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Carl annunciated.
"You know what? Fuck it! Talk to her, ask her out, I don't care." Daryl punctuated with a flick of his wrist.
The escalating yells finally silenced after Daryl's last words. He shifted on his feet as rising awkwardness filled the emptiness left by the deflating tension.
Carl sighed. He ruffled a hand through his unkempt hair before sitting on top of the large toolbox.
"I creep her out?" He asked in a small voice.
"Nah, you don't. Make her uncomfortable is all. She's just worried that maybe you think you two could actually happen." Muttered Daryl. He rubbed the back of his neck, scratched his arm, and bit his nail before settling with crossed arms. He could only let his eyes rest on Carl's twice until choosing the safe direction that was the kid's costume sandals.
"Of course I don't. I don't even have my license yet! She's just so nice you know? And pretty."
Daryl could only nod. This horrible intervention had wrangled all the words possible out of him.
"I guess I've been making a dick of myself though, huh? I'll reign back. And as hard as it is to believe right now, I think it's better I heard it from you than Beth. That would have been embarrassing." Carl let out a weak laugh. A beat passed and his downtrodden expression brightened into an amused smirk, "I guess this means there's no more competition. She's free for any guy to come in and sweep her off her feet." One of his eyebrows jumped.
Daryl chanced a glance at Carl's wicked grin. He cursed the kid's recovery time as he mulled over Carl's insinuation. He wanted to throw it back into the boy's face. Tell him that he's the only one mooning over her. That he and Beth were friends and that's that. But he couldn't.
Like Carl said, Beth was the nicest person he knew and was his closest friend because of it. If she hadn't first reached out to him, he probably never would have befriended the rest of his coworkers. In fact, he probably would have moved on to the next odd job by now as per his nomadic tendencies. It dawned on him that the thought of leaving hadn't even crossed his mind since joining the store. Butchering at the G&G, handling bloody meat aside, was the nicest gig he's ever had. He didn't miss doing hard labor outdoors, but he liked his freedom. But it occurred to Daryl that maybe he favored the chance to be around the beautiful, sweet, young woman everyday than living a life of flexibility.
Daryl's stomach dropped.
And the cracked water pipe burst.
Daryl and Carl dropped to ground at the sound of the explosion. The fresh hole from the geyser allowed the shrieks of drenched customers, worshipers, and the news team to pierce the stockroom.
Amidst the yelling and bustle of people, the two could hear the topic of their discussion yell, "See what you did Rick? You made Him angry, and He struck you down!"
AN: Wow, it's been a while hasn't it? With the amazing new season came the kick in the pants to work on this again! (And why this chapter is extra long) Hopefully the motivation will keep up.
Feedback certainly pushes me to write more ;)
This chapter is dedicated to each and every one of you who have left me such kind reviews. (Especially to the guest who once upon a time said that they checked everyday for an update. That made me smile all day.)
