Chapter Eight
Cristina
This is crazy. This is crazy. This is crazy.
My cheeks were burning so much as I headed out of the parking deck and toward my house that I reached forward and turned the heater off, so I could feel like I could breathe. What in the living hell was I doing? Bringing Josh dinner was a humanitarian effort. No one should be left alone on Thanksgiving, and definitely no one should be forced to eat restaurant food and pretend that it is a holiday feast. That just wasn't going to happen. I just planned on bringing him the home-cooked Thanksgiving food that everyone deserved on the holiday, spending a little bit of breathing time away from the craziness of my family, and then go about my day. I was already letting myself get too close. I was already allowing myself to feel too comfortable and too attached to Josh. He had a girlfriend. A wealthy, powerful, gorgeous girlfriend who just so happened to be the daughter of the man who owned the company I worked for.
Somewhere between giving the man some turkey and getting the hell out of there, though, I had lost all control and invited him to go shopping with me. No. I had demanded that he go shopping. It was consumerism by duress. The truth was, I did think it was important that he go with me. He held the control of a large portion of many people's holiday shopping in his hand, yet he didn't even really know what he was planning. He couldn't possibly understand the impact of the plans that he had made if he didn't even have one experience to base them off of, and I was going to make sure that he did. Some of the issues that I had heard him and the Sommers family discussing over the weeks had stuck with me. Some were ill-advised, some were fairly unfeasible, and others were just downright shady. I had tried to sway Josh away from the most grievous, but it wasn't my place to directly tell him how to do his job. He needed to see it for himself. Besides, I hadn't been able to hear all of the conversations that they had. I could only imagine some of the other plans that got put into place that I didn't even know about.
In the back of my mind, however, I knew that it wasn't just a humanitarian desire to rescue holiday shopping from the greedy grasps of corporate evil.
I should share that description with Willa. It would be a good way for her to sign her Christmas cards. Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings from your neighborhood Greedy Grasps of Corporate Evil.
Instead, I craved more time with Josh. I wondered about the precedent I was setting by taking our interaction outside of the office. No matter how much Chinese food we shared or how long our conversations drifted into the night, it seemed like the environment of the office created a bubble around us. It somehow helped to maintain a sense of distance, as though we only knew of each other and influenced each other's existence in those brief times that we were together in the office. How was it going to change that when we were no longer in that space? My attraction to Josh was building steadily and no matter how much I tried to see Willa's face in every Christmas ornament and terrifying bell ringer that had popped up for the season, I couldn't stop thinking about him. This was only intensified after we had talked about her. I thought that I would see the sparkle in his intoxicating blue eyes that would tell me that he loved her, or at least hear something in his voice that said that there was a side of her that I didn't know that came out when they weren't at work and that made who she seemed to be worth it. But I hadn't seen any of that. In fact, he had only seemed sadder and more distant when he spoke of her, and was eager to end the conversation as fast as he could.
That was still on my mind when I turned into the driveway of my house and stepped out of the car. Lights were burning inside and by the time that I got near the porch, I could hear the voices of my relatives streaming through the windows. The hour didn't matter to them. These people had no decorum when it came to Black Friday shopping. Which is one reason I was not particularly looking forward to telling them that they needed to go on without me. Fortunately, I didn't have much time built into the night before I needed to meet Josh back at the parking deck, so I was only going to be subject to but so much holiday season guilt.
Another lovely Christmas card sentiment or store motto for the season. Guilt, Gelt, and Gild...all you need for the holiday season. It's multicultural so it works on several levels.
My sisters and mother descended on me as soon as I got into the house.
"Where were you?"
"What were you doing?'
"You said you were going for an after-dinner walk!"
"Where do you walk with two grocery bags and a cooler filled with leftovers?"
"Do you know how close you are cutting it to the schedule? We could be late because of you."
I nodded at each of the admonishments as I crossed through the house on the way to my bedroom.
"I know. I'm sorry. Something came up. Look, why don't you go on ahead. I know the order of stores. I have a couple of things that I have to take care of for work, but I'll catch up with you."
"Catch up with us?"
"What could you possibly have to do for work this early on Black Friday?"
It truly didn't matter to my oldest sister Maria that it was still technically Thanksgiving. If the last bite of pie had been swallowed, it was Black Friday. I knew that there were stores in some areas that were starting to do the holiday creep and opening their doors on Thanksgiving itself, and I was glad that the Sommers and Josh at least had the decency not to play into that. Storming the stores when it was still dark out was one thing. Cutting into the holiday itself was something completely different and unforgivable in my book. Some things were sacred, and the turkey coma surrounded by loved ones was one of them.
I could still hear them questioning me when I closed my bedroom door and changed into an outfit more befitting Black Friday shopping. I swept my hair up into a ponytail, dabbed on some extra mascara for confidence, and walked out of the room, snatching the laminated shopping schedule Constance had made for us off of my dresser as I went. I held it up for them to see as I walked back through the house toward the living room, stopping off to grab my savings from inside of the collection of antique books I had tucked into a shelf on one wall. I wasn't one to trust the idea of credit cards. I much preferred feeling and control of cash in my hand, and figured the books were as secure a place as any to keep it.
"I'll consult the list and give you a call when I can meet up with you," I said. I checked the first store that they would be going to and handed Constance some of my cash. "You know what I have my eye on," I told her. "Grab it for me."
She nodded and tucked the money away in her bra, the opposite cup of where she had stashed her own savings.
The time-honored place of concealment.
I hugged each of them and left, rushing to my car so I could get back to the parking deck. It was empty when I slid back into my usual parking spot, and for a few seconds I thought that maybe Josh had thought better of the plan and wasn't going to come. Then I heard the squeal of tires and looked out to see his car shoot into place beside mine. We rolled down our windows and he leaned across the passenger seat to talk to me.
"Am I late? Did I ruin everything? Are we going to have to beat up old ladies to get to doorbusters now?"
"You laugh," I said, "but that first time a granny throws an elbow and knocks you into a display of Distractamabobs, you're not going to think it's so funny."
"Distractamabobs? I don't think I'm familiar with that brand."
"Of course, you aren't. Get in and I'll tell you all about them."
"You're driving?"
"You don't seriously think that I'm going to let you roll up to your store in a car that is worth more than several of your employees' annual salaries put together, do you?"
I saw Josh's eyes flitter around the cabin of the ultra-luxury vehicle that I noted was not the same one that he had driven off in.
"Probably not," he said, looking back at me.
I shook my head and he climbed out of his car, reaching in to grab his jacket and his wallet.
"You only brought the $200, right?"
"Yes, but do you really think that's enough?"
I thought about it for a moment.
"Alright. You can bring $300, but that's it. Everything else, including credit cards, stays in your car. It'll be safe here unless one of the people who work in the building is suddenly going to decide to throw caution to the wind and use their personal access code to get into the deck just so that they can ransack your car."
I watched him pull a thick stack of cash and several credit cards out of his wallet and tuck them away in a folder in the glove compartment. He put the rest of the cash back in his wallet and came around to the passenger side of my car. I leaned across to unlock the door, wondering as I did it if he had ever even seen a car with manual locks. I had intended for a while now to replace my old car, with something that at the very least was a little closer in age to my son, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet. Things always seemed to come up, and the truth was that I loved my little car. For all its faults and outdated inconveniences, it was a trusty old friend. We had an understanding. I made sure it never ran out of gas and always smelled good inside, and it didn't break down on the side of the road in bad weather or the dark.
As soon as Josh was settled into the seat and his seatbelt in place, I grasped the wheel and looked over at him.
"Are you ready?" I asked.
He nodded.
"As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose."
"Good."
I pulled out of the spot and turned the car so that I could leave through the back entrance, which brought us closer to the store.
"So, tell me more about these Distractamabobs. I don't remember even putting them in the ad scan."
"Oh, yes you do," I said, turning onto a street that was already getting congested. "Your ad was full of them." Out of the corner of my eye I could see Josh's confused expression. "They aren't one thing. Distractamabob is the name that my sisters and I gave all of those little diversionary displays and products that you people put out in your stores for days like this. You have the huge discounts on a few items, but then you throw in displays of things that are discounted the same that they would be during a normal sale, if that much. The point of them is to distract shoppers and make them think that they are getting a good price because the things around them are discounted. That way they spend more money. It also applies to anything else that happens during the sales to confuse shoppers, keep them in the store longer, or make them buy things that they weren't intending to because they somehow think that they are getting a good deal or are enhancing their shopping experience and holiday season, when in reality they are just throwing off their whole plan."
"That sounds a lot worse when you say it."
"Brace yourself."
"So, explain to me why I could only bring $300."
"I will. Have you gotten any more updates?"
"The gates are getting ready to open and the security staff has finished setting up the barriers to keep the crowds organized until they can get inside. I really think that you're going to be impressed by how all of this is going to work. It's going to be controlled and organized, and that's going to make the shopping experience so much smoother for everyone involved."
I slid my eyes over to him and gave a short, mirthless laugh.
That was Distractamabob speech if I ever heard it. And total, epic bullshit.