Chapter Six

And what a long day it was!

I would have never thought that the people who populated the Fresh Face Co-Op would have existed anywhere outside the fevered imagination of some insane writer of fiction before I saw them with my very eyes. However, history has a habit of proving my more optimistic world views incorrect and that moment when I walked through those automatic doors proved to be no exception.

Upon stepping foot inside the flagship location, my exact thought was wow! Actual hippies like you see on the television! I didn’t realize they looked like this ever! Not even in the sixties or seventies… It was at that exact moment that it dawned on me: these people weren’t actual hippies. They all dressed and acted the way they saw “hippies” dress and act in silly movies and sketch comedy television shows. It was all an exaggerated affectation. In fact, I’m fairly sure I saw a pair of oversaturated, cherry red, polyester, bell bottom pants that could have only been pulled from a “flower child” Halloween costume that you could buy from a warehouse with a big, inflatable pumpkin in the front parking lot.

A wave of a strange fragrance hit me. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was somewhat unpleasant, as if something had been overcooked somewhere in the store. That was a point against them. The shelves seemed fairly stocked and the store was clean. That was a point for them.

I noticed that all the registers and conveyor belts were unmanned despite the lights above them being on. Two older women in employee vests (who I could only assume were the cashiers who had abandoned their posts) wandered among the nearby shelves, picking out items and putting them in shopping baskets. That was a big point against them. It was all well and good that they got to shop while they were at work, but how were the actual customers supposed to shop if there was no one to ring up their items. I would also imagine that, since it was early in the morning, many of them were eager to get to their own jobs where they actually had to work and didn’t have time to wait for these puttering dotards.

I was able to locate the customer service desk right as I stepped in. It was right there a few steps away from the primary entryway. I had to admit, that was huge point in their favor. Any layout that is easy to navigate is key in a large business like Fresh Face. I silently commended whomever had designed the floor plan.

The desk itself was a circular one that flanked the girl inside. She appeared to be the only diligent employee in sight though she was clearly tired as she rung up a customer’s massive haul of groceries. She had dark circles under her eyes and a bird’s nest of bronze, unkempt hair all piled on the top of her head. Her name tag was conspicuously missing (point against her favor).

I waited patiently for her to finish ringing up the customer. She appeared efficient and polite, though not overly gregarious. That was all right, though. The eagerness of some employees rang false and had the tendency to scare off customers with a good bologna reader.

My eyes popped a little at the final total which was five times the amount of the same haul even in California were prices tended to be significantly higher than in this part of the country. The customer then proceeded to use multiple federal assistance cards to pay for her groceries. That seemed legally sketchy to me at the least, but the employee at customer service wasn’t in any position to comment, so she rightfully didn’t. However, the whole interaction made me feel a little gross.

When she had finished ringing up and thanking the customer for shopping there, I approached her.

“Hello, my name is Ronald Weiss,” I told her. “Would you tell Cassie that I have arrived?”

“I’m sorry, Cassie’s not in today,” said the tired young woman. “If you’d like to leave your name and phone number, you can leave a message and she’ll get back to you when she returns.”

I blinked twice in disbelief. I couldn’t believe that things had already managed to go off the rails.

“No…” I said reflexively.

Don’t panic, I thought to myself. This is just a minor glitch; you’re letting this business’s lousy case file make things seem grim before they’ve really truly started.

I righted myself.

“Did she call in sick or did something come up?” I asked.

“She’s actually out of town for the week,” the woman replied. “She’s visiting family in the Caribbean.”

“Family?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“In the Caribbean?”

“Yup.”

I was so shocked for a minute that, once again, I had forgotten how my mouth could make words. First of all, who has family to visit in one of the most notoriously beautiful vacation spots in the world? It seemed far too convenient. Second of all, did this woman suddenly forget that Fresh Face Co-Op was paying my consulting firm a huge portion of money they didn’t have, to send me out there?

“I think there’s been a terrible miscommunication,” I said. “I had a meeting scheduled with Cassie today. We have had this meeting scheduled for weeks.”

I had learned that Nicholas Green had scheduled my initial consultation weeks in advance even though he hadn’t told me I’d be shipped out to Wisconsin until the day before. So, this was the truth, in a way. The point was that Cassie Bobeck should have been present for this seeing as how she knew about it well in advance.

The girl manning the customer service desk frowned a little bit, but she didn’t look particularly shocked or defensive. She maintained a sort of pleasant level of engagement that gave me the sinking feeling that this kind of interaction had been par for the course for long enough that she had the script down.

Before she could say another word, she was interrupted by a customer who needed to be rung up. Luckily, the customer only had two items: a slice of really brown and coarse-looking bread and a glass bottle of kombucha. She could easily ring this person up in no time and it would give me the opportunity to see the procedure the cashiers were trained in.

“I’ll be right with you in a moment,” she assured me.

“It’s fine,” I told her, though I wondered why her coworker hadn’t returned to her register.

The process was eye opening to me. First, the girl at the customer service desk asked if the customer was an owner. Then, she had to enter in the customer’s identification number into the most sluggish interface I had ever seen in my life. Even after she rung everything up, the credit card machine took far longer to process the swipe than it should have in any year past nineteen eighty-five. By the time all was said and done, she had two more customers waiting behind the one she had just rung up.

“Would you like a bag for this?” she asked the customer.

“Yes,” said the customer. “And double-bag it please.”

Though the customer was asking her to double-bag a piece of bread and a bottle of kombucha, the girl at customer service did an admirable job of not rolling her eyes. Since no eyes were on me and nobody knew I represented the Co-Op yet, I allowed myself the luxury of rolling my own. On top of it all, the bags were placed so far away, that every time she wanted to reach over and grab one, she had to extend the length of her short torso over the counter.

She sighed and reached for the phone at her station.

“Sharon and Rhonda,” she said in a firm voice that sounded over the loudspeaker. “Please return to your registers. Sharon and Rhonda, please return to your registers.”

She sighed and proceeded to ring up the next two customers. I noted that Sharon and Rhonda failed to return to their registers within that time frame.

“I’m sorry,” she said to me when she finally had the opportunity to do so. “Now, how can I help you?”

“Is there someone who is in charge while Cassie’s away?” I asked. “This meeting really needs to take place today.”

She then looked me up and down as if she were assessing my attire. It was like there was something about it all that she didn’t quite buy.

“Are you here for the job interview?” she asked. “Because Benny’s doing them while Cassie’s away, but he won’t be in for another couple of hours. Did you want to leave a message and your contact information for him?”

I then understood why she had eyed me so suspiciously. In my silver, linen, three-piece suit, I was rather over dressed for a job interview there, even for a managerial position. Before I could answer however, five customers came to her register while Sharon and Rhonda still had yet to return to their posts.

The girl at customer service kept her cool, asked for the owner verification number of the customer, typed it in, excused herself for a second and got back on the intercom while simultaneously ringing up the groceries.

“Sharon and Rhonda,” she said in a still firm but clearly more agitated tone. “Please return to you registers. Sharon and Ronda, please return to your registers.”

Once again, neither employee paged on the intercom returned to her spot even though I could clearly see one of them puttering around in the vicinity, reading the wrapper on a candy bar.

The girl at customer service continued to keep her cool, but there was something behind her eyes that I had learned to recognize long ago. It was deep down and easy to miss if one had a vested interest in doing so, but it was undeniable. It was an intense, white hot, wrath, kept subdued by the practicality of not being in a social or financial position to completely lose one’s mind at the entire world. I sometimes saw it in myself when I looked in the mirror, but there was no way I could ever even come close to going through what this girl was experiencing at that moment. I was indignant on her behalf.

I could tell my hovering presence was making her anxious, so I gave her some space and decided to start inspecting the product. I had hoped and prayed that there had been some kind of an error in my initial paperwork regarding the place, but the numbers were far too accurate. Every single item in the Fresh Face Co-Op was far and away more expensive than any price that could be logically marked at their competitors.

I returned to her as she thanked and said goodbye to the last customer who had come to her during the mini-rush.

“So, it would be best if I came back at another time?” I asked her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But yes. I wish there was more I could do for you right now, but your best shot is to wait until Benny gets here.”

Ah, yes: Benny. I recognized the name Benny from my files because it was rare to see the name “Benny” in an official capacity rather than being used as a nickname for the proper name “Benjamin.”

“Benny Duncan?” I asked her.

“Yup,” she said.

“The manager of the maintenance department?”

“Yup.”

“What time is he scheduled to come in today?”

“He doesn’t really have a ‘schedule’ per say, he just rolls in some time in the afternoon, typically around noon if you’re lucky, but he’ll probably be in by one for sure…if not one, then two. Yeah. Benny will definitely be in by two.”

I did a double take to make sure that this girl wasn’t completely pulling my leg. However, when I looked into her exhausted, little, raccoon eyes, I could tell she was dead serious.

That meant I had to wait just under three hours at the least.

“That’s all right,” I assured the girl. “Thank you for all your help. Can I get your name?”

Upon hearing the question, the girl quickly glanced down and realized that her name tag was missing.

“Shoot!” she exclaimed.

I counted this as half a point in her favor since she had clearly suppressed the strong impulse to curse and used a time-honored euphemism instead. Like myself, this girl had clearly been in the customer service game long enough that suppressing the impulse had been branded into her brain.

“I apologize,” she said. “The clips for holding our name tags are really weak and mine must have fallen off… again.”

What she didn’t mention, but I already knew, was that this would mean that five dollars was to be taken out of her paycheck if she had it replaced before anyone noticed. If a manager noticed that the name tag was gone, they would charge her even more to replace it.

Knowing that the clips for holding the name tag were so weak made this policy even more reprehensible in my eyes. My blood would have boiled on her behalf, but it had already done so multiple times within that hour that it needed some time to recharge in order to do so again.

“My name is Sara,” said the girl. “Without an ‘h’… which you would know if I had not managed to lose my name tag.”

“Nice to meet you, Sara,” I said. “I’ll be waiting in the deli area and you can tell Benny that I’m here whenever he gets in.”

Sara frowned a little.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “It might be a while.”

I was never so sure of anything in my life. From just the little I had seen, I needed to get to work on this place right away. If Nicholas Green had intended to make me look bad with just a single job, he had chosen the right client. Normally, I liked to put in enough effort to leave a business thriving, but if I came out even with the Fresh Face Co-Op, I would consider that a win.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I have plenty to do while I wait. I’ll be fine.”

Just as I said that, one of the little old ladies returned to her station. I felt relieved for Sara until the employee turned off the light to her register and approached Sara’s desk.

“It’s time for my break now,” she said. “Please ring up my groceries.”

I walked away to prevent some unknown entity from taking hold of my body and throttling the old bat.