Maine Squeeze (50 page)

I'm totally confused.

What would happen if Gerry opened a new store in Pueblo? Who would drive down then?

I hate working at this new store. Later in the afternoon, I had my back turned because Gerry bought these used blenders from a smoothie place that was going out of business, and half of them don't work, so I was using the one that did work, and someone came in and stole the stupid tip jar.

I didn't have to work today so I went to see Grant. I figured one work visit deserved another. Also I actually missed the Canyon Boulevard crowd. I never thought I'd miss that stupid strip mall, but I did. It was weird parking at that lot and not going to work myself.

Anyway, I found Grant at Pet Me. I asked him what he had in mind, bringing Dave to the store.

But I wasn't even thinking about Dave. I was worried about Grant and how he was acting and how he hadn't eaten anything. But I couldn't say that. It was like the only thing we really knew how to talk about was Dave. And we couldn't stop.

He said it wasn't his idea. He also said not to worry, that he met Dave's new girlfriend and she wasn't anything like me. (And why wouldn't that make me worry?)

“Anyway, they're on-again, off-again,” he said.

“I'd rather they were off-again. Period,” I said.

“Courtney, come on. It's not that bad. Anyway, I think in a way Dave did the right thing,” Grant said. “Because you guys might not be happy together anymore. You've both changed a lot since the summer.”

Uh-oh, I thought. He's going to call me a bitch, just like Beth! But all he did was sort of put his arm around me. Or I thought that's what he was doing. But at the same time he was also sort of adjusting this leash display rack, putting the right lengths on the right hooks.

“So, did you um … have a good time yesterday?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. Definitely,” Grant said. “And don't worry, I bet that store will take off soon.”

“I don't want it to succeed,” I said. “I want to come back and work over there.” I pointed toward the original T or D.

“Yeah. That would be cool,” he said. “Well, I have to go unload another truck. But I'll see you later.”

“Right. Okay.” I went outside and stood in the doorway for a second. Something was definitely happening between me and Grant. But we were both totally not willing to admit it.

I took a deep breath. It smelled like a mixture of stinky cages and fresh snow.

I'm writing this on the bus. It's stopping every half block and taking forever.

Mom paged me this afternoon and told me to meet her downtown. She implied it was important. I assumed it was holiday shopping, maybe she wanted to lift me out of my funk by taking me to dinner at a hot new restaurant, then we'd cruise to Larimer Square, hit some cool clothing store. But no. That isn't her style, anyway, so I don't know what I was thinking.

I met her outside the city and county building, which was all lit up for Christmas. Very festive.

Except that Mom was staging a major protest there. And she marched with a group of people from there down to MegaPhone headquarters.

“Mom. You can't yell at MegaPhone
using
a megaphone!”

“That's the beauty of it!” she said. “Fight fire with fire!”

Then she and her group started chanting: “Hell, no, we won't call! We won't use the phone at all!”

Mom was carrying a sign saying,
Hang Up On MegaPhone
! The woman next to her had one that said,
Automated Directory Assistance = Death
.

I could hear a bunch of disgruntled ex-employees ranting behind me about getting fired and replaced by computers. Then there were some current employees wearing name tags (Duh! Do you want to get fired when this is on the news?) who were complaining about how there was a cash bar at the Christmas party that year and how expensive it was.

“Mom, this is going to be on local TV,” I said.

“With any luck!” she said. “Exposure is just what this cause needs right now.”

“And if you stay out here all day, you're going to
die
of exposure,” I argued. “You don't even have a warm coat on!”

She didn't care. About humiliation, about frostbite, about anything. Except getting the MegaPhone practices changed. I wandered around the stone steps, thinking how I could convince her to leave. I once had a friend who yelled at the phone company, and they screwed up his service, his listing, everything in retaliation. We had enough problems when MegaPhone was giving us “quality service.”

That's when I saw Witchy Wheatgrass Woman, with the purple-silver magic purse. She was standing behind Mom, chanting, and holding a sign that said
Privacy Is Our Most Important Natural Resource
. Whatever that meant. She saw me and ran over to tell me how proud I should be of my mother, how she set a good example for all of us. Yes, but did you ask her if she practices safe sex? I wanted to ask her. You sure check up on me and Beth all the time about it.

Suddenly there were TV cameras swarming around Mom. “Ms. Smith! What do you have to say to the executives?”

She gave a very impressive speech. She was completely composed, like she'd been building toward this moment for years, like she had the whole thing prewritten and rehearsed. And maybe she did.

I was really proud of her. I kind of got tears in my eyes. There was a lot of dust and soot blowing around, too, so it could have been that.

Then across the way I saw the Tom show up with a bunch of his friends. I couldn't deal with them—they'd probably only make fun of Mom. The Tom isn't exactly someone you could turn to for support. So I turned to run—and I crashed right into Mr. Novotny. He was in full Broncos regalia—Broncos winter jacket, stocking cap, etc. I was surprised he had come so far into town on a game weekend. Wasn't there a playoff game happening somewhere?

“Not so fast,” Mr. Novotny said when I tried to brush past him with a polite wave.

What was he going to do, *CSP on me? Wait a second, I thought. He loves those cell phone features. What's he doing here? So I asked him.

“Those features are fine—but that's through another company. How about the week when all your family's calls came to my house? That is not any way to run a business,” Mr. Novotny said. “You know who they need at the helm?”

“John Elway?” I guessed, figuring this had to relate to the Broncos somehow, or his entire day would be wasted. Besides, the man is like a god around here.

“Mike Shanahan,” he said. “The man can coach a Super Bowl–winning team—he can run a phone company. They ought to get his input.”

“Right …” I said slowly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mom heading into the building, trying to get past Security. I ran over to her and asked what she was doing.

“I got the idea from you,” she said. “I'm going to sleep on the roof until they change company policy and improve customer service.”

“What policy? What service? Anyway, we weren't protesting anything!” I said.

“Same difference,” she said. “You made a statement.”

“But Mom, that was a school roof. This is a skyscraper! You'll be sleeping on the helicopter launchpad. You'll get crushed by executives and Flight for Life! You'll get struck by lightning!”

“It's December,” she said. “How much lightning can there be?”

“This is Colorado,” I said. “The weather changes really quickly, Mom.”

The woman does not listen to reason.

I have to get Bryan to help me. And I have to go to Beth's house to get him.

“So. Are you going to quit being weird?” That was the first thing Beth said when she opened the door yesterday.

“No,” I said. “Probably not.” Then I laughed. And she said something like that was probably too much to ask for. Was I there to apologize, she asked. Actually no, I said. I'm looking for Bryan—is he here?

“I can't believe you're not going to apologize!”

“Sorry,” I said. “But I'm not.”

“Hm.” She stood in the doorway, not budging, her Beth stance on. She should play for the Broncos. They could use her. She looked like this impenetrable offensive line.

“It wasn't so much you guys going out … as how you didn't tell me,” I said. “I hate when people don't tell me stuff. Like Gerry, and the new store in Boulder!”

“Yeah, but that's Gerry. We're talking about us. How could you be so mean to me?” Beth asked. “I can't believe you'd write me off for going out with Bryan.”

I didn't know what to say. “I'm sorry. But it's weird.”

Beth shrugged. “Yeah, I kinda thought it was weird, too. I guess that's why I couldn't tell you. So come in, and I'll get Bryan. What's going on?”

I told her about Mom and her crusade for 5-cent Saturdays. Bryan was lying on the sofa in the basement, reading. Beth grabbed her coat and told Bryan to get his and we were out of there.

By the time we got back downtown, Mom was nowhere to be found. I thought maybe they were holding her in the MegaPhone headquarters. Subjecting her to really loud dial tones.

Turned out she gave up and came home. “They agreed to a meeting,” she said. “With me and any other consumers who have complaints. I hope they have a big enough building.”

“They could use Mile High Stadium,” I said. It seats about 80,000.

We laughed.

Then Mom picked up the phone to call Dad and finalize the Christmas plan. And there was no dial tone.

Beth called me at the T or D II, since our phone at home is still not working. Mom is considering legal action, but then, when isn't she? I think we're switching to some tiny telephone company that has zero features and isn't even legal yet. Whatever. She has her meeting at MegaPhone on December 30. I think they gave her that date because everyone's out of town on vacation and nobody else will show for the meeting.

“Listen, Courtney—I have a plan. We're getting you out of that Boulder store,” Beth said.

I asked her how. She made it sound like a top-secret plan, as if we were going to strike in the middle of the night. Mercenaries. Smoothie mercenaries. Watch your back and also your nonfat raspberry sherbet.

“We've worked at the place for two years,” she said. “We've shown Gerry nothing but loyalty. We've invented drinks. We could have gone and worked for any other smoothie place in town. But did we? No. And we can tell him we were even like recruited by these other places,” Beth said. “They
begged
us to work for them, but we said no, even though they pay 75 cents more per hour.”

“Hey, wait a second,” I said. “So then … why aren't we working there instead?”

Hm. We both thought about it for a second.

“Maybe we should,” Beth said. “But we stay at T or D because we like working together, and we like guaranteeing freedom of frozen choices, and um … we sort of like Gerry. Because we like his nonstandard approach to life.”

“And we like banana splits,” I added.

“But if he wants us to stick around, he has to let us work together, at the Canyon Boulevard location, and this is like nonnegotiable.”

Girl power!

Then Beth asked me something else. “Can you work for me Tuesday night so Bryan and I can go to a movie? We want to celebrate the last day of school before vacation.”

It was like swallowing wheatgrass juice on an empty stomach with no water back. But I can handle that. And I could handle this, I told myself. Just … not all that well.

“Sure,” I said.

Beth and I gave Gerry the ultimatum. He said he'd
think
about it! What? How insulting is that.

So I quit again. It's not so hard, the second time around.

Beth quit, too. Gerry pretty much looked shocked.

We figure we'll have a much better vacation. Also, now I don't have to cover for her tomorrow night. “Want to go to the movies with me and Bryan?” she asked.

“Um … no, that's okay. I have plans,” I said. I kept it vague. She didn't believe me anyway, so there was no point wasting valuable time coming up with a story.

One more day of school before Christmas break. We're meeting tomorrow to talk about the New Year's party. I don't know what's going on with the investigation—I guess it's “ongoing.”

Random Nosebleed is playing at the party. My idea. They came up with their name after two of the guys got nosebleeds on stage, out of nowhere.

Well, okay, probably it was because the air is drier than toast out here in the winter. Ick. I got one at work once. Blood fell into the smoothie I was making.

Gag. Just thinking about watching the drops fall into the blender could make me puke now. I'll have to finish this later. I feel really ill.