Feeling chilled, he found the right size of printer ribbon, picked up five of them, and hurried to the checkout stand at the front of the store.
TWENTY-FIVE
1
He usually enjoyed the free period between assignments, but this time Bill felt restless, stir-crazy, almost claustrophobic. Juniper seemed confining to him, and no matter where he went or what he did, it seemed that The Store was always there, looming in the background, monitoring his movements, watching him.
Even hiking, alone, in the forest, in the canyons, on the hills, he felt the presence of The Store.
He needed to get away from Juniper.
The idea that his documentation was now winding its way through the channels from Automated Interface to The Store's corporate headquarters, and was about to be filtered down to individual Stores all over the United States, made him feel supremely uneasy. There was nothing he could have done, no way he could have avoided it, but the mere fact that he had been indirectly working for The Store, that he had even in a minuscule way contributed to the efficiency of its operation, galled him.
They were lying next to each other after they'd quietly finished making love long after the girls had fallen asleep one night, and the only noise in the house was the low murmuring of the bedroom television. He rolled onto his left side, looked at Ginny. "I think we should go on a vacation."
"A vacation? What brought this on?"
"I just think we need to get out of here, get away for a while. . . ."
"Get away from The Store?"
He nodded.
"Where do you want to go?"
"How about Carlsbad Caverns?"
"Sounds fine to me. But what about the girls?"
"They're going with us."
"Sam won't go. And at this point, I'm not sure we can make her."
"Shannon's going. I guarantee you we can make her."
Ginny was quiet.
"What is it?" he said.
"What if The Store won't let her go?"
Bill shook his head, sat up. "We've been too soft on all this. That's our problem. We should've put more pressure on her. Or, hell, maybe we should've just talked to her like an adult, told her what's really going on. I think we're still treating her -- treating _both_ of them -- like they're little girls.
We're still trying to protect them from things --"
"That's what parents do."
"I know. But what I'm saying is that we should've tried to convince them to quit on their own. The Store'll sue us and come after us if we try to force them to quit, but if they quit themselves it'll let them go."
She looked up at him. "You really believe that? After everything that's happened?"
"I don't know," he said. "But it's worth a try."
"Yes," Ginny agreed. "It is." She placed a soft hand on his stomach. "But Sam probably won't do it."
"Probably not."
"And if The Store won't let Shannon go?"
"We'll take her with us anyway."
"What do we do if The Store comes after us?"
He looked down at her. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
They brought it up at breakfast.
Sam stated immediately and unequivocally that she had duties and responsibilities, that The Store put its trust in her and she could not let the company down. There was no way she could take any time off.
She walked out of the room without waiting for a response. "I have to get ready for work," she informed them.
Bill turned toward Shannon, who was sipping her orange juice, trying to look invisible. "You, young lady, are coming with us."
"Da-ad!"
"Don't 'dad' me."
She put down her orange juice. "I can't. I'll lose my job."
"You have to quit anyway when school starts."
Shannon stared at him, shocked. "No, I don't!"
"Oh, yes, you do."
"You're part of this family," Ginny said, "and you're going to go on vacation with us."
"I don't want to!"
Bill leaned forward across the counter toward her. "I don't care if you want to or not. You're going."
"How come Sam gets to stay home?"
"Sam is a year older than you."
"So?"
"So, she's eighteen."
"Big fucking deal!"
Ginny hit her.
It wasn't a hard hit, not a punch, but it was loud, a slap across the face, and they were all stunned by it, Ginny most of all. She had never slapped either of her daughters before, and Bill could tell that she instantly regretted the action. Still, she did not perform the cliched follow-up, did not immediately hug Shannon and tearfully apologize. She merely stood there, staring at her daughter, and it was Shannon who burst out crying and did the tearful hug, jumping off her chair, throwing her arms around her mother and apologizing.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Mom!"
Ginny gave her a quick hug in return, turned her about. "You should be apologizing to your father."
Shannon moved around the counter. "I'm sorry, Dad. I . . . I don't know why I said that."
Bill smiled. "I've heard the word before."
Shannon wiped her nose, laughed.
"But you're coming with us," he said. "We're all going on vacation. As a family."
This time Shannon nodded. "Okay," she said. "Okay."
2
Shannon approached Mr. Lamb with trepidation. She hadn't really spoken to the personnel manager alone, on a one-to-one basis, since she'd been hired, and she found herself somewhat frightened by the prospect. He was standing in front of the Customer Service counter, talking to a customer, and she waited for him to finish before approaching him, glancing nervously up at the wall clock above the counter as the minutes of her break ticked by.
She didn't want him to catch her taking a too-long break.
She watched the personnel manager as he talked to the woman. He had always seemed to her very intimidating, and he seemed even more so now, since he'd been elected mayor. He never mentioned his new office in meetings, and no one else did, either, but it was known and it was there, in the background, and it lent to him a power above and beyond what he already possessed.
At the party on election night, the victory party, The Store had provided free food and liquor, and more people had shown up for that reason than to celebrate the election results. She'd helped Holly pass out candy and mints, and the party had grown wilder and wilder as the night wore on, with Mrs. Comstock, the librarian, taking off her clothes and dancing naked in the Stationery aisle, Mr. Wilson, the postmaster, picking a fight with Sonny James in Boys' Wear, and a group of rowdy women puking on cue in Housewares. But Mr. Lamb had remained aloof and above it all, completely sober and in control, and Shannon's most vivid memory of that night was of loud, drunken, half-dressed men and women attacking each other while Mr. Lamb, smiling, looked on.
She hadn't told her parents what had happened that night, but she'd talked to Diane about it, and her friend had suggested that she quit her job at The Store. "You're only there because you're bored," she said. "You don't really need the money. Why don't you just find something else to do?"
She'd seen Diane less and less this summer, and it wasn't just because of their conflicting schedules. Working for her dad, Diane had developed an anti store attitude similar to her parents', and the same contrary impulse that had caused Shannon to defend The Store to her parents had made her do the same with her friend.
"I like working at The Store," she told Diane coldly. "I'd rather do what I'm doing than what you're doing."
Truth be told, she didn't like working at The Store. And she'd much rather be working for Diane's father than for Mr. Lamb. But for some dumb reason, she didn't seem to be able to admit that aloud. Not even to Sam, who had asked her point-blank about the subject more than once.