To Be Wild and Precious

It was time for training. The manager said that Friday she needed to come in to learn the ropes and then she’d get to start her first official day on Monday, after school at 3:30. They were flexible with her. They knew that she had school to worry about so they gave her 4pm to 8pm. School let out at 2:30, so she really didn’t have anything at all to worry about except how to get there. What she was really nervous about was her very first day. She wasn’t going to know anyone and she was positive that no one would offer her a ride if she just asked for one. And if they did, how was she supposed to know that they weren’t crazy psycho-killers in the making who were willing to experiment their possible lust for bloodshed on her. No way, she thought. She’d take her chances elsewhere.

She entered work on Friday wearing khakis and a pretty lilac short-sleeved button down: not a uniform, but presentable enough, she thought. She didn’t know what to do about shoes, so she just wore her usual converse hoping that no one would notice.

At 9am, she knocked on the manager’s door right above the plaque that read “Mr. Gregory Little.” What an ironic name for such a large man, she thought. When he called for her to come in, he stopped shuffling his papers to say, “Oh,” He checked his watch. “Right on time. Let’s put you through some training now.” He squeezed from behind his desk and waddled with his weight out of his office door and into the store. Beth followed behind him.

He wobbled in a sort all the way over to where some guy whom she had seen before but never really talked to was stacking some books. “Price,” he called.

He stopped what he was doing and looked at Mr. Little and then took a quick glance at Bethany. “Yes, Mr. Little?” he asked.

“I need you to show McAllister here the basics. Could you do that for me?”

“Sure thing, Mr. Little.”

“Good.” Mr. Little was frowning. Perhaps he had one perpetually plastered on his face because nothing seemed to really please him. He nodded sternly and stalked off as quickly as his short, chubby legs could go.

In his wake, Beth was left standing awkwardly in front of the guy who Mr. Little had called Price. She shuffled her feet, standing on the sides of them while digging her hands into her pockets. She never did very well with introductions. She was more of an introvert by design.

Price took the lead on this one. He outstretched his tan hand and said, “Hey, my name’s Emanuel.”

She took it and replied with a shy smile, “My name’s Bethany.”

“Bethany?” he was thinking back to some previous mentioning of the name, apparently, while still holding a firm grasp of her hand. “Are you the same Bethany that Gavin almost got fired over?”

Beth blinked. She hadn’t forgotten about that; she just hadn’t had that at the forefront of her mind in the last couple of days. She’d been more preoccupied with the oncoming of school and the preparation for this job. But she could not deny that fact. She had almost gotten him fired. “Yeah, I guess I am.” And then something clicked. “Are you the Manny that covered for him?”

He smiled from ear to ear. “Guilty as charged. I’d take a bullet for that kid.” He lowered his voice. “But don’t tell him I said that.” He let go of Beth’s hand.

“So,” he continued. “I’m supposed to give you a tour and all that shebang, but I’m not going to do that because I’m pretty sure you know this place almost as well as I do, if not even better.” She must have given off a look of confusion because he explained, “I’ve noticed you in here every day. Hell, we all have. You’re the one customer that would come here when we opened and leave at the end of a full day’s shift. It’s crazy, I tell you.”

She blushed. “I just really like books. They make me happy.” That was a stupid response, she thought. She immediately wished she could retract her words the moment she spewed them out.

“Well, then, I guess you’ll be happy to hear what your first task is.” He motioned in a sarcastic ‘Ta-Da’ type thing with his hands towards the stack of books that he had been placing on the shelves just a few minutes before.

Beth was actually very excited to be stacking the books. She liked being organized and alphabetizing things and making sure that things stayed in order. She replied to Manny, “I am happy. When do we start?”

“Oh, we have an eager beaver here, now, don’t we?” He walked over to the pile on the floor and passed the book that had been on the very top to Beth. “You can start right now.”

“Wasn’t this your job, though.” She put one hand on her hip. “You cannot just pass your work off to me. You’re ‘showing me the ropes’ not having me do all the work and you just sit back and watch me. That is not fair in the least bit.”

A voice appeared behind her, “Feisty this one.” It said. The owner of the disembodied voice walked in front of her and laughed making eye contact for just a moment and then continuing on.

“Only when I’m provoked.” She smiled at Gavin as he passed with a stack of hardcovers in his hands.

Emanuel shook his head. “Fine. I’ll work, too, but I have to step back at one point to see if you could do it on your own.”

“Sure,” she said sarcastically as she approached the stack and grabbed a few books. “We’ll just call it that.”

Manny grabbed a handful also and playfully shoved her. “That is so not fair. You should stop before I make you do them all on your own.”

“I bet I could. But that wouldn’t be fair, now would it?”

“Whatever. Just start.” She laughed at his submission.

They stacked the books for the rest of the morning and then went on to taking books that are out of place and putting them where they belonged. After that, she had to work on customer service a bit, talking to the customers, asking them if they needed any help. And then she was done with her training.

“Well, done, Bethany.” Manny applauded.

“Thank you. Thank you.” Beth curtsied as she laughed.

“It’s going to be great working with you.” He said while putting out his hand.

She eyed him suspiciously, but then took his outstretched hand. She replied, “And it’ll be great working with you, too, as long as you don’t try to push your work off to me again.”

“Aw, don’t worry about that. Sooner or later, you’ll realize that this place is all about giving and taking. Sometimes we need to get our asses covered and sometimes we need to cover each other’s asses. It’s a take and give. You’ll get used to it soon enough.” He assured her.

“If you say so.” And with that they parted.

She clocked out and waited outside on the bench for her dad to pick her up. She drummed her fingers on her thighs and tried to stay patient, but she really just wanted to go home at this point. Beth just wanted to read or watch some TV or do a puzzle that she knew she’d never actually finish.

Beth was waiting for about ten minutes when she saw a shadow cast over her. She turned and saw Gavin standing beside her. He asked, “Hey, are you waiting for you ride?”

She nodded. And then he slid in beside her on the bench. “What are you doing? Don’t you have your car?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But I don’t want to leave you out here waiting all by yourself.”

Beth looked from side to side and saw the Friday evening crowds bustling around her. “I’m wasn’t exactly all by myself.” She pointed out to him.

He nodded and said, “I know. And that’s the more reason I should wait with you. We don’t want someone snatching you up right from under our noses now, do we?” he smiled and nudged her gently with his shoulder.

She went along with the light blow and grinned right back. “Yeah, well, don’t you have someplace to be, perhaps?” she tried.

“Nope.” He looked straight ahead at the cars moving in and out of the parking lot. “Nowhere in particular.”

She nodded. “What about school? Did you start yet?”

He looked at her, trying to size up the meaning of the question. “Yeah.” He answered tentatively. “I start on Monday. Well, actually I started yesterday, but I didn’t go. It was only two classes that I missed, and I don’t have any classes on Fridays, I did my schedule like that. So my schedule changes then. I start working from 4 to 8.”

“No kidding. That’s my shift, too.” Beth responded a bit too excitedly.

She found it hard to play it cool around him. She liked him, sure she did, but she wasn’t sure if he liked her back. He did show quite a few signs of it, like the constant smiling, the occasional joking around, the way he looked at her sometimes with that sparkle in his eyes. She was sure that there was something there, but Beth valued him too much as a friend to ruin things between them.

“Well, I’ll be damned. I guess I’m stuck with you for the rest of the semester, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” She wasn’t sure if now would be a good time to ask if he could give her a ride or not, but it was worth a shot.

But he continued, “So how was your first day? Well, actually, how was training?”

“Manny is quite the character.” She admitted.

Gavin had to laugh. “Yeah, that he is, but you’ll get used to that. He’s just like that with everyone.”

“And here I thought I was special.” She joked.

He smiled. And she took this as her opportunity to ask him, “Hey, Gavin, um, speaking of my first day, um, would you by any chance be able to give me a ride? Or at least until I find a friend or someone who could give me a lift every once in a while.” Gavin sighed. “Please, Gavin. I just need a ride. One ride?”

He scratched his hairless chin. He wouldn’t want to say yes because he didn’t want to have to go out of his way to pick her up, but at the same time he didn’t want to say no because that wouldn’t be the kind thing to say to a friend in their time of need.

“Okay.” He said with a sigh. “I’ll do it.”

“Really?” she squealed.

“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “I will.”

She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tightly. “Thank you so much, Gavin. You’re a lifesaver.”

He pushed her off slightly and she backed away a bit. “Where am I going to have to pick you up from? The High School?”

“Um…yeah. I think so.”

“You think so? You don’t know what school you’re going to attend?”

“Um…” she thought about it. “I’m going to the public school. So yeah – the High School.” She grinned sheepishly.

Gavin shook his head at Beth’s constant inability to stay in the loop on her own life. “Okay,” he continued. “Give me your phone so I could plug in my number. I’m going to text you when I’m outside. I’ll probably be there around 3 o’clock, okay?”

“Yes.” She handed her cell phone over and watched him as he dexterously typed in his phone number onto her crappy, little keyboard. Beth could not believe that she was actually getting Gavin’s phone number. It was very rare for her to get a boy’s number. Liam had been a fluke, a very unusual incident, but this – this is real. This is an actual guy, a guy that’s attainable to her. And he was putting his phone number into her cell phone. Life just didn’t seem possible. “Thanks again, Gavin, for agreeing to this.”

“Don’t worry about it, Beth. Without even trying, it’ll come back to me eventually.” He was finishing typing in his contact information.

“Oh, do you mean what Manny was talking about? The whole taking and giving thing?”

“Yup.” He replied as he closed the phone and handed it back. “I will give, so I will one day take.”

She nodded, “Fair enough.” She looked down at her phone. “Did you get my number?” she asked.

“Yeah. I called my phone with yours. So now I have –“

The Crown Victoria pulled up at that moment and Beth knew that that meant she had to go. “I sorry, Gavin. My dad’s here.” She stood up.

He did the same. “Oh, yeah, I understand. Don’t worry about it.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.

The silence between them grew awkward, so she tried to fill it by saying, “Well, thanks for agreeing to give me a ride on Monday.”

“Don’t mention it. I haven’t done it yet, right?” he joked.

Beth smiled. “Yeah, but I really do appreciate it.” She saw her dad looking anxious in the car. “I’ve got to go. See you on Monday.”

“Yeah, see you.”

Gavin opened the passenger side door for Beth and closed it once she got it. He bent down at the waist so that he could look in at her father and said, “Good evening, Mr. McAllister. Have a safe ride home.” Beth’s father waved absentmindedly confused as to who that boy was, and Gavin, shoving his hand back into his pocket, started walking over to wherever he had parked his SUV.

Beth’s father drove away and apologized to his daughter, “I’m so sorry that I made you wait for so long, Bethany. I had to do some extra paperwork and I got caught up with time –“
“Dad, it’s okay. I didn’t even notice the time passing.” She assured him.

He pursed his lips and stared straight ahead at the road. “Was it because of that boy you were with?” he asked. “Who is he exactly?”

Beth had to stifle a giggle at how stern her father seemed over this one encounter. His overprotective fatherhood was peeking out through his usual shell of calm, cool, and collected Dad. She answered him, “Dad, that was Gavin. I told you about him. There’s nothing to worry about. Really.”

And by that, Beth meant that there were no worries of him raping her between the book stacks. There would, of course, be cause to worry if he thought that that meant that she wasn’t interested in Gavin because she most certainly was.

“Okay. I believe you.” He nodded. “So this is that Gavin who you told me about before?”
“Yup.” She responded as she lifted her feet onto her seat. “He’s the one. He took me home last week when I had that coffee attack.”

“Good kid, then.” Her father said with a stern look still on his face. “So did you figure out how you are getting to work on Monday?”

“Yup.” She replied again. “Gavin said he’d picked me up from school.”

“Hmm…okay.” Beth smiled because she knew that her father felt slightly defeated. “That kid must be better than I originally thought.”

She looked out the window at the passing stores, “That he is.”