Penny Shultz

Penny checked the parking lot for stray carts. There hadn’t been any carts out of the caddy for quite some time, but rules were in place to be followed, so she did a sweep of the west end of the lot, then the east end. She picked up a few of the half-melted plastic bags that had blown against the curb.

It appeared that the electricity was out again like it was yesterday, so she pushed the automatic doors open. The sign she had taped there apologizing for the lack of power was curling at the corners. She would have to re-tape it. She wrote her clock-in time on a scrap of paper and left it in the office for Linda. The pile of papers on her desk was getting sort of high now. All the papers had Penny’s handwriting on them. Linda had not come to work lately. Lots of people were pulling the “no-call-no-show” routine these days. No responsibility in today’s workforce. If you’re going to play hookey, at least call in to let your boss know.

The schedule said that Axel was working in the bakery department this morning, but he hadn’t shown up. Again. No fresh bread for the shoppers today. Again. That boy… such a nice kid, but no work ethic. Penny tried to call his manager, Chelsea, but Chelsea never picked up the phone anymore. Now her number was disconnected. Seemed like all the managers got their numbers disconnected. Everyone was always getting new phones and numbers anymore.

The keyring was just where she had left it last night. She took it off the hook and signed “Penny” on a blank space on the paper taped there. Rhonda was just going to have to come in and run-off copies of that sign out sheet. Even if Penny knew how to do it, it was not her job. She was not paid enough to do admin work like that. Though truthfully, she hadn’t been paid in many weeks. She called H.R. and the payroll office every Thursday, but there was no getting through. Just an answering service. Probably connected to someplace in China or India.

Behind the Customer service counter was the lost-and-found box. Penny took a look inside like she did every day. Still empty aside from that necklace. The silver heart shaped locket had been in there since the day before the heat-wave. It looked as though it ought to be very important to someone. She had opened the pendant and looked at the picture inside: a nice looking little girl, maybe 5 or 6, holding a stuffed giraffe. Simply precious. Penny loved the way the locket looked, and she loved the little girl inside. In her weaker moments, she would hold it for minutes at a time, evilly thinking that she would take it home with her if no one retrieved it by the end of the day. But she always put it back before going home for the night. It wasn’t hers. Someone was clearly missing it. Maybe they just lived very far away, a tourist who had stopped in the grocery store while on vacation.

The registers all zero’d out correctly this morning. Each one exactly as full as she had left them at the end of her shift yesterday. If anyone was showing up after she left to run the registers, they were very good at keeping accounts. She didn’t think anyone was coming in though. These people, these kids they had running registers now, were never here. They were all out playing video games or taking selfies or whatever they did. Glued to their cell phones, but never taking the time to actually use the phones to call and say they weren’t coming in. Probably hoping their parents would do it for them. Such a shame

Penny walked the aisles and looked for out-of-codes. Most of the food had gone past the sell-by date long ago, but a lot of the canned and boxed stuff was still okay. A whole shelf full of Kellogg’s cereal was going out-of-code today. The handheld scan-gun batteries were all long dead, and she had to do an account of all the unsaleable product on paper as usual. The reduced price stickers were running low. She’d have to get Rhonda to order more when she came to work next. This store was really going to pot lately.

By noon, the temperature was rising, but still bearable. Her morning tasks all done, she took the afternoon to wait for customers, and wash the front windows of the store. She did this every day, but they were always sooty and grimy again by morning. She was sweating in her cardigan and employee vest. She didn’t remember May being this hot last year. She also thought that the trees would be budding by now, especially with the early spring. Seemed like there hadn’t even been much of a winter this year. Made for less shoveling, and that was okay with her.

By the time she had washed and wiped all the windows, Penny’s face was dark with a sheen of black soot. It was shameful how polluted the air had gotten since she was a child. All the electric cars everyone was banging on about didn’t seem to have helped. This "greenhouse effect" she'd scoffed at 40 years ago appeared to have some merit.

No customers again today. She supposed that everyone was ordering everything in nowadays. No one had time to go out into the world and actually see people anymore. She missed speaking to the shoppers, helping them bag their purchases. Heaven forbid you actually say "hello" to someone, make eye-contact. Some of the older folks were fine to deal with, but none of them showed up now. Four PM rolled around and she wrote her out-time on a scrap of paper and left in with all the rest on Linda's desk. She wouldn’t have minded staying all evening, but she didn’t want to get in trouble about racking up overtime.

No one had shown up to work the second shift, and she hoped that whoever did would remember to lock up at night. That kind of thing could get a person fired. Every time she came in for her morning shift, the doors were all unlocked. If anyone was showing up, they were highly irresponsible. When the store director came back, there would be hell to pay. But that wasn’t Penny’s concern.

Before leaving for the night, she looked again at the locket in the lost and found box. She stared at it, coveting. No one would be coming to pick it up. A part of her knew that for certain. Another, younger and more naïve part feared the repercussions and shame of taking something that didn't belong to her. If someone calls, she thought to herself, or if they come in looking for it, I'll just tell them that I took it home for safekeeping. It's a very nice piece of jewelry and someone might steal it if it stays in the box too long. She smiled. That would do nicely. Penny hoisted the necklace out of the dingy cardboard box and held it momentarily, then slipped it over her head. It felt cool against her skin. It felt right. It felt like older times.

The sun beat down mercilessly as she walked home. She used to drive, but her car's gas tank had eventually run low, and the gas stations never seemed to be open at the times they used to be. Also, a lot of rude drivers had parked their cars all over the streets, and that made her five minute drive take twenty minutes. Penny had noted all the cars’ license plate numbers and left a message for the local police about it.

Penny looked over the side of the bridge into the spillway, twiddling the locket with the girl and her stuffed giraffe between her fingers. The concrete waterway was still dry. It hadn't rained for a long time now. She kept wondering how her garden would fair this season. She’d like to have cucumbers with her canned tuna. If things kept on like this, there would never be any fresh produce at the grocery store. Maybe Lilly would open her stand at the farmers market. Lilly always had such nice vegetables. What was her secret? Penny wondered when the farmers market would open, it seemed a little late this year.

Dust swirled and stuck the the corners of Penny's moist eyes. She was getting misty, looking into the locket again. The little girl stared back at her. Take it easy, she thought to herself. No use in that. Have to conserve the water. The taps won't run lately, and there's no sign of rain. Penny took a mental inventory of her pantry. dozens of cans of V8, six bottles of water, 39 cans of tuna. Some of that would have to go to the food drive in August.

August, she thought. She grasped the locket and looked over the guardrail of the bridge. August. Canned tuna. Dirty windows. Melted shopping bags. August. Locket girl. August. Lost and found. Dead batteries. Farmer's market. August. Dry spillway. Hot. Soot. August. Concrete. So hot. Canned tuna. V8. August. Locket girl. Hard concrete. August. Locket girl. August. Locket girl. Locket girl...

Locket girl.