MARTians (20 page)

It is a painting about Africa. The sky is full of storm clouds, blue so dark it has turned black. The earth is tender yellow green. Six white birds fly overhead, because they can fly. The ostrich, which is what the painting is really about, cannot. It is posed on one foot; the other leg is lifted in the air like a ballerina’s. White plumes frill out in a tutu. The bird’s neck curves gracefully. It has long eyelashes and enormous eyes. It is the eyes that terrify me, black and empty and bottomless.

Or those painted eyes did terrify me when I was little. If I am terrified now, I can’t tell. I live in fear. I am a chick in an egg, and fear is the slippery, clear goo around me. I stand eye to eye with the ostrich, and my heart, that stubborn muscle, just keeps hammering on inside me like it wants to escape.

Jyll was big on organization. Jyll was proud of her skills. So I know everything in this unit is in a logical place; I’m just not sure what logic Jyll was using. The gray bins are labeled, but they aren’t addresses, just numbers. It takes me a while to figure out the numbers are dates. Some of the bins have been in the unit for more than four years. Our bin has been stored and waiting for nine months.

Here is the genuine ostrich feather plume, framed. The repainted china plate where the ostrich looks up from a circle of old-fashioned roses. There are the framed pictures of me, each year on my birthday, and in each photo I have the photos from the year before until the last one, where it is me, sitting at the kitchen island, with fourteen frames and a piece of special cake from the Casa de Cake Haus. And, wrapped in bubble wrap for safekeeping, the big egg that can be filled with water and buried in the sand of the desert . . .
because water in the desert is like a treasure once-upon-a-time, Zoëkins. Kiss it! Kiss it, ZeeZeeBee. We can fill it up with love just in case we ever need it, just in case we are ever in the desert and we need to drink up some love.

I can’t stop the tear. It falls right into the hole on the top and disappears. The egg only pretends to be safekeeping. It isn’t a bank for kisses. The weight of a tear, the weight of all those kisses, amounts to nothing. When I hold the shell, it only feels empty.

ZeeZeeBee, don’t you cry. Girls like us, we don’t cry. I love you and you love me. . . .

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” It’s a wonder the egg doesn’t crush in my hands. My fingers are turning into claws. The egg holds firm. I lift it over my head and throw it — spike it — right against the cement floor of the storage unit. That’s when it cracks. I stomp on it. It crunches like broken china bowls. I stomp on it a lot.

When I look, I see the broken shell, dry as bone, the color of bone. And I see something else.

It’s a photograph, printed out on shiny paper, suitable for framing, like my birthday pictures. It’s a guy with a little girl riding on his shoulders. The guy and the little girl are both smiling. I turn the curled paper over. “Ed and ZeeZeeBee.” It is my mother’s precise handwriting. There is a date too, printed by the photo shop in pale blue ink and diagonal lines. Funny thing, it is dated my own birthday, when I would have been three years old. I can’t remember being three. I mean, I can’t remember anything about being three that my AnnaMom didn’t tell me with the pictures she showed me. She never showed me this picture. I do know that Ed Gorton, who is the only Ed I know about, was already dead by ostrich a long time before my third birthday.

I see light bouncing in the dark hallway. I put the photo in my back pocket.

“You find what you needed?” asks Timmer. I look past him. Kral doesn’t seem to be with him.

I pick up my tiny, tarnished silver spoon. “I found this.”

“That’s something,” says Timmer. “Do you need to look some more?”

“No. I’m done.”

“Kral gave us this,” says Timmer, and he points to the headlamp he’s wearing. “And this too,” he says. He reaches around his back and then holds out a gun, small and dark. It’s an inexpensive but popular model. It is the darkest thing in that lightless place. “Ammo included,” Timmer says. Then he pauses and looks up at me. The headlamp blinds me when he stares at my face. “Kral says he’s willing to take you if you want to go with him. He’ll wait for fifteen minutes. Kral always liked you.”

“No,” I say. “He can wait all night.”

“Okay.”

“Shut the door, please,” I say.

Timmer turns, reaches up, and pulls the rattling metal panels of the storage unit door down.

“All the way,” I say.

“Sorry, it got hung up on this tub that spilled,” Timmer says. He moves to pick up the overturned bin.

“No! Don’t touch it. The snake is under there.”

“The snake is a lie. It can’t bite,” says Timmer.

“Just shut up and turn off that light.”

“Then we will be in the dark.”

“Shut up and shut it off.”

The light goes off. There is that sudden feeling of my eyes opening desperately and looking so deep that I can feel the gaze sliding back into me. It sneaks up invisible and swallows itself.

In the dark, blind fingers resort to reaching out. Which is why Timmer touches my nose but then jerks back, because it’s very . . . it’s socially unheard-of to walk up and touch someone on the nose.

Even on Mars, they shake hands instead of that.

Then Timmer is actually close to me and he puts his arms around me and hugs me. His shirt is damp from the work he did for Kral. The signal for hug:ended never happens. I’m surprised how his bones stick out. I am surprised by his body. I am surprised by the sound of my silver spoon ringing on the floor when I open my clenched fist.

Now that Kral is gone, I’m promoted to full-time counter manager at the Great Outdoors. I am handling the department all by myself and doing all the work that Kral used to do. Except I don’t shoot birds after hours — and I’m still not of age to be bonded, so I can’t cash register. But I am entrusted with the keys to the ammo and display cases. I am trusted to help customers make the choice that is best for their needs, although most customers know exactly what they want and don’t even look at me while I just hand it over and smile. Whether they see it or not, my smile is AllMART’s welcome mat.

But today I have a customer who doesn’t know what she wants. She stands by the glass display cases and taps her nails on the surface. They are beautiful nails; each of them is like a little lens that catches the light and bounces it back, a flash of violet, a flash of rose. Her fingertips are iridescent twinkles. I will ask Juliette if she knows about those kinds of nails.

“How can I help you?” I remember to smile when I ask, because the voice changes when a person smiles. A smile can be heard over the phone. People know what sort of person you are as soon as you say hello. It is a moment of trust. There is no changing that first impression. If the sale is to be made, I must sell myself. That is the research. And now I do these things without thinking about them. I am a fully trained employee.

“I need a gun,” the customer says. She stops tapping the glass and grasps her arms across her body. “Which one is good?”

“All our guns are excellent. Is this a gift?” I am going to tell her about our special gift card offer and how that lets that special someone enjoy the shopping experience, but her body contracts as she flinches back from the counter. A grimace flickers across her face. I’m afraid I might have lost the sale. But then she lifts her chin, and says, “It’s for me.”

“Excellent. A handgun, then, not a rifle?” I smile while I unlock the case. She says nothing, which means that I am correct. I take out a small gun. It is pink.

She has lovely eyelashes; they have extensions that look like vines and butterflies. Beautiful, she is beautiful. But there is a little too much concealer under one eye. And one of her fingernails is missing — replaced with a stretchy transparent bandage stained brown with old blood.

Her face is familiar, but I am careful not to say anything about that. It is important to respect the customer’s privacy. This is especially true of beautiful customers. There is a tendency to desire intimacy with them, to confuse the recognition of beauty with familiarity, to presume they find us attractive too. I don’t give in to any of that. I am perfectly professional.

“Is this a good gun?”

“It is great! And so
kawaii
! It will fit in a small purse. Adorable!” I’m smiling as I say the words.

“But is it strong? Is it as strong as those?” She points at the other guns in the case. The black ones.

“Yes! Absolutely. It is just as strong as that gun right there. They are the same model. The same in every way. Except this one is pink! So
kawaii
!”

She goes back to tapping on the glass with her fingernails. She pushes the gun with one finger. It spins on the surface, one slow rotation and a little bit more.

“You will also need ammunition.” I turn and select the right caliber and place it beside the gun.

“Okay,” the customer says. She reaches out and pushes the gun again with her finger. Again it spins slowly and comes to a stop.

“It comes with a free trigger lock, because AllMART cares about our customers.”

“Okay,” the customer says.

“I’m sorry that our shooting range is closed for remodeling,” I say. Of course it isn’t being remodeled. It is temporarily closed because there is no associate to provide skilled instruction and advice. We are shorthanded because Kral isn’t the only employee to take advantage of the generous severance package for those employed more than three years who are eager for new opportunities. But telling that truth would not enhance the shopping experience for this customer. The story that the service is closed for remodeling helps her focus on a future where her AllMART visits will be better and better, new and improved.

“Can you take this thing out?” She taps the trigger lock.

“That is handled at the courtesy desk. Just give them this.” I touch the register screen and produce the QR code. “Scan it onto your phone and show it to your Customer Courtesy Service Desk Concierge, who will provide the key to the lock after the purchase is finalized.” I watch the register screen while the inventory adjusts. I place the gun, the ammunition, and the ticket in a bright AllMART bag, size small, extra tough. “Is there anything else I can help you with today? There are some fantastic sales in the meat department. The hot-stone massages at the salon are to die for. . . .”

“To die for,” says the customer. She shoves the shopping bag in her purse and starts walking away toward the front of the store.

“Don’t forget to stop by the service desk to complete your shopping experience,” I say. “They will remove the trigger lock and deactivate the senso-tag so you can exit without alarm.” I don’t want this to slip her mind. I don’t want her to become an accidental shoplifter, which would reduce my completed sales for the day. Watching her walk away, I see now that I really should have emphasized the hot-stone massage. It would have been an excellent choice for her. Better than the meat sale. She needs to relax. I need to be more sensitive to the needs of the individual customer. I need to read them better.

I wish I’d been able to direct her exit through another department, but I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. I up-sold her on the pink special model, and the box of ammunition was large, not small. I reach under the counter and get out my bottle of glass cleaner and the polishing cloth. Every smudge of fingerprint is gone. It is as if the lovely customer were never here. Then I call up the inventory readout on the sale, just to double-check everything, although the computer never makes mistakes. That’s when I notice that the pink gun was the last one in stock. I type in the warehouse order.

“Item is permanently out of stock.”

I look at the guns arranged on the black velvet. It is impossible not to notice that something is missing. I distribute all of the remaining guns so the case looks full instead of empty. I don’t want customers to think that they are deprived of anything. I want them to feel confident that their visit to the Great Outdoors has provided them with the full shopping experience. I want them to feel satisfied.

5er meets me at the door with a box of cereal in his hand. I hold up an AllMART bag full of shelf-safe boxes of milk. He shakes the cereal box. I walk to the sink where our bowls and spoons are sitting, rinsed and ready. Cereal is the extent of my cooking. 5er doesn’t complain about the menu.

I carry both bowls back to the table where 5er likes to perch. He climbs up, squats, and puts his hands out. Dinner is served. I lean one butt cheek on the edge of the table and start eating. The room-temperature milk is sad. I look at the pink bunnies running around the edge of my bowl. Poor bunnies, they never get anywhere. They just go around and around like socks in a dryer or an AllMART trainee trying to get out of debt.