Know Not Why: A Novel Read online

  I’m too busy being pissed off to look where I’m going, and all of a sudden, there’s nothing under my foot where the stair’s supposed to be. Oh, shit. Thanks to some fancy footwork, I regain my balance and don’t go tumbling down to my death, but I do have to sort of throw myself into my stair-climbing companion. I let out a stupid little “oof!” noise as my shoulder collides with his.

  “You all right there?” Arthur asks.

  “Just peachy, thanks,” I snarl. I know right away that that’s not gonna fly, so I throw in a much pleasanter, “Didn’t mean to stumble on you there, sorry!” and hope it does the trick.

  Arthur seems pretty jaunty the rest of the way up. For someone unshaven and blind.

  We’re just hitting step number nine when I hear: “Morninggg!”

  We turn, and there’s Kristy standing at the foot of the steps, bathed in residual storage room light. She’s like an angel. An angel of hot.

  I’m not very religious or anything, but I immediately feel a little bad for thinking that one.

  “What’s goin’ on, you two?” she asks brightly as I hurry to disentangle my arm from Arthur’s.

  “Arthur’s blind,” I report before he can open his mouth. Who the hell knows how he’d tell the story? “I just offered to help him up the stairs.”

  “Aw, Howie, that was so nice of you!” beams Kristy. “See, Arthur, you totally made the right choice hiring him.”

  What?? Like there was actual deliberation on the matter? I whip my head around to look at Arthur, but it’s so dark that I can’t tell if he’s making a Face of Shame. He better be, the sonuvabitch.

  “You’d better get the register set up, Kristy. Show Howard how to do it while you’re at it.”

  Seriously, WHAT IS THIS DUDE’S PROBLEM.

  “I can work a cash register,” I let him know with a little more edge than necessary.

  “All right,” says Arthur. “Good.” He starts off toward the door of his office. “Thank you for the help.” After he says it, he reaches over and absently pats me on the shoulder. It’s not even notable in any way, just your average ‘thanks, man’ gesture, but, I don’t know, something about it makes me feel all hyperaware and squirmy. I didn’t get this job so I could engage in excessive touching with Arthur. Besides, Kristy’s watching.

  I blame Amber. I’m still stressing over that stupid gay thing she said. I like to think that it’s obvious that I’m not, but getting caught all cozy in the dark with another dude doesn’t do the best job backing that up.

  Of course, if Kristy needs any assurance where my Not Gayness is concerned, well – she won’t for long. That’s all I’m sayin’.

  “Seriously, that was really nice of you to help out Arthur like that,” she tells me, looping her arm through mine as we walk back out. Really? Arm-in-arm action already? We’re on like 1/4th Base and my first day hasn’t even technically started. Who’s gay now, Amber? “He’s been going through a terrible time lately.”

  “Really? What’s up?”

  “Relationship on the rocks. I think he’s been trying to salvage things, but they are so totally headed for Splitsville.”

  “That’s a bummer,” I say, but what I’m really thinking is, Lucky her.

  “Yup,” Kristy agrees. “Hey!” She gives my arm a light, enthusiastic slap. “Go pick your apron out, and then I’ll show you how to get the register ready! Isn’t touching money gross? Like, when you stop and think about it? But whatever, I’m used to it now, this job has me so totally jaded. Go hurry and pick one and come back!”

  Ah, yes. My nemesis awaits.

  +

  The whole apron thing isn’t as bad as I’d anticipated. Well, no, the apron itself is as bad as bad can be. It’s like every patchwork square defies my manliness in its own special, wicked, cutesy way. But Kristy ties it for me when I ask her to (suave or what?), and the brush of her fingers against my back reminds me that my cause is a noble one.

  We open at nine, but people aren’t lining up to come in. This just leaves Kristy and little ol’ me, since Arthur seems to have assigned himself to a lifetime of upstairsiness. Good riddance, bro. She gives me the basic 411 about all things Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N Crafts. I find I’m starting to build up a tolerance, too, where every time the name gets said, I don’t immediately want to stab myself in the brain. Definitely a good sign. This, this is gonna work.

  But then at around ten Kristy pops out to go to the bathroom, and while she’s gone, the bells jingle. I feel this sudden, stupid rush of panic – because, to be perfectly honest, I still know exactly nothing about arts, crafts, or any combination thereof. I can barely figure out the difference between yarn and thread.

  I feel reassured when I see the person who steps inside, though: it’s a pleasant-looking woman who’s maybe in her early thirties. She’s holding the hand of an itty bitty little girl. I suck at kids in general, but I’d guess she was maybe four or five. Or three. Or seven.

  I put on a smile. “Good morning. Can I help you?”

  As soon as I ask it, I realize that was pretty dumb, because it’s not like I can help with anything. Oh well. Too late to take it back now. Keep on smilin’.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, you can,” the woman replies. She smiles back at me, and I discover that she doesn’t have a very good smile. It looks stilted, and … weird. She strides forward to the counter, the little girl trotting dutifully alongside her, and I’m suddenly scared. She reaches into her purse with her free hand and pulls something out, her motions jerky. Oh, shit, what if it’s a gun? I think. I don’t know what to do with gun-wielding lunatics, what am I supposed to—

  “I have a problem,” she says, slamming the item down onto the counter, “with this fucking glitter glue.”

  And sure enough, it’s glitter glue. Purple glitter glue, to be precise.

  “You do?” is all I can think of to say.

  “Yes, I do,” Crazy Lady snarls. She’s looking at me like I just uttered something horribly profane in front of her child. Oh, wait, she did that. “I need to make a poster for my son’s bake sale, and I have to bring it into his class today. I tried to use this to accentuate the words. It’s terrible. It’s runny and clumpy and it completely ruined the whole fucking poster. Now ‘yummy’ looks like ‘gummg’. NO ONE IS GOING TO WANT TO BUY GUMMG TREATS, AND I WANT A REFUND FOR THIS SHITTY BULLSHIT GLITTER GLUE.”

  Okay, crap. I so do not know what to do with this lunacy.

  “If I saw something advertising gummg treats,” I say squeakily, “I would definitely be intrigued. I would check out that bake sale. And I’m not a big bake-sale-goer by nature, so …”

  “Don’t be cute, shopboy,” the woman spits.

  “I’m not being cute,” I protest desperately. “I’m just telling you … how I would … feel about this sign, if I saw it. I really—”

  “Give me my fucking refund now. I have things to do today; I don’t have time for this.”

  I stare down at the little girl. She’s twirling her hair around one finger and glancing idly around the store, like she’s not even interested in what’s going on. I wonder if she’ll be nice enough to scream when her mother rips my still-beating heart out of my chest.

  “Should you be saying words like that?” I ask, feeling some vicarious guilt even looking at the kid.

  “Oh, so you’re telling me how to behave around my child now?”

  “No,” I say quickly, “I was not doing that.”

  “It sounded a whole lot like you were.”

  “It looks like nice glitter glue,” I say, because a change of subject is necessary, it’s so necessary, man.

  “Oh really? Why don’t you fucking try it then?”

  She is going to kill me.

  “I would,” I yelp, “but there’s not really anything I need to glue or glitter at the moment.”

  She lets out a disgusted laugh. “This is unbelievable.”

  You’re telling me, lady.

  “Let me talk to your mana
ger,” she demands.

  “I would,” I say, trying not to writhe in pain under her gaze, “but, um, he’s having sort of a shi—crap—” But even ‘crap’ seems pretty explicit in front of a kid that little, right? “—poopy day—” And yep, there’s me, twenty-two years old, possessor of a pretty damn decent vocabulary, driven to say poopy. “—and if I bothered him with this, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be so happy—”

  “Well, guess what? I don’t give a shit about what kind of a day he’s having, because I—”

  And then Kristy comes back from the bathroom. I want to throw myself on her in a way that doesn’t involve sex at all; just sheer, blissful gratitude.

  She, incredibly and miraculously, sorts it out. It’s like watching a fairy princess at work. The woman gets her money back, and she leaves. No blood is spilt. The kid doesn’t ever even bother to stop twirling her hair.

  “That,” I say, slumped against the counter, “was fu—…ricking insanity.”

  I look over at her, expecting some ‘I know, my gosh, we’ve never had anything like that happen before!’ speech. What I get instead is, “Not really.”

  My blood runs cold. “What?”

  “People can get really touchy about this kind of thing,” Kristy says. She shrugs. “You get used to it after awhile.”

  I stare down at the offending tube of purple glitter glue. That something so small could spark an ugliness so vast …

  “Okay,” is what I say. And what I think is, What have I done??

  Chapter Three

  I’m supposed to meet Cora on my fourth day of work. Kristy’s not working, and Arthur’s gone back to shaving and having functional vision, so I’m in a crappy mood to begin with. I didn’t take this job to spend my time selling people buttons shaped like flamingos, you know? And I never really wanted to know what a bead roller was. Now the mystery’s gone; overall, I’m feeling pretty disillusioned.

  And then I come out from the kitchen, forced to tie my apron all by myself, to find that the store has been invaded by crazy. Again.

  There’s a girl dancing on the counter. And not, like, a dainty twirl or two. Hell, no. Just watching this dancing is like having your eyes sexually assaulted. It’s all boppy and writhey and – ugh, thrusty, officially thrusty. And while I’m not in any way opposed to this kind of thing when it involves, say, a smoky dimly lit establishment and a pole, it just seems wrong at nine in the morning on the counter of a store that sells all the supplies you need to make a reindeer head out of a clothespin.

  Besides, this girl isn’t exactly Patricia the Stripper. Atop her head is an explosion of curly, fake-purply-red hair. She’s wearing what looks like a ratty, violently bright green bathrobe, except it’s got shaggy white fur around the collar and the sleeves. It’s a coat, I guess, but I have no idea who the hell had the grand idea to make it. I kind of wish I knew so I could find and punish them. It’s like whatever crackpot designer is responsible for that little gem went, “I’m seeing a glorious fusion of limes and yaks! Limes! Yaks!” I’ve never really had a serious opinion on an item of clothing, besides maybe the apron, but this has officially earned my lifelong disrespect and revulsion.

  She’s also wearing combat boots, which leads me to the swift, scary realization that this is maybe someone I don’t want to fuck with. In any sense.

  And the dancing? It’s not to any music. The stereo’s off. She keeps mumbling stuff like “and one and two and three and step and one and two and pelvic thruuuust and one and two and insaaaaane”–

  Recognition stirs in my decaffeinated, grumpy brain. I’m not a creepy cult classic musical aficionado, but I can recognize some Rocky Horror when I need to. Amber went through a few months in ninth grade where she pretty much lived and breathed all things Sweet Transvestitetastic.

  I still have no idea what to think. This is what I get for turning the sign from ‘closed’ to ‘open’ a few minutes early and then going into the kitchen. Homeless nutcases invade.

  She’s so into her countertop dance routine that she doesn’t even notice me. For a few seconds I contemplate going over, giving her some sort of stern “I’m sorry ma’am, but customers aren’t allowed to perform lewd acts on the counter without buying something first” talking-to. But then I look at her – really look at her – and she’s got her eyes closed and she’s swinging her crazy hair and her hips around, and she squeals out more lyrics, and it’s just, it’s frightening, I’m scared, I don’t want to deal with this. And last I saw, Arthur was still in the kitchen.

  Righto, Bossie McPhee. Time to put your man boots on.

  Sure enough, he’s there, taking a cup of tea out of the microwave. He doesn’t look like a broken shell of a man anymore. In fact, he’s more like the Arthur Kraft the Second version of ebullient: well-rested and clean shaven, with nary an under-eye shadow in sight. I wince an inward wince of sympathy for The Mysterious Almost-Ex. So close to freedom.

  “Hey, uh, Arthur?”

  “Is there a problem?” He turns around. He’s even bobbing his teabag in his cup in a way that’s cheery.

  Get ready to get real glum real fast, sucker. “Um, yeah. There’s a crazy chick on the counter.”

  But all that he says is, “Again?”

  It robs the proclamation of some serious weight.

  “Again?” I repeat, disappointed. And worried. “What, is this like a regular thing?”

  “Sadly, we’ve all been forced to get used to it,” Arthur replies with a slight, wistful sigh. He takes a sip of his tea, then cringes. “Oh, damn, still hot.” Conversationally, he asks me, “Do you like chamomile?”

  “What?” Is this Arthur not caring? Arthur? “Um, did you hear me? About the girl? On the counter? Dancing?” And then, because I feel like I ought to really convey the gravity of the situation: “Thrusting?”

  “Just tell her that I would appreciate it if she didn’t,” Arthur replies, without batting a (freakishly exquisite) lash. “I don’t know that there’s any point in bringing it up again, but it’s worth a try.”

  “Worth a try?” I repeat disbelievingly.

  “Mmhmm.” He blows on his tea.

  Ohhhh, come on!

  “Well, I think you should talk to her,” I say, trying to choke back my heightening levels of pissedoffstity. “You’re the boss. She’d probably listen to you if you asked her to leave—”

  “Hmm,” Arthur says after a few seconds of deliberation. He is utterly unbothered. “I think you should be able to take care of it.”

  “I don’t know if I’ve been here long enough that I’m ready to deal with that,” I reply, trying to sound cool, like this isn’t something I’ll fight to the death. Which I will. It is on, Artie II. It is on like an on thing. “And if she’s a regular … customer?”

  “Oh, she doesn’t buy anything,” he tells me airily.

  “Right, well, menace, then,” I say impatiently. “I think you’re really the one who should—”

  “I’ve got to make a few phone calls upstairs,” Arthur interrupts. “They’re somewhat important, but if you really need help getting this situation under control, I suppose you can come up and ask me later.”

  “Or you could just take care of it right now.”

  Arthur makes a little face, this expression of fake jokey contemplation. Who does this guy think he is today? “Why don’t you take a swing at it on your own first?”

  Oh, I’ll tell you what I wanna take a swing at.

  “I don’t know if—”

  “Good luck out there,” Arthur finishes, and then he takes his tea and his stupid good mood and abandons me.

  “Chamomile sucks!” I shout after him. It’s the only revenge I can come up with.

  “To each his own,” Arthur calls back.

  I cannot believe this guy. I think I might even be feeling betrayed, for Christ’s sake. It’s just – this can’t really be happening, right? Arthur Kraft the Second refuses to fist bump on principle. There’s no way, no realistic way he can poss
ibly be down with letting random people come in and gyrate on the counter. He wears ties! He doesn’t discuss personal matters at work! He’s the epitome of a stodgy-ass drag of a boss, and he’s letting this slide?

  Fuck him. Fuck him times infinity.

  My brain strikes up the saddest song it knows (Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths) and I head back out, each slow step bringing me a little bit closer to – hell, who knows?

  But then my gallows-walk is cut short, because all of a sudden Lady Lunatic herself is heading right for me, tromping across the floor in all her lime-and-yak glory.

  I muster all my bravery and say, “Hey, miss, you really can’t be back here.”

  She stops like a foot away from me and crosses her arms. She’s pretty tiny, maybe just over five feet. It doesn’t stop her from being scary as hell. And, wow, here she is all close up. I think she might have a nice face, but it’s really hard to tell underneath all the piercings.

  “What are you talking about?” she demands. Her voice is low and throaty, sort of sexy-growly.

  “This area’s for employees only,” I inform her. My own voice, for the record, is at the moment quivery and effeminate.

  “Well, then it’s a good thing I’m an employee, dumbass.” She gives me a saccharine smile that morphs with truly freaky speed into a scowl, then brushes past me.

  I stand there like a … well, ‘dumbass’ is accurate.

  Wait. Employee? Then this must be—

  “Cora?” I ask.

  “Enchanté, darling!” she yells back sarcastically.

  Well.

  I guess it makes sense. Employees feeling entitled to bust a move on the counter? Less shocking. Although I, for one, would never bust a move on the counter. Especially never like that. The only dance I do, when wrangled into situations where there is dancing, is an unenthused head bop. And that’s ironic. I never dance unironically.

  But that is neither here or there. You know what’s here and there, though?

  Arthur clearly knew who this chick was, and what was going on. And Arthur didn’t tell me. Arthur played me.