I am the manager of a grocery store. I am secretly seeing S.T. and hanging out with her daughter, who is adorable (I've never met her in reality). I deal with staff issues, which include employees ducking into the coolers when I'm not looking and ignoring the people waiting to be checked out. I'm in heels, and I keep having to march from one side of the store to the other, reaming people. I can barely find time to hang out with S.T., except when we duck out together for cigarettes. We end up getting in a fight in the frozen foods aisle, and I throw a barrel of raw chicken in the floor in front of her and stomp away. I get outside to smoke and decide I had probably better clean that up, since I'm a manager. I change into work clothes and fetch a barrel of cleaning supplies. On my way in, however, S.T. is by the side entrance with her daughter, crying. I know what she's doing. She's going back to her husband. I don't beg her, because I can't. I just stand and cry, and she cries, and her daughter cries. And then the door opens and a chap (her husband) looks at me and leads her inside. I feel empty.
Then she and I are outside smoking and discussing how it's been since she left. "April is worst for me," I say. "And Christmas." She says, "Christmas is bad for me, too." "Yeah, but you have a family," I remind her. And then she is gone.
She has left "our" gold Oldsmobile there, door open and everything. Lori says, "Did she leave the key?" "Yeah, I think it's this funny-shaped one." I stick it in the ignition, and when I turn it my alarm goes off.
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