“What’s on your mind?” she asked, never taking her eyes off the road.
“Nothing,” I mumbled looking out the window. I didn’t want to talk about it.
She said nothing, just kept her eyes on the road.
“I was talking to Mason tonight.”
“Yeah, what did he have to say?”
“Just the usual. He was working tonight.”
“Yeah?”
“He was bored on break, so he called me.”
“That’s cool.”
“I can’t wait to get back there; to see him, when this is all over. We're planning a picnic together. He’s going to come and pick me up and take me back to his hometown.”
We stopped at a red light. The streets were almost deserted. Something that you almost never saw on any other night.
“That’ll be cool. It’s a nice place; been there a couple of times myself.”
“I know and you didn’t take me with you.” I laughed, sitting forward in the seat.
“You were busy doing your own thing, so what was I supposed to do?” She shrugged as the light turned green and she turned the corner.
“Yeah, well, it still would have been nice.”
“There will be plenty of time for that when this is all over.”
“Whenever that will be.” I slumped back in my chair and looked out the window at the passing houses.
“It'll be when it will be, kiddo.”
“I know, Mom. I just don’t know how much more of this that I can take.”
“You will hang in there. You’re tougher and stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
“I just want my life back, you know?”
“Oh honey, no one knows that better than me. I want my life back too. I want the lives of my family and friends to return to normal but above all else, I want everyone safe,” she said. “And if this is the way that it’s gotta be to ensure that everyone makes it to the other side, then so be it. Ain’t nobody ever said that we have to like it; we just have to do it for now.”
“I want to move back in July.” The words came tumbling out of my mouth before I had a chance to think about what I was saying.
She glanced over at me and I squirmed a little bit.
“What?” I blurted out.
“Nothing.” She didn’t take her eyes off the road again.
“No, I know you want to say something so just say it.”
“Look kiddo, it’s your life. You gotta do you.”
“You don’t think I should move back.” I felt the anger rising from the pit of my belly in a red-hot wave. She was always like this.
“I never said that. I just don’t know that it’s the right time to do it, is all I’m saying.”
“My life isn’t here.”
“I know that.”
“I just want my life back,” I said biting back the tears.
“I know. We all do.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence. I knew what she was saying, it just didn’t seem fair that everyone’s life was put on hold like it was. The only time that I got out of the house at all was to go to my overnight shift at the local grocery store. It was not what I wanted to be doing with my life, but it was something. When I had to move home after the lockdown started, I had spent days in my room. I didn’t want to see anyone, not even my family.
Not that I didn’t love them, but this wasn’t where I belonged anymore.
I wanted the life I had just started to build away at college.
“Alrighty kid, I’ll catch you in the morning,” Momma said, pulling up in front of the employee entrance.
“Have a good sleep, Momma,” I said and quickly gave her a kiss on the cheek before stepping out of the truck and headed inside.
“Alyssa! Thank god you're here!” Samantha, the night shift supervisor, exclaimed as I was punching in for the night.
“Hey, what’s up?” I said, turning on my heels to face her.
“It has been crazy in here today. I don’t know what the hell happened with the damned day crew, but it seems like nothing has been done and the store is an utter mess!” She looked like she had been through the wringer already.
“Ok, so where do we need to start?”
“I have Joey and Bill on cleanup around the store. I wish that I didn’t have to, but it is too much for just the guys we normally have on board for that. I honestly don’t know what the heck the day crew was doing.”
“Well, I know from being there the last month myself, it’s a tough go.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I spent an hour on the phone with one customer one day, and all they wanted to do was yell at me because they were missing a whole lot of their order. No matter how I tried to explain there wasn’t much I could do about it that we just simply didn’t have the things that she was looking for, she just wanted to yell.”
“You’re right. I keep forgetting about that aspect. I wish people would understand that it wasn’t our fault that a lockdown was initiated and because of that everybody wanted to buy toilet paper.”
I laughed.
The entire thing did seem like something out of a wild zombie apocalypse movie.
Even Momma had laughed when she had bought the last package of toilet paper the one night and someone had remarked how she should “get it while she still could.”
Who knew that this would have ever been a way of life? Who would have ever guessed we would all be scrambling for toilet paper, yeast and flour?
“Ok, so can you go have a look at where we stand with the orders? I know we’re about a half a day behind on them as it stands.”
“Yeah, I’ll toss my stuff down and get on that first.” I nodded and headed for the express pick-up area of the store.
“I’ll send Joey and Bill down to help as soon as they get the store back in line,” Samantha called after me.
I gave her the thumbs up and ducked into the room.
On the desk on the one side of the room was the stack of orders needing to be filled. The one on the top read that it was for the 10:30 am pickup slot today. That meant it was going to be at least a day late.
I quickly flipped the pages. There were at least a hundred orders and at least half of them were from earlier in the day.
I sighed. I could tell that it was going to be a really long night and I hope that I would get Joey and Bill back to give me a hand, because there was no way that Vanessa, Julie and I were going to be able to get through this alone; even with the fact that the two of them were already on the floor picking orders.
Best get cracking. Don’t want to fall even further behind, I thought as I sighed inwardly.
I didn’t like the overwhelmed feeling that was creeping up from the pit of my belly.
I grabbed the first page off the top of the stack before the feeling had a chance to take hold. I rolled my cart, grabbing a scanner on the way by and headed out onto the floor.
I barely had time to breathe all night. The hours flew by even though for the longest time it felt like we were getting nowhere with the orders. No matter how many I filled, the pile never seemed to shrink. It only got marginally better in the last two hours of my shift when Joey and Bill finally got back into our department.