Fiction | Big doings at the dollar store

Or: What can you get for $20?

It was the first truly warm day after a long, obnoxious winter, and nearly all of the snow had melted. Instead of white, the street was brown and gray and dotted with puddles, and the March sun was insistent and blinding and welcome.

Misty locked the front door behind her and dug her hand into her front jeans pocket, pinching her fingers around the $20 bill to make sure it was still there. Her boyfriend Mike’s friend Evan had fallen asleep on the couch while they were watching a movie, and a bunch of things had fallen out of his Monster Energy hoodie - a pack of cigarettes, receipts, his keys, a $20 bill. She checked to see if Mike was looking, and then she plucked the money from the floor and shoved it in her bra.

Evan sucked. He was always high, he was always around, and he made gross jokes about women and gay people that weren’t funny and made her feel uncomfortable. He’d been arrested a few times, and she always felt like it was inevitable that he’d do something stupid that would get them all in trouble. She never wanted to be alone in the apartment with him. If he asked where his 20 bucks went, she would feign ignorance.

She had a plan for the money. She was going to walk down to the dollar store and buy tampons, lip gloss, some hair ties, snacks, and one of those big cans of beer. She was going to go into the store bathroom and use the first three, and then she was going to sit down by the river and enjoy the last two.

Beyond that, no plans. She had the day off from her dumb job cleaning at the Comfort Inn. The store was about ten minutes away on foot. She was screwing over Evan, even if only a little bit. Misty felt a sudden surge of optimism; it shot through her body like electricity.

Tampons first, then the hair ties, then five minutes spent picking out tinted lip gloss (Summer Sunset, sort of an orangey-red-pink, like the Dunkin’ Donuts colors were mixed). A bag of cheddar and sour cream chips. A big can of Corona. She’d already done the mental math; it would be about $22, but she had the quarters she’d scrounged from around the apartment. It would be enough.

She got the key from the cashier and went into the bathroom in the back of the store to fix herself up. She pulled her ponytail up, though not all the way up; up enough so it hit at the very top of the back of her head, and it jauntily flipped around as she moved, like the cheerleader she never was. She pulled a few strands out to frame her face, the way her friend Katie taught her in eighth grade. Katie taught her how to do makeup and hair and all that girly stuff. Misty’s mom never cared about those sorts of things. Her mom died three years ago. There wasn’t much left she could learn from her. She’d learned most things on her own.

She swiped a generous amount of Summer Sunset on her lips and puckered in the mirror for a minute, admiring the sheen and the color. Harry Styles’ “As It Was” played on the speakers. She listened for a moment, and then heard a scream.

Misty froze. She heard a commotion in the store. She should probably stay in the locked bathroom, but she had to see what was going on. She had to. It was a bad idea. She had to.

Delicately, she opened the bathroom door a crack and peered out. She could see two people in dark hoodies, their faces covered; one filling a garbage bag with things from the shelves, and one holding a gun to the cashier at the register, who was fumbling to open it and give them the money.

The one raiding the shelves wore baggy jeans that barely stayed on his scrawny body, and a Monster Energy hoodie. She would recognize his stupid ass anywhere. He was wearing the same thing last night when he fell asleep on her couch and she took his $20 bill. It was Evan.

She watched him stuff deodorant and razors into the garbage bag. She knew he was going to try to sell it to people in the neighborhood, or trade it for drugs. He would probably show up at their place tonight, or tomorrow, and crow about the money he’d come into, even though the other guy was clearly responsible for that. He’d say he’d scoped out the store, planned it all perfectly. He’d probably even say he had the gun, and would laugh about how scared the cashier was. She hated Evan so much.

Misty scanned the area near where he was grabbing things and had an idea. She crawled out on her hands and knees into the dry goods aisle, one over from where Evan was, and huddled on the floor, holding her breath. She grabbed a bottle of cooking oil, opened the lid, and dumped it out, tossing it all around her and underneath the shelving unit into the next aisle, where Evan was heading as he frantically grabbed anything that could conceivably be sold or traded. She scrambled back into the bathroom and peeked out through a crack in the door.

Evan stepped into the puddle of cooking oil and slipped; flailing his arms around and running in place like a cartoon character. He fell, hard, directly on his tailbone, and screamed in pain. The guy with the gun spun around and saw Evan writhing on the floor, shiny with oil like a piece of chicken about to go in the oven. He bolted out of the store, pockets stuffed with cash from the register, leaving Evan to deal with it by himself.

Misty closed the bathroom door and listened to Evan attempt to get up on his feet, slipping and sliding around on the floor. A minute later, she heard new voices; deep ones that barked and ordered. She waited a minute, and then gingerly peered back out into the store. The cops were dragging Evan, kicking and swearing, out of the building; his garbage bag full of stolen goods laid open and overflowing on the floor.

She crept up to the register and waved to the cashier, who looked deeply shaken as she gave a hesitant wave back. A cop stormed back in, and Misty answered all his questions; she was already in the store, she was in the bathroom, and once she heard the yelling and carrying on she decided to stay in there until it stopped. The cashier confirmed all of it. She didn’t mention she was responsible for the cooking oil, though if they eventually saw her on the security cameras dumping it on the floor, fine. She’d deal with that later. She didn’t mention the guy’s name was Evan, and that he ate their food and hogged their XBox and once tried to kiss her when he was blackout drunk, and she shoved him off the front porch.

The cops said they got the other guy too; he was running down the street, cash flying from his pockets when they apprehended him. They probably wouldn’t be able to retrieve all the cash, but they got most of it, they thought. They took Misty’s name and contact info and let her go.

She walked out into the brightness of the midday sun, the adrenaline still lingering in her nervous system. She pulled the lip gloss from her pocket and reapplied it, and began the walk down the steep State Street hill toward the riverfront, swinging her plastic bag of tampons, beer and chips as it dangled from her fingers.

As she waited at a traffic light for her turn to cross the street, a $20 bill flew up against the light pole. She looked around and, seeing no one that would likely tell on her, snapped it up and shoved it in her bra. Things were looking up, she thought.

She made her way to the riverfront park and found a big rock right by the water, surrounded by trees, not immediately visible to Bangor cops or dog walkers or frisbee throwers. The beer made a satisfying crack as she opened it; it wasn’t quite as cold as she’d imagined it being, but that was OK. The chips were salty, the air felt fresh and comfortable, and the sparkles on the Penobscot were too brilliant to look at directly. I should get some sunglasses, Misty thought. Things were looking up. Things were looking up.