Saving Sunni Read Free

hoped she wasn’t going to give me job advice. I really liked sage, but she was sometimes a bit of a know-it-all. But she just said, “At least you can wear fun clothes and don’t have to buy suits and stuff.”
    I grinned, thinking how much fun I could have with this job if it worked out well. Sir gave me an odd look and said, “sunni, you are not to spend your entire paycheck on clothes. Is that clear?”
    I gave him my best “Who, me?” look and said with all the innocence I could muster, “Of course not, Sir. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
    I showed up at exactly ten the next morning. The sign on the door did say it opened at ten, but I had to wait for about fifteen minutes before Geri came through the store with a huge bunch of keys and opened the door. She looked surprised to see me, and I wondered for a minute if she remembered who I was.
    “Good morning,” she said cheerfully, either remembering me or deciding that it would become clear in a minute who I was. “Traffic is horrible today! I thought I’d never get here. Why don’t you move your car around to the back and I’ll let you in?”
    Today she was wearing a filmy leopard-print shawl kind of thing that came down to her knees over a black bodysuit. She had no makeup on, but I suspected that would change later in her office. She carried a huge coffee mug with a picture of Bettie Page on it that I made an immediate mental note to find and buy. I would have told her how much I liked it, but she was still talking as she led the way back to her office, flipping light switches as she went.
    “Let’s see now. You’re Jessie Chambers, but we’re to call you sunni, right?” she said as she rummaged through the papers on her desk. I felt a stab of disappointment. Had she remembered on her own or left a note? She probably had a system for documenting what she had done the previous day; she certainly didn’t look like the type who could recall things on her own.
    “That’s right,” I told her.
    She rummaged some more, then handed me a few sheets of paper and a pen. “You sit down here and fill these out and I’ll make us some tea. Then we’ll get started on your training. Okay?”
    She was gone before I could agree, and I bit my lip to stop from laughing. Sure enough, when she came back five minutes later, still with her huge purse on her arm, she had done her face, complete with exaggerated eye makeup and bright red lipstick. She carried two mugs of hot, sweet tea, and after glancing over my paperwork, motioned me to follow her into the store.
    She had said that she and her employees were like a family, but they didn’t seem much like it to me. There were two other girls, one named Debi who came in at noon three days a week and one named Tina who came in most days at three. They were both very pale, dressed in Goth styles, all black, with dramatic makeup and huge, clumpy boots. They each looked me over and said a casual “Hi,” but not much else. There were also a couple of pimply teenagers called Dennis and Trey who came in for a few hours to work in the back. They laughed a lot and played loud hip-hop but didn’t come out front much.
    The rest of the day was spent listening to Geri ramble about her customers, her life, her ex-husband, daughter, stock, employees, the state of the world, and whatever else came into her mind. If she was as tired from talking as I was from listening, she must go right home and collapse. At about six she told me I could go home, and tomorrow if I came in the same hours, she would put me into the schedule.
    The next day, Debi showed me the stock that the boys had unpacked the previous afternoon, and we worked almost in silence, putting it out and straightening the store. When there were no customers and we didn’t have specific jobs to do, Debi and Tina seemed to spend most of the time lounging around the cash register, reading magazines or staring at their cell phones.
    Geri didn’t seem to notice. She spent a lot