The Part Time People Read Free Page B

thank you every time and on the advice of Gwen, carefully placed their change in their outstretched palms, and counted it back, piece by piece.
     
    Mike came over and said hello, David had no idea who he was but he liked him right away. It seemed to him that Mike was how a normal guy should be. David wanted to watch him more and learn, but he was pretty busy all day at the register, and didn't have much time to watch Mike. He didn't see Joe either until six o'clock, when he came out of the office, ready to go home.
     
    Joe made a beeline towards the front door, he nodded and said goodbye to no one in particular as he left the store. Mike started going through his nightly routine, checking over his numbers, straightening up. He chatted with Gwen about the weather and traffic. It seemed to David that they all thought of themselves as family. David hoped they would soon think of him in this way, but he also knew he had to be careful. And be positive that they weren’t playing tricks on him. Things weren't always how they seemed, and he had to give it some time so he could be sure. Mike finished up and left, and soon there was only Gwen and himself alone in the store. David told himself that everything was going to be okay. It was only two more hours until closing.
     
    He didn't really want to talk, and hoped she didn't either. It was good enough to be there, working. There would be money coming in again and he could afford a room at a hotel, hopefully where no one would bother him.
     
    “It's a good place here.” Gwen said.
     
    “Yes, I'm sure it is.” If she has to talk, he thought, I'm going to say as little as I can. Talking can be dangerous. It gets weird, especially when you don't know who they are and what they think of things.
     
    Gwen didn't know about him either. She thought, well, so far he’s okay, I guess. Quiet, not too bright, a little bit nervous but that's okay. She had been that way herself, on her first day at the store. Before then, she’d done her share of drifting, of feeling out of place, of things never being quite right. Those were times she wasn’t proud of. She was not the same person now, no, not at all, and she didn’t like to think about those days. Her mind had happily fuzzed all of those memories into oblivion. It's his first day after all, she told herself. She wasn’t too curious about him, but when you have to work with someone, you want to get to know them just a little bit, at least.
     
    “So, you new in town or something?” She asked him.
     
    He said, “Yeah, I've been here for awhile.” He didn't want to give out any details, not just yet. You should tell the boss, he thought, but no one else really has to know about you if you don't want them to, and he didn't want her to. He didn't really want to know about her either.
     
    “Where you from originally?” Gwen asked.
     
    “Oh, around.”
     
    She got the hint and said, “Oh, so you don't wanna talk.”
     
    David just shrugged his shoulders.
     
    “Well, that's okay.” she said, “Sometimes I don't feel like talking either.” It wasn't true. She always liked to talk, especially on these boring Thursday nights when no one ever came to shop. It was just a family tradition, not good business sense, that kept them open late that night. They barely made enough on Thursday nights to pay the part time people's wages, let alone her own. But Mike and Joe insisted, like their father had, like his dad before him too. Gwen was used to it, and didn't really mind. She liked sleeping in late on Thursday’s. And if it wasn't for the part time people, it would have been the best day of the week.
     
    They were always strange. She'd been through maybe five or six of them over the last two years, and she hadn't really gotten along with any one of them. She used to think that maybe it was all her fault. No one else had complained about them. That made her think that maybe she was the one, maybe she was weird, not them, but later