Stick With Your Own

By Carolyn McChesney

 

He turned his head away from her.

She didn’t get it.  She squirmed. The metal fold-up chair scraped the floor and let out an irritating screech.

He remembered the first time she waltzed into the overpriced grocery store. He wanted to hate her. She was cute. Even said her name was cute. Molly. Cute. But that wasn’t what kept him from hating her. He wasn’t that shallow.

On the surface, Molly reminded him of the WASPs from high school. The pin-legged, blonde, raccoon-eyed girls whose skirts hid under their boyfriends’ letterman jackets. The girls who snapped their gum at him and giggled at his Mexican accent when he tried to read Shakespeare in Mr. Kardazi’s freshmen English class. The girls who only spoke to him when they needed aye-OOO-dah with their Spanish homework.

He couldn’t have been happier to graduate last year. Not because he felt accomplished. Because he felt free. He was finally free from the taunting at school and the arguments at home. Manny had wanted to drop out of high school his freshman year like the majority of his friends, but his parents wouldn’t allow it. To them, a high school diploma was something spectacular. But Manny knew otherwise. He had his diploma and look what it had done for him. After nearly three years at The Market, he was now a fulltime employee rather than a part-time high school kid. He didn’t need a diploma to do that. Manny knew it took a college degree to actually get out of The Market. But that wasn’t an option for him.

Manny gave Molly a quick scan. She was definitely different from the other American girls he knew. She boasted dull, dishwater hair, didn’t do the whole makeup thing, and dressed and acted much more conservatively than the other high school girls.

Manny’s parents had made him finish high school. Not that it mattered; the diploma hadn’t done shit for him. Actually, in his eyes, he was four years behind. Look at him, working in the meat department of The Market. His sister busted her ass fifty-three hours a week behind the deli counter across the store. She had grown up fast, married at sixteen, popped out two kids by her eighteenth birthday. She had been working at The Market since she was fourteen and had saved a decent stash of money.

“Manny, I think we should figure out what we’re going to say.”

Jesus. Why couldn’t she just shut up?

“Manny?”

“Shit. What?” He didn’t mean swear in front of her.

Molly’s eyebrows scrunched slightly and her eyes grew larger. She looked like a confused puppy.  She reminded him of the stupid mutt that followed him home last year, pissed in his room, and then tried to look all innocent just as he wound up to kick him. He chuckled and then caught himself. He could never treat her badly—no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise.

Her face softened. She looked relieved. Damn it. Why’d he laugh? Shit. This was serious.

“Okay, I think we should just tell them we are really, really sorry.”

She waited for him to respond.

He kept her waiting.

“Manny?”

He leaned back in the metal chair, rocking it back and forth, staring at the ceiling. If he didn’t make eye contact, she wouldn’t have any control over him.

“Manny, seriously. Alyson’s gonna want to know why the cake was in the deli cooler. What are you going to say? Our stories have to match. We won’t get in as much trouble then.”

He raised one eyebrow at her.

“Manny!”

She looked pissed now. She was even cuter when she was mad. He’d never seen her this upset before, and he scolded himself for finding her distress attractive.

“Chill out.”

“Chill out?” she shrieked. “What makes you think I’m not…chill?”

“You’re sweating.”

She blushed and flashed a nervous smile at him.

He couldn’t look away. Her perfectly orthodontia-ed mouth made him queasy. But he told himself her smile didn’t mean anything. Coming from any other girl, Manny would have accepted the lip-glossed smirk as an invitation to something more. But Molly didn’t work that way.

After graduating high school, Manny found that most girls he knew, Mexican and American alike, openly flirted with him. He didn’t blame them. He was a handsome guy. They were loud and touchy and forward. But Molly treated him just like she treated everyone else at The Market. She sang good morning to him when they punched in at 7:00. She smiled at him every time they passed each other in the back room. Occasionally, she let a sarcastic dig slip from her mouth during their lunch break. She said goodnight to him when they closed. But she did and said all that to every other employee, too. So what was he supposed to think?

Nothing. That’s what Jorge, Manny’s cousin who worked as a cashier, said anyway. Jorge constantly reminded Manny that Molly would be gone at the end of the summer and that even if she wasn’t going off to some expensive East Coast school, Manny still didn’t have a shot with her. “Stick to your own,” Jorge yelled across the store whenever he caught Manny staring at Molly.

Currently, Manny stared at the clavicle peeking out of her uniform polo shirt. Beads of sweat shined in the light, making the protruding bone look more pronounced than usual.

She noticed his gaze and buttoned her shirt a little higher.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

He allowed his eyes to meet hers.

Damn. She was smiling again.

“Now seriously, practice what you’re going to say.” She straightened up in the chair.

“Why do you care what I say?”

Molly looked taken aback.

“Why do you care?” he repeated.

“I—I don’t want—I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Why not?”

She was stunned.

“I don’t know…because I don’t like to be in trouble…”

“Huh,” he nodded. He was a moron. Why couldn’t he just talk to her? Why was he such a jerk? Other than stealing a cake for him today, she had never done anything to hurt him; and he knew she never meant for them to get caught.

Alyson entered the back room. She had left them waiting for a long time after finding the cake in the deli cooler and requesting their presence in the back room over the PA system. She probably didn’t really know what to do and needed a cigarette break to help her figure it all out. Sure enough, a wave of cigarette perfume trailed behind the store manager as she passed by Manny and Molly and disappeared into the deli cooler. Alyson emerged from the cooler and placed the cake on the table in between Manny and Molly.

“Who wants to explain this?” she asked.

The cake was hideous. Molly’s attempt to write with icing had been futile. A smeared, Hoppy Birtnday, Momy! littered the surface of the once beautiful cake.

“I was just trying to do something nice,” Molly said.

Alyson looked at her blankly. Alyson was new to The Market, which meant she was still a by-the-books manager. Manny had seen her kind before. The Market’s turnover rate was impressive. Generally, it took about sixth months for the new store managers to realize Corporate didn’t give a crap about them or their career aspirations, at which point the managers would then become human again and view themselves as equals with the other employees. Five months from now, Alyson probably would have been cutting the cake herself. But Molly didn’t understand the timeframe.

“You stole company property,” Alyson said.

Molly looked at the floor. Then at Manny. Then at Alyson.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

She looked frozen and lost. She was a smart girl, Manny knew that. He could tell by the way she carried herself. She was always confident, but not cocky. But now, sitting in the back room with Alyson and her, something was different. He had never seen her look so vulnerable.

“I have to let you go,” Alyson said.

Manny felt his heart leap into his throat.

“Who?” he stammered.

“Both of you.”

Molly gasped. “But he didn’t do anything. He didn’t even know. It was gonna be a surprise.”

Alyson ignored Molly and turned to Manny. He could see it in her face. She knew.

“Molly, you are free to go. Please leave your badge on my desk. Manny, we need to talk.”

Manny felt nauseous as he watched Molly leave the back room.

Alyson marched over to the file cabinet and pulled a few papers from the thick binder with Employee Info stamped on the side. He knew what was coming.

“Manny, before I discovered you weren’t really involved, I went ahead and reviewed your paperwork.”

Manny didn’t respond. The silence must have made Alyson uncomfortable because she filled it quickly.

“I couldn’t really make out the last number of your social security number, so I tried entering every number into its spot on the computer and waited for your name to pop up.”

He couldn’t breathe.

“Manny, do you have a social security number?”

Manny’s eyes fell to the floor and his head followed suit. He wanted his head to swing up, to attempt to nod. But it wouldn’t. It couldn’t.

“I know the last manager was a little more…lenient about this kind of stuff,” Alyson continued. “But you know that’s why he’s no longer here.”

Now, Manny could nod. Frank, The Market’s former manager, had hired Manny. He had seen a hard worker and couldn’t have cared less about formal documentation. Frank always managed to hand Manny a paycheck at the end of the month and as long as Manny was getting paid, he had never really cared about how Frank did it. But now he cared.

“Manny, I’ve contacted Immigration Services,” Alyson said.

He stopped. His lungs stopped. His heart stopped. His brain stopped.

“I’m sorry. It’s Corporate policy.”

Manny’s brain resumed function. The image of some guy from Immigration knocking on his family’s apartment door took him away from the backroom of The Market. He was standing in the family room, watching his mother struggle to understand the white man’s English. Then she was crying as the official handed her the family’s deportation papers.

 * * *

He could feel everyone’s stares as he walked to the front of the store. They knew. They all knew. Stuff like this traveled fast among the employees, especially among the Mexican ones who could communicate the latest gossip whenever they pleased because management couldn’t understand them.

Jorge signaled Manny over to his cash register aisle and turned off the Aisle #6 light.

“You know they’re gonna review us all now. You know that, right?”

Jorge meant to sound angry, but all Manny heard was fear.

Manny pushed past his cousin toward the front doors.

“You just couldn’t stick with your own, could you?” Jorge called after him.

* * * 

Molly was waiting for Manny when he exited the store, sans badge, sans apron, sans uniform hat and polo shirt.

“Do you need a ride?” she offered.

“No.”

“Oh. So Jorge’s almost done then?” she assumed.

“Sure.”

Truthfully, Jorge wouldn’t be off for another three hours. But Alyson moved fast, so Manny knew he may not have to wait that long.

“So…”

She was trying. And he wanted to help her. But he couldn’t let himself.

“Manny…are you going to be okay?”

He looked around. If he started walking right then, he might have been able to hitch a ride half of the way home from a member of the rush hour crowd.

“Manny, I’m sorry,” she said.

He looked at her. He began to back away from the car.

“What’s wrong?”

For a second he feared she might get out of the car.

“Don’t,” he ordered.

She froze.

“Don’t move. Just leave.”

It killed him to talk to her like that. Confusion filled her face. But then something worse replaced the confusion. She looked hurt. The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt her.

 “Manny, what’s going on?” She was begging him.

He just stared at her. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her to come with him. But he just turned around and walked away, leaving her alone in the parking lot.