tea, my dash lights up as my phone rings from the holder that’s mounted on the vent.
Work Calling
I swear inwardly before swipin’ to accept the call. I don’t even get a word in before Patricia is hollerin’ my ear off. I try not to listen too much, but her shrill voice doesn’t make that easy.
“We had a customer call to complain, Medley! Ms. Jonay is not happy. She threatened to call corporate. Said you assaulted her and her dog. I talked her down, of course, but she was this close to speakin’ with the sheriff. You’re lucky I got her to settle for a write-up on your record.”
My hands clench on the steerin’ wheel. “A write-up? It wasn’t my damn fault! Her crazy ass dog lunged for me, ready to take a bite out of my ass! I had to run and jump into a dumpster to get away from the thing!”
“Medley, the customer’s always right,” Patricia reprimands, her tone not leavin’ any room to argue.
“Yeah, except when they’re wrong,” I sass back. “It’s me who should be callin’ the sheriff. I could report the dog attack and get her ass in trouble.”
“Ms. Jonay says you were the one who instigated it, throwin’ the package at the poor elderly woman. You made the dog attack you.”
“That’s not true!”
Patricia ignores me. “This is the fourth write-up on your record, Medley,” she reminds me. “Which means you’re just one more away from gettin’ fired.”
I seethe, my vision goin’ black with anger. If I gripped the steerin’ wheel any harder, I’d break the damn thing. Automatically, one of my hands comes up to the necklace of stones around my neck.
I’ve worn this thing since Mama gave it to me in the first grade, with a few chain replacements along the way. It’s a necklace of small river stones, and Mama always encouraged me to touch the stones to help ground myself. I run my thumb and fingers over the smooth surfaces as I count out three deep breaths until the blackness recedes and I can think straight again.
“You hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you,” I grit out.
She knows damn well I need this job too much to quit. She also knows that I’m bluffin’ about callin’ the cops. Sheriff Early hates my guts, ever since he found me up in Docky Rocks dancin’ topless on the table while his sweet innocent daughter was at the bar. He thinks I’m a bad influence, even though his daughter is a grown-ass woman and hasn’t been innocent since she grew into her trainin’ bra in grade school.
That’s the problem with small towns: people know too much shit about you. That’s why I was glad when my daddy got a job in South Carolina right before I went into middle school. It was a fresh start for a bit, and then I went off to Arkansas State University for college, which was another much needed start over. Of course, that ended with no degree, a pile of student loans, and a shitty experience, but that’s neither here nor there.
But ever since I moved back years ago, I’ve been tryin’ to get out from under my roots in Sweetgreen and dealin’ with bitchy Patricia and Chip-on-the-Shoulder Sheriff Early. Just great.
“You done with your packages?” Patricia asks, because the woman just can’t ever quit.
“I got one more.”
She hums. “Hurry up with your shift. You get a package out late, and I’ll have no choice but to give you that last write-up, Medley.”
I swear, this woman is the devil. She’s perfectly happy to overlook that I’m doin’ her and her hateful mouth a favor by workin’ this shift today. If she fires me, no packages are gettin’ delivered on time, but that seems to have slipped her mind. Again.
I take a deep breath, because as much as I’d like to call her bluff and tell her she can kick rocks, I need the money. “Yes, ma’am,” I concede, hatin’ myself a little more every day that I put up with this crap.
She hangs up without another word, and I let out a string of curses includin’ what she could stick up her ass and pull out on Sunday. Spoiler, it ain’t a Bible.
I realize, in my haste to get the hell out of dodge, I haven’t checked the address of my last package of the day. Usually, I wait a bit in the warehouse and map out all my destinations for the day so I can be as efficient as possible,