Of the over 5,000 numbers in the English language, it is the number 14 alone that has come to hold a special place in my heart. I'm not a superstitious woman, or a woman at all for that matter. I am ... [+]
Andrea Goyan is an award-winning author. Recent stories are available in Small Wonders, Intrepidus Ink, Dark Matter Presents: Monstrous Futures, Flash Fiction Magazine, and The Molotov Cocktail. You can find more of her words on her website www.andreagoyan.com or follow her on Twitter. "My Dead-End Job" is in Short Circuit #15, Short Édition's quarterly review.
My life changed the day Cleopatra corporealized in the outdoor food court during our lunch rush. Corporealized. Bet you're surprised I know such a big word, but I do love me a good ghost story. Love all those haunt words like materialize, manifest, incarnate, emerge. Maybe my interest and knowledge of such things made me a natural when the Queen appeared. I just thank my lucky stars I was on the clock when it happened.
I'm the greeter at that new big box store on Port Avenue and 6th. My job is to make sure shoppers have their club cards when they enter. My grandma hates the place and burns sage whenever I come home. She swears it's built on a vortex. Says in her day, there used to be a lover's lane at the exact location until people started disappearing. Whatevs. Mom says vortexes aren't what she's upset about. Calls working there a dead-end job, saying things like, Suzy, you can do better. And I will. I plan to make manager in a year because I got initiative.
So, anywho, my station's right at the front entry, where I have a perfect view of the entire—usually predictable—food court. But on that particular day, there was this blinding flash followed by a ginormous boom. And there she stood—the scantily clad Queen of the Nile. My high school history class covered Egypt, so I recognized her right away.
The tables packed with dining patrons fell silent. I'm not sure whether it was her beauty or bare breasts that shocked them, but let me tell you, even the crying babies stopped. It was heaven. You don't realize how loud people are until they shut the hell up. One guy froze with a hot dog in his mouth, mid-bite. A stream of mustard and ketchup painted his chin and dripped onto his shirt—a shirt I recognized from our fine selection of men's clothing. Children peeked through the hands their mothers had thrown over their eyes. Everyone stared but no one made a peep.
Finally, one woman lunged at Cleopatra and, tossing her a jacket, shouted, "Cover up."
The golden uraeus—I got a solid B in history—on the Queen's ornate headdress hissed and struck out at the woman. There was a collective gasp, and the sea of bodies parted to let Cleopatra through.
She came to the entrance.
"Membership card," I stammered.
We stared at one another as I wondered where my manager was and whether I could break protocol and allow Cleopatra inside without a club card. I mean, hello? Queen at the door. In my peripheral vision, I saw a few other employees wringing their hands, but they made no move to assist me.
Her snakes' tongues flicked.
"I like your makeup," she said, surprising me with her perfect English.
I like my makeup, too. Applying it is a labor of love and takes me a half hour every morning. I finish my signature look by accentuating my eyes with dark kohl liner.
Cleopatra's eyes were also kohl-rimmed. But the effect wasn't as dramatic as mine.
"You know," I said to her. "Modern chemistry makes some awesome new eye makeup. Wanna see?"
She and her snakes nodded.
I grabbed a cart, figuring queens don't do menial labor. "Follow me."
Patrons and employees cleared out of our way. Behind Cleopatra, a crowd of customers tried to take pictures with their cell phones. But whatever the hell crack in time or space had brought Cleopatra to Port and 6th also rendered all cell phones inoperable. As we passed the electronics section, the televisions, usually tuned to some animated movie, went dead.
We filled Cleopatra's cart with soaps, lotions, eye shadow and liner, lip color, and some jewelry from a pop-up vendor. On our way to check out, she stopped.
"This is what I came for," she said, pointing to the toilet paper.
I placed a 24-pack in the cart. "Good?"
She shook her head. "More."
I loaded her up with five more packs and held my arm up against the leaning tower of T.P. as I rolled her items to the cashier.
"We'll use my membership," I said.
She might speak English, but the Egyptian Queen didn't carry cash. Instead, she reached up to her headdress and broke off one of her golden asps. The snake remained mobile for a moment before it froze solid.
"Help me to the portal," she said, handing me the golden snake.
The cashier grimaced and refused to touch the inanimate serpent, so I slipped the body into the drawer beside a roll of quarters.
Cleopatra and I returned outside to the food court, and with another flash-boom, she and the entire cart vanished.
People turned back to their lunches like nothing happened.
James Dean arrived at dinnertime. He didn't stand out from the regular folk, except for the flash-boom arrival and glitching of electronics. I made him put out his cigarette before entering the store. We are a nonsmoking establishment. He left with our biggest television, a box of ballpoint pens, several liters of bourbon, cartons of cigarettes—all our brands because we only carried filtered, and he didn't know what he'd like. And, of course, a mountain of toilet paper.
Napoleon came next. By now, I was getting the hang of things. We started by filling the cart with toilet paper. After that, all he wanted was a wheel of Camembert and a bottle of Bordeaux. Lucky for him, we carry an excellent selection of imported vino.
Right before my shift ended, Jesus popped by. He looked around at the carts filled with purchases and all the people shoving pizza and hot dogs down their pie holes. Hanging his head, he said, "Gluttons," and vanished without coming inside. Probably for the best.
I'd impressed my manager with my can-do style, so she made me the official Other World Guest Greeter and Shopper. The position came with a raise and gave new meaning to Mom's idea of a dead-end job. Whatever.