Book
7-Come Back Raquel!
Authors:
Al & Cari
Written:
October 2007
Summary:
Tracy, Amber and David decide to help get Raquel’s job back
Copyright:
* * *
“He WHAT?”
“You
can’t really be that surprised.”
“Well…I
guess I’m not…but…fired? I never thought
Nate had the nerve.”
Amber
shrugged. “I think Shane had more to do with it than Nate did, honestly. You know Nate.”
“Yeah.”
“Well…kinda…” Amber looked a little guilty. “Robert Jordan died yesterday.”
“You
don’t understand-you don’t read his books!
Now he’s NEVER going to finish the Wheel
of Time series!”
“What
about Robert Jordan?” It was a customer who had just stepped into the store. “I
don’t mean to interrupt, but-“
“He’s
dead!” Amber wailed.
“WHAT?”
Betty
straightened, brushing a few loose strands of her graying hair out of her face.
“Well, it’s an unfortunate business, but we had to let her go.” She didn’t look
like she cared that much to talk about it.
“Why?”
“Well,
you know as much as any of us that she was unreliable and…well, rude. We can’t have anyone on staff like that.”
“And
I’m sure Nate had his reasons. But I’m sure we’ll discuss it in our meeting
tomorrow.”
“What
meeting tomorrow?”
“Our manger meeting. We always
have them on Friday.”
“I
have Fridays off.”
“Oh dear. Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to miss it. Maybe you could come in on your day off? Just for an hour. I’m thinking of bringing cupcakes.”
“
“I’ll
get one from the back.” She stole into the backroom, where she found Nicole
muttering over a pile of books and a packing list.
“How
are you feeling? You look awful,” Nicole said. She wiped her forehead with the
back of her arm.
“I
need a tissue.”
“Bless
you.”
“Thanks.”
“Raquel,
it’s
“You
woke me up to ask that?”
“It’s
two in the afternoon!”
“Oh.
Hold a minute.”
“What
can I do for you? You sound like you’re drowning.”
“Raquel,
I heard you were fired.”
“Not
really. I’m suspended until Nate gathers all the evidence to fire me. He tried
to fire me over the phone, but I think that’s illegal.”
“What
kind of evidence?”
“He
needs a paper trail, and he needs a well documented valid reason for firing me
or I can sue his ass.”
“Is
it really worth suing him to get your job back?”
“Tsk. Hell no. But it’s worth suing him just ‘cause I can.”
“What
if I can get you your job back?”
Raquel
took a moment to think. “I guess that’s ok. I don’t want to have to buy all my
magazines, and I could sure use the cash.”
“When
are you meeting with Nate?”
“The
managers are having a meeting about it tomorrow morning. I’m supposed to come
in around eleven. Hang on a sec.” Raquel covered the mouthpiece and shouted,
“Andrew, you idiot! You better give that back!” Raquel came back. “Sorry. My
brother is twirling my chain around in the hallway. I don’t know how he got it
off my pants, but anyway…”
“Don’t
worry, Raquel. We’ll get you your job back.”
“Do
you really care if I work there or not? I mean, you’re one of those manager
types. You should agree with them.”
“Who
are you talking to?” Nicole looked up from the box she was unpacking.
“I
gotta go.”
Nicole
placed her hands on her hips. She was a middle-age woman, soft around the
middle, and had very straight straw yellow hair that always hung in her face.
“Don’t lie to me. I know it was Raquel.”
“Tsk. I can. She had it coming. The only reason Nate didn’t
do it sooner is because he’s a chicken.”
“Need
help getting the magazines out?”
“The
weeklies just came in. Take that cart and hurry back. I’ve got eight more boxes
when you’re done.”
She
rolled the cart next to the magazine racks and glanced again at the title. She’d never really looked at one of those
gossip magazines-they were just junk, in her opinion, but still, a weird part
of her was curious.
Glancing
around, she saw Amber behind the desk, ordering some books for the sci-fi
section, and Betty was still back in Romance.
She grabbed the magazine and flipped it open to a page that claimed Tom
Cruise and Katie Holmes were expecting another kid. The article was filled with ‘friends of their
friends claimed’ and ‘insiders confessions’ that proved to
“Quality reading?” Amber’s voice cut in and
“How
long have you been standing there?”
Amber
shrugged. “How long have you been reading that?”
“Suspension? Geez,
Nate really doesn’t have any balls, does he?”
“I
guess he’s looking for evidence that Raquel is a bad employee.”
“Well…she’s
not exactly the greatest.” Amber picked up an Entertainment Weekly magazine and flipped it open. “Does he have
evidence?”
“That’s
what I don’t know. She may have a few
complaint cards written about her.
Probably written by Shane, though.”
Amber
arched her eyebrows. “Getting a little testy, aren’t you?”
“I
can’t help it. Either fire her
completely or keep her on. This
suspension crap is stupid. We work at a
retail store, not an office.” The front door opened and in stepped a tall guy
with a pair of khakis and a long-sleeved button down shirt. He glanced around and noticed Amber and
Tracy. “Who’s that?”
Amber
gave a small wave and he headed towards them. “That’s Jason-he works at the gun
store. I think Raquel likes him.” Her
voice trailed off as he approached.
“Hey. Is Raquel working today?”
“Not
today.” Amber replied and Jason sighed.
“I
hope she’ll be in tomorrow. I have
tickets to go to a gun show in
“Oh,
well, she was f-“
“She’ll
be here tomorrow.”
Jason
brightened. “Great. I’ll be back
tomorrow.” He left quickly and Amber turned to
“What
was that?”
“Raquel
likes him?”
“Yeah,
I think so. I know, doesn’t seem quite
her type. Well, maybe with the exception
of the eyebrow ring, but I always thought the tongue ring would hurt.”
“If
she found someone she likes, then we shouldn’t stop it because Nate and Shane
are idiots.”
“OK…still
not following you.”
“Good
afternoon,
Steve
seemed oblivious. “Did you hear about Raquel?
The store will be so much nicer now.
We’ll actually get work done.” He took a deep breath and smiled. “With
all that evidence
against
her-“
“What
evidence?”
Steve
cocked his head and stared at
“Steve,
have you signed in yet?”
His
face paled. “Oh no! Gosh darnit, I’m going to be late!” He made a beeline for the
backroom and Amber checked her watch.
“He’s
got 5 minutes.”
“I
know. I can’t stand it when he starts
talking. So, are you in?”
“In for what?”
“For
helping me destroy the evidence and get Raquel her job back?”
Amber
looked at
“Break
into the personnel files in the back. They’re locked in the file cabinet. We’ll
come in at night when no one else is here.”
“No,
no way. There’s a camera back there, and the alarm system.”
“I
can shut off the alarm.”
“But
each keyholder has their own
alarm code. Nate will know you turned off the alarm. And even if you get in
with a different code, there’s still the camera.”
“That’s
where you come in. You have all sorts of theatre and electronic systems
training from drama in high school. You could shut off the camera, or do some
sort of crazy imaging thing.”
Amber
thought for a moment. “Is it worth losing your job to get Raquel’s back? I
mean, she was an ‘improvement needed’.”
“I’ve
got nothing to lose. I don’t need this job. My boyfriend can support us. Plus,
this will be some payback for how many times the managers have yanked me around
and not promoted me. It’s starting to piss me off!“
“You
take this job way too seriously, especially if you think David can support you
on his lowly salary.”
“I
didn’t say anything about David.”
“You
didn’t have to.”
“Sure.
I’ve got nothing else to do, and I know where we can start.”
“Where?”
“Steve’s
little notepad. It’s got all his notes, observations, and probably Shane’s
alarm code.”
“Would
he be stupid enough to write that down?”
Amber
raised her eyebrows.
“You’re
right. Where does he keep it?”
“In his pocket.”
“Whoa,
whoa, wait a minute.”
“Oh
relax, he has to take it out of his pocket sometime.”
“Maybe
we can get David to snag it while he’s in the men’s room?”
“And
that’s better than going into his pockets how?”
“Good
point.”
“You
two are still here?” Steve joined them at the registers. “You are becoming as
bad as Raquel was.”
“You’re
up here, too,” Amber pointed out.
“Oh
crap, I’m going to sneeze.”
“I’m
only up here to tell you that Betty and I are going to be in the backroom
discussing some things.”
“Like
what?”
“Like giving me more responsibility.”
“Do
you really think Nate will promote you? He doesn’t need another keyholder, and he hasn’t promoted
“He
will. I know he will.” But Amber could see the worry sink into his expression.
“Won’t he?”
“Steve,
I’m ready.” It was Betty.
Steve
scurried back into the backroom. An idea hit Amber. Betty almost always set her keys in a drawer
near the registers. She eased the drawer open and grinned. Sure enough, Betty’s wad of keys lay there,
joined by several little charms that had the faces of her grandkids on
them. She glanced at the clock. Betty
was supposed to be off in 15 minutes, but she was talking to Steve, and that
might last an hour.
“OK,
OK, I’m leaving!” It was Tracy, who stormed through the door, a pissed off look
on her face. At the last second, she
turned and flung the door open. “I’m a freaking manager, too, ya know!” She shouted to Betty and Steve. “You should
freaking fill me in occasionally!” She half-muttered under her breath and
stormed up to the counter and sneezed. “Raquel is right-this place sucks.”
“I
found Betty’s keys,” Amber said quietly. She picked them up doing her best to
show them to
“Yeah,
about-“
“No,
you haven’t. I need you to do me a
favor. Can you run down to old man
Amber
looked blank. “Does he do that?”
“Sure,
I’ve gone there before for duplicating.
Just…keep an eye on him.
Sometimes he forgets what he’s doing, and hurts himself.”
“OK…but
which key is it?” She showed
A
few moments later, Betty came to the registers with her rolling suitcase behind
her. “I’m going to go home. I’m taking
the grandkids to the zoo.”
“Uh…how
did your conversation with Steve go?”
“Oh,
it went great. Nate’s got some big plans for Steve. Can you hand me my keys?”
“Sure,
but did I tell you about the time the store was a mess when he closed, and
Steve volunteered to stay late and help?”
Betty’s
face lit up. “No, he didn’t. Where is he? I’ll got praise him now!” Betty was
already gone.
“I
didn’t know fingers bled that much.”
“Did
you get the keys?”
Amber
nodded, handing her the three keys.
“OK,
great. Can you meet me back here at 11?”
“Sure. Just the two of us?”
“I’ll
give David a call, he might want to get in on this-plus, we
need a look out.”
“David. Sure.” Amber winked, and hurried to leave.
11PM
Amber
waited outside in the cold. The clouds covered up the moon, and only half the
lights in the parking lot worked. The strap from her bag dug into her shoulder.
She switched it to the other shoulder, but that one was sore, too.
A
car approached and parked at the other side of the lot by the vitamin store.
The windows were slightly fogged, and the car rocked.
Oh man, Amber thought, A couple of teenagers here to have some fun. Where the hell are Tracy
and David?
The
car jerked one last time and the doors opened. Tracy and David got out.
Oops…
Like
Amber,
“About
time,” Amber said. “Was the quickie in the car really necessary?”
“What?”
“Nevermind. You ready? I have a math test in the morning. I
can’t be out all night.”
“Did
you get Steve’s notebook?”
“Yep.”
Amber held it up. “It has Shane’s alarm code in it. Won’t Nate be suspicious to
see him enter the store at night?”
“No.
Shane lives close to here, and Nate sometimes calls him at odd hours to get him
to get something from the store for him.”
“That’s
dedication.”
“Not
really. It gives him someplace to sleep off his buzz before he goes home to his
wife. Let me see that.”
“I
caught him writing in it when I came back from my break early one afternoon.”
David
pulled the book out of her hands and turned to a page. “He thinks I’m a robot.”
“Hey
guys, can we get on with this?” Amber said.
“Give
me that.”
“It’s
written on the inside flap, and let’s just say, I had to use my powers of
persuasion.”
“There’s
just the one in the back. I was messing with it on my lunch break. I was able
to hack into the computer, and I think I can stop the recording, splice some of
the video from earlier in the night, and change the date on it so it looks like
it’s been recording all night.”
“Come
on. How often does Nate even check the thing?”
“Only
when he feels like he needs to take charge of something.”
Amber
glanced back to where David was stood, almost glowing in his light colored
clothes. “Maybe someone else should keep watch.”
“Come
on.” They entered the room and Amber
hurried to the computer, where she started typing and clicking the mouse.
“Well?”
“Yeah,
this’ll work. But it’ll take a few
minutes.”
“Bless
you.”
“Grr…Powers of persuasion,
huh?”
“What?”
“How
you got that notebook. I’m curious now.”
She broke her nail trying to dig the key out.
Amber
looked embarrassed. “Well…I went into the backroom when it was time to leave,
and Steve had it in his hand. So…I got
it from him.”
“I
doubt you ripped it out of his hands. So
how’d you do it?” She found some pliers on Nicole’s little work table and
attacked the key.
“Um…I
may have…um, hit on him.”
The
key snapped in half and sent
“Yeah,
it was gross, and stupid, and I’m not too happy that I did it, especially for
Raquel, but it was the only thing I could think of.”
“What’d
he do?” She grabbed the pliers again and went back to the cabinets to fish out
the rest of the key.
“He
almost passed out. I don’t think he knew
quite what to do.” She shuddered. “He dropped the stupid book, he was so
confused. I think Raquel is right-I
don’t think he has a girlfriend. At least one who’s attracted to him.”
The
key popped out of the lock and smacked
“He
didn’t even notice that he had dropped the notebook.” Amber finished.
froze
and did that lame ‘why would I want to know about Amber?’, which was weird
cause I didn’t ask him anything about you.”
on her.
“I’m
leaving that on the video.”
“Shut
up and help me clean these up.”
“In a minute. I’m almost in.” Amber’s fingers sped across the keyboard, gave a quick
click of the mouse, and the image on the screen changed from the book mess and
the safe to Amber and Steve earlier that day. Steve sat in Nate’s chair. Amber
put her hands on his knees and leaned over.
“Oh,
geez, Amber, I didn’t know you meant those powers of persuasion. This is like
a bad porn movie. Gross!”
“Oops.
I rewound too far.”
“If
you tell anyone, I’ll kill you.”
The
third key went in easily, and with a little bit a jiggling, it turned and the
drawer slid open. “Bingo.”
“You
don’t know?”
“No.
Do you?”
“No.”
“Crap.
I’ll have to go through all of them. Oh, hey, here’s Steve’s.”
“They
should have used that as the employee of the month photo.”
Amber
took a quick glance. “Hey, she’s making more than me. That’s not fair.”
“Ok,
I got it all. Let’s get out of here.”
The
door swung open and David ambled in, munching on a power bar.
“What
are you doing in here?”
“Yeah.
There’s a cop ticketing your car.”
“What?”
David
shrugged. “Won’t be bad-$50, maybe.”
“I’ll
go see if he’s gone, since genius here would give us away.” Amber slipped out
of the backroom and moved her way through the bookcases, stopping at one and
peering over the top to see into the parking lot. The cop was getting back into his car and
pretty soon, the only thing left of him was the tail lights heading down the
road. She hurried back to the backroom,
where she found
“OK,
coast is clear.” She said, disappointed. Was she ever going to get evidence
that they were a couple?
“Listen
to this-Shane was a shoe salesman at Macys before he came here.”
“Can
we leave now?”
“Sure.”
Once
outside,
Amber
sighed. “I want to burn it.”
David
surprised them both by producing a lighter.
“Wait!”
“Why?”
Amber asked.
“What
can be more entertaining than the inner workings of Steve’s mind?”
“Or more frightening?”
David
held the flame up to the corner. “I’ll get you a new one for your birthday.”
David dropped it on the ground when the flames got close to his fingers. The
three of them huddled around it as if it were a campfire.
“I
wish I had marshmallows,” Amber said.
The
book was reduced to a pile of ashes and black smudge on the sidewalk.
“Come
on. David and I will burn the rest of these later.”
*
The
next day at noon, David, Tracy (who came in on her day off to hear the
verdict), and Amber, anxiously waited for Raquel to come out of her meeting
with Nate, Shane, Steve, and Betty.
“Do
you think Nate will notice the missing paperwork?” Amber whispered.
“No.
Nate didn’t write any of it. I doubt he saw any of it,”
“What
about Shane and Steve? What will they think?”
“It’s
a little late to be wondering about this now,” David said.
“Did
you guys burn it?” Amber asked.
“No.
I fed it to my shredder.”
An
old beat up black Volkswagon pulled up in front of
store and sputtered to a stop. The woman in the front seat leaned across to the
driver and gave him a brief kiss, then the door opened and Joyce got out. The
driver looked over at them briefly, then drove off.
“Hey,
was that Francis?” Amber pointed.
Joyce
walked in the store, her head in the clouds. “Hey, guys. Why’s everyone here?”
“I’m
not. Now that you’re here, I can go home.” David turned and left.
“Does
he hate me?” Joyce asked.
“No.
He’s just weird,”
“Oh.”
“Raquel
is in her meeting with the managers,” Amber explained.
“And Steve.”
“Oh.
I’m going to go sign in now.” Joyce turned and crashed into David.
“Bye.
See you later,” David said. He marched right out the door to his car.
“Now
I know that guy hates me.”
It
was then that Raquel, Betty, Shane and Steve emerged from the café and walked
into the store. Raquel looked nonchalant, Betty looked excited, and Shane and
Steve looked upset.
“Uh
oh,” Amber said.
Raquel
stopped at the registers next to Amber and Tracy, and the rest paraded to the
back room.
“What
happened?”
“I
have a job,” Raquel answered. “And Nate’s wife called. He’s still over there
talking to her.”
“Wahoo!”
“Steve
and Shane are pissed. Apparently they wrote a big summary of all the
‘incidents’ that happened between us, but they couldn’t find it. Without a
paper trail, they can’t fire me. We had a long discussion instead. Nate is
eager to work on my development. So, at least until they find the document, I’m
still here.”
David
burst into the door and walked right to Raquel. “I assume you have your job?”
“Uh…yeah,”
Raquel answered.
“I
have a present for you.” David handed Raquel a piece of paper. “Congratulations.”
He turned and walked back out.
“What
was that all about?” Amber watched him jump back in his car and drive off.
“What
is it?”
“It’s
a parking ticket.” Raquel set it down on the counter. “I don’t even have a car.
How can I have a parking ticket?”
Tracy
and Amber laughed.
“What?”
“Let’s
just say that’s your fee for us getting you your job back,”
“What?”
“Nothing.
We’re glad to have you back.”