R.V. Roush
Three months earlier, Beth stood at a photocopying machine, bored and thinking about quitting the Insty Print franchise where she worked part time. When the bell above the door tingled, she looked up from the copy job she was processing. Bird songs and road noise entered with the customer, a tall, thin man, graying at the temples, wearing a loose-fitting blue suit.
She gave a bright �Good morning,� and guessed the customer might be bothered by the Replacements� song on the shop�s portable radio, but she doesn�t turn it off.
The man smiled back and returned her greeting, noting to himself that the girl was pretty, though small, like a child. Her round face and thin neck reminded him of an apple on a stick. When he realized he was staring at the logo over the left breast of her white sport shirt, he turned to one of several product displays in the lobby.
On the occasions that the man�s wife caught him openly staring at other women, she�d bruise his arm or leg or whatever he offered up to her semi-playful fists. His small vice of overtly appreciating women in her presence became an innocent game with them. He always smiled through her mock disapproving glances, and she never suspected him while he carried on an eight-month affair with a waitress he�d met at a conference dinner in Cincinnati.
Beth watched for a few seconds as he flipped through sample invitations stationed at a platform, shaking his head perceptibly as he ruled out unsuitably saccharine or serene invitations for his event. He�d ask when he needed help.
Customers at the copy shop weren�t likely to steal anything, unlike the kids and other suspicious characters who came into the Quikee Mart where she�d worked last summer. Seven months after she quit that job, a lone nightshift cashier was shot and killed right in front of the Quikee Mart�s fake security cameras. She�d known they were fake because she hadn�t been fired for reading books on the job and not paying for the trail mix she nibbled on during her shifts. Beth imagined that the water sprinklers were glued to the ceiling, too, not actually hooked to water pipes. The news article said that police had found the college sophomore�s physics book open on the floor, halfway under the counter.
She felt lucky that she�d had no reason to stay in that job. When she read about the murder, Beth told herself that no matter how tight her finances got, she�d follow her brother�s example and mooch off their mom rather than take another convenience store job. To pay her way, she�d be helpful around the house, and if her mom took advantage of her services, she�d tell her that she was no longer a captive to her youth and could leave home again at a moment�s notice. Her mom understood empty threats, thankfully.
The printer jammed half way through the copy job.
� 2004 R.V. Roush