My Mystic Mess

Part 1

     I walked into the gift shop, work apron in hand. I fought back a sigh when I saw Holly ringing up a customer. She glared at me as I made my way to the back of the store. As I walked toward the back, I greeted a few customers and asked if they were finding everything okay. No one seemed to need my help, so I continued on to the backroom.

     The backroom was lined with shelves, all organized by departments. Sadly after being Store Manager for four months, I was still having troubles convincing one person on keeping the backroom organized. I had spent three years in college, taking summer classes to graduate early, and I seemed to spend most of my time as an overpaid babysitter. I was here to make sure the store didn't burn to the ground. Sadly there were days I wanted to be the one to strike the match.

     As I walked to the office in the back, I kept stopping to pull items off the shelves to place them in their proper home. Joon worked tonight. Maybe I could get him to go through the shelves with me. If it wasn't for the fact I had two good managers under me, I would be at a major loss here.

     I entered the small crapped office. There was a desk with the computer, an office chair, and two filing cabinets. Along the wall were stacked boxes. Bella said the boxes had been there as long as she worked there, and each store manager had added to the clutter. Why none of these boxes had been moved to the storage room I had no idea.

     As I sat down in the chair, I turned on the computer. How could Holly open the store without turning the computer on and entering the opening report? As the computer booted up, I reached for my cell phone. I frowned when I saw there was a missed call from Xavier. He must have called while I was driving to work with the music blaring. I called my voicemail to hear his voice chiming through.

     "Hey, sis. Sorry to be bothering you. Mother and Father...you know. How are things going? New city. New job. Bet you're making all kinds of friends. Call me when you get a sec. I'm beginning to miss not having you around. Love ya."

     I saved the message to replay later. I missed my brother. We weren't blood related, both being adopted, but in some ways we were closer than normal siblings and not in a sexual way. Xavier was gay after all. During my college years, I ended up living with him after a conflict with our parents. I showed up at his house needing a place to crash for the weekend and ended up staying three years.

     I turned my attention to the computer and clicked on the email icon. Eight emails were waiting to be read. Five of the emails were from vendors or potential vendors. I forward those emails to the owner. The next email was spam, which surprised me. It looked like a flier, talking about joining a party. There was a giant eye in the center. It quickly got deleted. The last two emails were from the owner.

     The first email was the daily report with the owner's thoughts on how well we did the previous day. I barely glanced at the report anymore. If there was a major issue, the report would've been in red. No red, no troubles. The second email was a bit of a surprise. The owner wanted to meet with me today at a coffee shop. He wished to meet at noon and it was going on 11 now. I looked at the schedule and saw Holly, the Lead Cashier, would be working until two when Joon would take over. It looked like she would be in charge while I was gone. I fought back a frown as I left the office.

     I stepped out of the backroom and made my way over to Holly, checking in with customers on my way. Holly frowned as she looked at the schedule. She glared at me as I approached.

     "He's late again," Holly snarled at me, shoving the clipboard in my face

     "Trey is scheduled in at 11:30," I replied, taking the board from her. It was all I could do not to hit her with it. "I have a meeting with Mr. Kwon at noon."